Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. It is the body’s physical response to a real or perceived threat, demand, or danger.

Everyone experiences stress at different levels. Even when the same stressors are present, our experiences can be different. Certain groups experience higher levels of stress, for example, communities of color, LGBTQIA+, women, and parents.

Stress isn’t always harmful. For example, think about the motivation you feel to study for your next exam, or the urge to make a to-do list on a Sunday. These are positive ways that stress can help you focus and complete tasks. But when stress is frequent and intense, it can affect your overall health, resulting in a reduced quality of life.

This is why we want to help you get to the root cause of your stress, understand the ays it manifests for you, and learn preventative tools for coping with stress. Because you deserve a healthy, happy life.

Has a trip to the grocery store ever sent you home in a panic? Was it the fluorescent lights buzzing? The sticky feeling of your sneakers on the floor? Maybe it was the squeaky wheel on your grocery cart or the strong smell of fresh paint? Maybe it was the awkward small talk with an old friend you saw or the interaction you had with the cashier. Or, maybe, it was all of it.

If you’ve ever experienced being overwhelmed like this, you might be a highly sensitive person and you aren’t alone. Nearly 20% of people are highly sensitive and face the same common issues. And while highly sensitive people might experience similar challenges, let me be clear that sensitivity is in no way a character flaw.

Being a highly sensitive person is not a diagnosis, and we discourage the use of it as a negative label for yourself and others. The list we are sharing today is intended to help highly sensitive people feel validated and understand why they may feel a certain way. This list can also be a helpful tool for friends and family of highly sensitive people.

Being sensitive has a negative connotation for a lot of people, especially if they have been accused of or labeled with it in the past. We hope we can help reframe the way people see sensitivity.

In our last blog about ADHD, we discussed what ADHD is, how it typically manifests in women, information on diagnoses, and resources. Today we’re digging in deeper and sharing real, meaningful ways you can combat the symptoms of ADHD. From time management to emotional regulation and sorting paper chaos, these research-based strategies will provide you with straightforward approaches to ease stress and overwhelm so you can live a better, more satisfying life. Before we get started, let us remind you that you don’t need to do all the strategies mentioned to be productive and successful. Find what techniques resonate with you and leave the rest. Honor your humanness. It’s important to be gentle with yourself on your mental health journey.

PRACTICAL TOOLS AND INTERVENTIONS FOR ADHD MENTIONED:

• The Pomodoro Technique

• OHIO Technique

• Evening Rituals

• Four-Field Strategy

• Bullet Journal

• Mindfulness Techniques

• Working from home – STACC

• Pragmatic and Concrete Tips

You keep losing your phone, locking your keys in the car, you’re constantly late and feel emotionally overwhelmed. You feel you can never pay attention, you start a lot of projects which you never end up finishing, and you are constantly feeling burnt out. Maybe someone in your life has told you “you might have ADHD” or maybe you’ve been hearing more about the signs and symptoms on Instagram or TikTok and something resonates in you. Whatever the reason, educating yourself is the first step in getting treatment for the symptoms that may be wreaking havoc in your life.

Today we will be talking all about ADHD and women, why it goes unnoticed, common symptoms, if a diagnosis matters, and resources to help you gain control of your life.

July is BIPOC Mental Health Month. We recognize the many layers of barriers that prevent people of color from receiving the support they need. We believe that all people deserve access to health care, especially in a world where Black, Indigenous, and people of color are systemically discriminated against. In an effort to continue advocating for the Black community and other underrepresented communities, we put together this brief guide on BIPOC Mental Health Month.

Being a parent is much more than just providing clothing, a roof over your head, and food on the table. For children to develop into healthy adults, they need to feel safe and supported to grow, be known, and express themselves.

Most emotionally immature parents have no awareness of how they’ve affected their children. To be clear, we aren’t placing blame on these parents, we are seeking to understand why they are the way they are. The goal here is to help you gain new insights about your parent(s) in order to increase your own self-awareness and emotional freedom.

For many people, religion and spirituality are sources of support, guidance, and community, providing a sense of belonging in the world. But sometimes, spiritual beliefs can be used as weapons of power and control that can cause significant trauma. This is religious trauma; the experience of coping with the damage of indoctrination. This might look like contemplating an engraved belief system or lifestyle, breaking away from a controlling community, chronic abuse, or dealing with the impact of ending one’s connection to a church or religion.

While some people experience direct, or shock trauma; something specific that happened that resulted in trauma, other people experience complex trauma; this means that over time, things have happened where one’s nervous system has consistently and constantly perceived threat, (purity culture messaging, messages about hell, what it means to be a woman, etc.) When put simply, religious trauma is trauma, and no two people experience trauma in the exact same way.

What happens to emotions that have been suppressed? Maybe you’ve heard the saying, what you resist, persists. When we avoid or reject emotions, the energy of those emotions gets stuck in the body. This is why we continue certain cycles and unhealthy patterns. The energy is never released and stays with us until we fully allow ourselves to feel. What we resist, persists.

Whether you don’t know how to feel your feelings, you don’t want to feel your feelings, or you’re struggling with feeling your feelings, we hope that this guide serves you in some way.

What happens when we intentionally and consistently use affirmations? Big things start to shift! Affirmations help to deprogram harmful thought patterns. You know the ones. The ones that tell you you aren’t worthy, you aren’t enough, you don’t belong. It’s time for those thoughts to go! They aren’t yours.

When we practice using affirmations a shift in our emotions, habits, and thought patterns begin to happen, leading us to live in closer alignment to our true, compassionate selves.

You deserve to feel empowered, worthy, and authentic, and you don’t have to wait around for someone to give it to you! Empower yourself today by using these affirmations. As always, take what you need, leave the rest.

Humans are social creatures, and many of us find comfort in staying connected. When we are deprived of these deep social connections, we have a tendency to feel lonely or isolated. The longer this isolation and loneliness last, the higher our risk is for mental, emotional, and physical problems. Typically, loneliness is a signal to a depressive episode and is seen as an individual problem treated with things like exposure therapy. Now, isolation is a lot more nuanced. Because we are social distancing due to a global pandemic, “treating” loneliness and isolation behaviors takes a little more creativity.

Isolation makes you think that you are the only one, and you’re the only one who’s feeling alone and that’s not true. This is NOT a normal situation, and you’re already handling it – however that looks like for you. As this pandemic continues, we want to give you a few tools for coping with these hard feelings, because you really are not alone in this.