Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

In collaboration with The Reach Institute, Dr. Wallace explains how parents can decrease the impact of anxiety on children and teens to help them function their best and find more joy in their lives.
Shame is “just” a feeling, but it can become very big and very painful. If it feels very big, it doesn’t mean there is something even worse about you, but rather that there are layers to it. We can make it smaller and more manageable by talking about it and listening to it. When you understand it and the feeling is smaller, it will be easier for you to work with it.  
The headlines and the CDC report are indeed alarming, but they should serve as a wakeup call to all of us. Yes, we should think seriously about why we are seeing a steep decline in the mental health of teenage girls, but we have to come together now as parents, family, friends, educators, clinicians, providers, and as a society to support, enhance and establish more preventive measures for our youth.
Working with Black churches to create a better today and a much better tomorrow in the field (literally) of mental health care for African Americans are three Black leaders in mental health who will present at the 2023 ADAA Conference. ADAA is excited to have Bernadine Waller, PhD, Atasha Jordan, MBA, MD and Kimberly Arnold, MPH, PhD discuss their work, research and findings in a presentation titled Implementing Evidence-Based Mental Health Interventions in Black Churches.
White knuckling is the term used to describe the process of fighting or powering through a situation that you find anxiety provoking.
Athletes will continue to work hard, push themselves, and make their bodies do things many of us can only marvel at, but the attention and awareness to mental health in the field of sports gives them a fighting chance with conditions like anxiety and depression.
These generous people lend us their voices, their stories and experiences, and help us shed light on underreported issues like male body dysmorphia and the traumatic effects on the family and friends of a person who died by suicide. Some even use their incredible talents in sports to reach individuals around the world. 
As the Executive Director of ADAA, I am always thrilled when we realize our work is making a difference and that we are reaching farther and wider. So, when the Hadassah Foundation, a mental health organization in Cameroon, contacted ADAA with a request to access our free member-created, publicly available, evidence-based resources, we not only acquiesced, we collaborated.  

This blog was originally posted on Ten Percent Happier on April 22, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission

Pregnancy and childbirth can be a joyous time in a woman’s life but can also be a challenging one. Besides the physical changes that occur during pregnancy and postpartum, about 20% of women may experience mental health challenges.