Mental Health

If you find that you’re not sleeping enough—you’re not alone. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), about 35% of American adults skimp on sleep; and this rate is even higher in African Americans and other minority groups.

It can be challenging to control your weight. In today’s modern world, it is more convenient to order take out than to cook a meal and take the elevator instead of the stairs. Over time, a pattern of eating unhealthy foods and being sedentary can lead to excessive weight gain.

Have your clients faced those situations where, in getting ready to make values-based exposure exercises, their minds come up with thoughts along the lines of, “It will be too much; I won’t be able to handle it; It will be a disaster; how do I know it’s going to work; Do I really have to do it?”

Steve has served as a police officer for 24 years, including being a SWAT team member for years. He and I have worked together on his traumatic experiences. He has told me that in a given day a police officer might have to deal with two to three overdoses and do CPR.

If you engage in some positive distracting activities during this crisis, then the flow of the day will move like a steady stream rather than a slow drip.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent increased awareness of systemic racism have left me, a white psychologist, at a loss for words. I wanted to write a post for other anti-racist allies who are also struggling to voice and act in increasingly anti-racist ways both personally and professionally.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly and abruptly changed human life in unexpected ways. In the last few months, since the COVID-19 stay at home restrictions came into place, millions of people have been working from home and practicing social distancing.

Today I said thank you to the staff at the senior living facility where my 97-year-old grandmother lives.  At the outbreak of COVID-19, she found herself hospitalized with bacterial pneumonia – nothing related to COVID-19.  Just poor timing.  

As I was being discharged from the hospital after an 11-day stay, a friend texted me: “The hard part’s over!” In one sense she was correct – I’d completed the antibiotics for COVID, my sepsis was gone, and my pneumonia and kidney function were improving. But that was just the physical battle.

Racial and related inequities have immensely traumatized Black and Brown citizens of the United States for centuries.