During these very uncertain times, it may be difficult to explain to your children what is happening. I hope these resources help you.

Hunkering Down: 4 Brain-Wise Ways to Cope During COVID-19blogs.psychcentral.com/savvy-shrink/2020/03/hunkering-down-4-brain-wise-ways-to-cope-during-covid-19
March 20, 2020” ‘Unprecedented’ = never done or known before” Oxford English Dictionary


We are, without a doubt, living in an unprecedented time of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and unease. The word “unprecedented” is trumpeted in numerous news reports and social media outlets, describing the nature of the unfolding COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Most people on the planet today have not lived through a major health crisis of this magnitude, even those in the Boomer or The Greatest (WW2) Generation who might have experienced the polio crisis of the early 20th century. So with that, we are all in this together, figuring out what it means to shelter-in-place, quarantine, home-school, work-from-home, study remotely, socially distance, scour home/work surfaces with cleaning supplies, flatten-the-curve, protect our seniors and vulnerable populations, and wrap our heads around toilet paper shortages (and other grocery supplies).
Some of us are already dealing with exposure to COVID-19, may have a loved one impacted, or are attempting to seek medical treatment as the spread of coronavirus continues. Others are single-parents striving to balance working-from-home with children padding around in the background. Those with abuse histories may be impacted particularly as they must face sheltering-in-place with toxic family members or partners they would otherwise not be in contact with. Some of our humanity are now laid off from work or are perhaps homeless. It’s not a stress-free chapter right now. In short, not only is the coronavirus a health crisis, it’s also a psychological crisis that has the potential to send people into fight-or-flight mode.

In helping people to understand how the brain is constructed and responds to situations of stress and trauma, I wrote a four part series for Psych Central entitled 5 Nuts and Bolts of the Traumatized Brain Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. Please click on each numbered part for specifics regarding neuroscience and how to heal the traumatized brain (along with the person who belongs to that precious cranium). I am proud to say that these articles have been re-posted by The EMDR Institute, as well as other respected organizations in the field of trauma recovery. I am going to provide for you 4 additional tips to help you lower your stress and trauma reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic:
1. As I mentioned in my articles regarding the traumatized brain, we need to tap into interventions that address “bottom-up” strategies (Malchiodi, 2020). When our brains are perceiving trauma, we go into fight, flight, freeze or fawn modes. These survival strategies that originate in the reptilian brain are designed for just that: survival. However, being locked into a trauma mode shuts down our higher order processing (attention, focus, concentration, ability to speak). Our bodies literally “hold” the trauma in the form of hypervigilance, increased heart rate, body and muscle tension, stomachaches, and headaches. So to unlock that embodied sense of held trauma, we must release it in a somatic way. Researchers such as Bessel van der Kolk who wrote the seminal work, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body, and the Healing of Trauma (2017), suggest the following for physiological release of “held” trauma: yoga, mindfulness based meditation, abdominal breathing, tai chi, EMDR (a therapeutic modality that utilizes bilateral movements), somatic experiencing (therapeutic modality), and bilateral movements outside in nature (like hiking or walking).
2. Renowned art therapist and researcher Cathy Malchiodi (2020) writes and lectures extensively on the use of expressive arts, including visual arts (drawing, painting, sculpting, collage, making music, dance) to address releasing emotion when our amygdala is activate like a fire alarm with a dying battery. To calm our heightened sensitivities and chill out the brain’s siren, we can: draw, paint, sculpt, dance, listen to music, sing, play an instrument, write poetry, and act. There are numerous expressive arts strategies I like to use with my clients, both younger and older: craft a memory box, design stress balls, make a worry doll, design a mandala, create a dream-catcher to hold nightmares, sculpt an image that is comforting and soothing, make a body map (with a trained expressive arts therapist). Expressive arts allow us to express and release what is sometimes not accessible verbally when that part of our brain is offline due to trauma/stress/anxiety.
3. Once we have been able to get centered, self soothe, and de-stress on a physical and emotional level, our bodies literally begin to enter a relaxation response (Benson, 1976). Our speech center (Brocha’s area) light’s up again and we can access language. Focus, concentration, memory, and speech become possible once our prefrontal cortex is activated. It is then that therapeutic modalities like cognitive restructuring can be beneficial as well as narrating one’s story (Name It to Tame It) to lower cognitive dissonance. Over the course of my career, I have routinely referred to The Feeling Good Book: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns as a classic book in identifying automatic negative thoughts and strategically re-writing the inner narrative to that of more reality-based and positive internal dialogue. We can: journal, do cognitive behavioral therapy with a trained therapist, read books about cognitive restructuring, draw a timeline and label the road-map with the story of our journey, talk with trusted others for validation and support.
4. Supreme Self-Care: This concept means the following: 1) Get at least 5 consecutive hours of sleep / sleep cycle to restore serotonin in your brain (the neurotransmitter that regulates mood needs to be “topped off” like a gas tank); 2) good nutrition; 3) exercise (preferably outdoors and in nature); 4) solid, nurturing social supports; 5) see a therapist if you are having a mental health crisis (many are now offering services via webcam/telephonic); 6) stay connected electronically with loved ones while needing to physically socially distance; 7) stay off of news outlets that trigger more anxiety/trauma, and only check reliable sources for information (like CDC, WHO); 8) connect with your spirituality; 9) This To Shall Pass; 10) We will get through this together, as fellow human beings on the planet.
Benson, H. (1976). The relaxation response, Avon Publishing.
Burns, D. (2008). The feeling good book: The new mood therapy, Harper Publishing.
Malchiodi, M. (2020). Trauma and expressive arts therapy: Brain, body and imagination in the healing Process, The Guildford Press.
Retrieved from: 3/19/2020: https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline/polio
Retrieved from: 3/19/2020: https://blogs.psychcentral.com/savvy-shrink/2018/09/5-nuts-and-bolts-of-the-traumatized-brain-part-1/
Retrieved from: 3/19/2020: https://blogs.psychcentral.com/savvy-shrink/2018/09/5-more-nuts-and-bolts-of-the-traumatized-brain-part-2/?li_source=LI&li_medium=popular17
Retrieved from: 3/19/2020: https://blogs.psychcentral.com/savvy-shrink/2018/09/5-more-nuts-and-bolts-of-the-traumatized-brain-part-3/?li_source=LI&li_medium=popular17
Retrieved from: 3/19/2020: https://blogs.psychcentral.com/savvy-shrink/2018/10/5-ways-to-heal-the-traumatized-brain-part-4/?li_source=LI&li_medium=popular17
Van der Kolk, B. (2017). The body keeps the score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Penguin Books.


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A lot of people go into marriage blind, immature, unhealthy, lonely, broken, hurting, holding onto past relationships, and oftentimes thinking marriage will fix their personal issues and heal their internal struggles. We live in a time where people believe that all their troubles will be over or will go away when or if they get married, and that’s not true. The truth is, marriage won’t make your problems go away and your issues will still be there. Marriage only magnifies or brings out of you, what you refuse to address prior to getting married.

For example: if you are lonely now, you will be lonely married, if you are immature now, you will be immature married, if you have a difficult time managing your finances now, you will have a difficult time when you get married, if you have anger problems now, you will have anger problems when you get married, if you and your fiance are fighting and have difficulties resolving conflicts and communicating now, you will the same problems when you get married.

Marriage is not the cure for the conflicts and issues that are occurring in your relationship, you can hope things will change after you get married, but the truth is, things will only get worse before they get better. However, there is one thing that can help you with all of this, premarital counseling. Yes, the one thing most people shy away from, don’t want to do, and for the most part see no need for it.

Premarital counseling
How would your life be different if you could discuss important issues prior to getting married, instead of discussing those issues while being married? Premarital counseling helps decrease frustration and anger about issues impacting the relationship, and when you know upfront what you are getting into and what your mate’s thoughts are about marriage, you will not be shocked when certain issues arise. Being informed, helps you to make some informed decisions, and this is what premarital counseling does, it helps you to be informed and make decisions with clarity and with your emotions.

Premarital counseling

Benefits of premarital counseling
Premarital counseling is worth the investment and important to the health and longevity of your relationship. It’s about taking steps towards addressing and dealing with issues that may be hard to discuss during the marriage, helps you create a plan of action for dealing with conflicts, provides you with the tools needed to build a healthy and solid foundation, helps you see situations from different perspectives, and teaches you how to respect each other’s differences.

It helps you deal with issues that have the potential affect your marriage
Anytime you’re trying to merge together to become one, your personal and relationship problems, thoughts, values, and beliefs automatically surface, the problems don’t magically disappear, and it becomes difficult to deal with the ups and downs of the relationship. That’s why it’s important to seek premarital counseling, to help you deal with issues that are impacting and have the potential to impact the marriage, and to identify what’s important to the both of you. It’s not enough to scratch surface and sweep everything under the rug and don’t deal with what’s really going on in the relationship and not express how you really feel. When you ignore issues in the relationship they get bigger, you take all of those issues into the marriage, and then you start to question why you got married or whether or not he/she is the one for you. My favorite statement is, “what you don’t deal with while dating, will be magnified and go to another level when you get married.

It helps deal with issues that has potential to impact marriage

It is an early intervention to help relationships
It’s important to not make getting married the goal, but the goal should be, to build a healthy, strong, lasting, and loving marriage. That’s why premarital counseling should be mandatory, and I consider it as early intervention, created to help you improve your relationship, learn effective ways to communicate, help you set realistic expectations, teaches you how to manage conflict effectively, gives you an opportunity to discuss and share your values and beliefs about important matters, such as finances, family, parenting, children, and your beliefs and values about marriage and what it takes to make a marriage last.

So, let’s look at 8 reasons why you should have premarital counseling:

If you or your mate have a history of childhood abuse, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate have experienced domestic violence, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate have different views on what infidelity is, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate have unspoken expectations, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate automatically assume you know what each other needs are, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate have unresolved conflicts or resentment with your extended families or with each other, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate struggle with expressing your frustrations and anger, the marriage will be impacted.
If you or your mate struggle with communicating and shutting down is your way of communicating, the marriage will be impacted.
Many people shy away from premarital counseling because of the fear of what may be revealed and because of the fear of the wedding being called off, but it’s better to work on issues beforehand, instead of waiting until you’re married to decide to deal with what you had a problem with prior to getting married. Working on the relationship early helps you grow together, so don’t make the mistake that many have already made, by not have premarital counseling before you get married. Consider premarital counseling and invest in your marriage before you get married.

Written by:
Dr. LaWanda N. Evans specializes in helping couples build and maintain a healthy, loving, lasting, strong relationship. She teaches couples how to communicate to be heard and understood, how to manage conflicts and find solutions to the most difficult problems affecting their relationship, using the Gottman Method Couples Therapy approach. She provides relationship counseling, education, and development that focuses on improving communication, managing conflicts, affair recover, and premarital counseling and education. Dr. Evans is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor, Healthy Relationship Expert, Relationship Therapist, Speaker and Author.


7

A new study finds that more prosocial people are less aggressive in competition—but they tend to win out in the long run.


BY JILL SUTTIE JULY 8, 2019 SCIENCE






Looking back at the financial collapse of 2008, I often wonder: How could investors have been so greedy? It seems as if they were so bent on “winning” that they made pretty dumb investments, which cost them—and the rest of us—dearly. In fact, history is filled with examples of people behaving aggressively for short-term gain, only to pay a long-term cost. Why do we keep behaving this way?


My question is at the heart of a new study by Carsten de Dreu and colleagues published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Their findings give us insight into the relationship between aggression, empathy, and decision making.


The Relationship Between Empathy and Decision-Making
In the study, participants played an investment game called “Predator-Prey Contest”—similar to the old board game Risk—which measures how much people will invest to win money off of others versus defending their own holdings. Participants were paired up with different players and given up to 10 euros to invest in each round—half the time playing the role of “attacker,” half the time acting as a “defender” (though these labels were not used in the experiment’s setup to avoid leading people one way or another).


Attackers won a round if they invested more money than a defender and kept whatever they and their defender hadn’t spent. So, for example, if an attacker invested 6 euros and the defender invested 5, the attacker “won” and ended up with 9 euros (the 4 they saved + the 5 the defender didn’t spend). However, if attackers invested the same amount or less than defenders, they lost what they’d invested. The researchers used how much people invested in either role as a measure of their aggressiveness.


The researchers wanted to understand what influenced aggressive investing and how that determined players’ winnings. In particular, they looked at whether being prosocial (other-oriented and empathic) toward others, in general, affected people’s aggression. They also considered whether deliberating longer or being stressed influenced investment choices.


“When you have higher levels of empathy and a more prosocial orientation, you are more cooperative and leave other people at peace.”


In initial analyses, the researchers observed that participants were generally less willing to invest in attacking another for gain than they were in defending their own earnings. This fit with longstanding economic theory around decision making.


“People are more motivated—they’re willing to invest more—to protect against loss than they are to increase wealth or prosperity,” says de Dreu.


They also found, unsurprisingly, that more prosocial people tended to attack others less aggressively for gain than people who were less prosocial—though they were just as fierce at defending against loss. This suggests that prosocial people might be less aggressive, but they aren’t pushovers, either.


“When you have higher levels of empathy and a more prosocial orientation, you are more cooperative and leave other people at peace, unless these people are a threat to you,” says de Dreu.


The Role of Empathy in Competition
In one experiment, de Dreu and colleagues measured the time it took to make the decisions in each role and how that related to aggression. In the second, they cognitively stressed people to see how that affected decision-making time and aggression—by, for example, having them look through a text and cross out the letter “e,” but only when the “e” was followed by a vowel or was a letter away from a vowel.


Through these manipulations, the researchers found that aggression works best in concert with some degree of thoughtfulness: Participants who took longer to make investment decisions in the attacker mode were more strategic. They won rounds without spending as much money—while participants who were cognitively stressed made poorer decisions. However, here the prosocial people had an advantage. They generally slowed down their decision making and so made better choices, resulting in more money for them at the end of the game.


“If we shorten the time people have to think, or demotivate them by making them tired, then they become more irrational,” says de Dreu. “The irony is that you can win a competition; but if you spend all of your money and effort on winning, you don’t have anything left in your pocket at the end of the day.”


De Dreu realizes these economic games are not “real life.” But, he insists, they can still give us insight into how people respond in real-world competitions, like in business or in war. We’ve all seen instances where people compete to the point where no one has anything left, he says—for example, “when you win the battle, but your army is so weakened that a small army on the other side could come in and eradicate you.”


It seems we can make better choices about investing our resources if we consider others and take more time to deliberate.


It seems we can make better choices about investing our resources if we consider others and take more time to deliberate…especially since we’ll still defend ourselves aggressively when that’s required.


“If we have this in the forefront of our minds, when we face these kinds of competitions, we’ll more quickly think, Maybe I should not engage in this much or at all,” he says.


In future studies, de Dreu hopes to understand why people are aggressive in the first place. After all, in the economics game, not investing any money in attacking another means you go home with your full 10 euros. “If you can be cooperative and not invest in attacking another person, why shouldn’t you?” says de Dreu. He speculates that reward centers in our brains may light up when we “win,” driving competitive impulses despite the costs. His next study will consider this question.


In the meantime, he says, embracing empathy and taking our time when making decisions could help us all to cut down on unnecessary aggression and still win out…at least economically speaking, if not in other avenues of life. “Empathy is a way to tone down the need to win and keep it in check,” says de Dreu.


This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.

The public discourse surrounding mental health has come a looong way. Today, celebs (Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Jennifer Lawrence , Ellen Degeneres, and Kristen Bell, to name a few) speak up regularly about experiencing and managing various mental health issues and use their public platform to help normalize the topic. Mental health days are finally become a thing that bosses and workplaces respect and even encourage. And more and more women are seeking out at-home remedies—CBD, exercise, meditation—to help take care of their emotional well-being.


But despite those steps forward, paired with the reality that mental health conditions are so common (nearly one in five people in this country live with one), talking about mental health still isn’t easy or comfortable for many people.


And that's a problem, experts say. But what are reasons behind this hesitation, and how can you overcome any nerves and be more forthcoming about your mental health status? Keep reading.


To start, so many mental health issues still carry a stigma attached to them.
Sure, society’s made strides at being more accepting of and open about mental health issues. But the stigma surrounding mental health problems or illness still deters people from speaking up and seeking help, says Sari Chait, PhD, founder of Behavioral Health and Wellness Center, LLC, in Newton, Massachusetts. You may worry that you'll be judged, or looked down on, or assigned certain stereotypes associated with a particular mental health condition.
The desire to meet certain social expectations or fill specific gender or familial roles may also play a part in why some people keep quiet. For example, people who identify as more masculine could be less likely to open up because they want to appear strong and self-sufficient, says Nicole Issa, PsyD, founder of PVD Psychological Associates in Providence, Rhode Island.


Chait adds, “In some cultures or families, there is a sentiment that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just move on.” Or, perhaps you are a parent or you take on a caregiver role of sorts, and you worry about appearing vulnerable or weak in front of your children or another individual who relies on you.

Others may stay private about mental health problems due to fear of penalization, like in the workplace. “Many individuals seem to worry about being punished for having mental health difficulties or [being] labeled as ‘unstable,” Issa says. This is an unfortunate reality, given that research has suggested that having an untreated mental health condition can impair a person's work performance.


Sometimes, the mental health condition itself can discourage you from speaking about it.
As Chait explains, if you have anxiety, you might be in a spiral of negative, anxious thoughts, thinking that you won’t feel better ever; this may keep you from communicating your situation to someone. If you’re dealing with depression, you could feel hopeless, which might lead you to think, why bother?

But there’s a bigger, more pervasive issue keeping some people silent, too: “Many people worry that what they are experiencing is abnormal—and that nobody else feels that way,” Chait notes.


(Spoiler alert: That couldn’t be further from the truth.)


Even though it can feel intimidating, here’s why it can be beneficial to open up about your mental health (when you're ready).
Talking about it can actually help fend off, prevent, and even work to improve symptoms of mental health conditions. “Often, mental health struggles are a huge burden that people carry in silence, and simply receiving some support can help individuals feel better,” Issa says.

In fact, a growing body of research finds that social support is *huge* if you have a mental health condition, helping you develop feelings of security, communication skills, and positive experiences that can help buffer against stress and improve both mental and physical health. Opening up via therapy, too, is an effective and proven means of learning skills to cope with your feelings. And having these coping skills (that you developed by being communicative with a mental health pro) can, in turn, help you feel better.


But speaking up also matters because it can be contagious. “People often want to talk about their mental health concerns but feel like they will be judged,” says Chait. “Once they know they won't be, it helps them open up.”


Of course, being transparent about how you’re actually feeling on the reg is easier said than done.
It also doesn’t always have to involve a heart-to-heart over coffee with your bestie (though, hey, it totally can); there are other little steps to help you gradually express how you’re feeling more often.


If you’re hesitant about sharing more about your mental health, try these five strategies to help you get there:


Start small.
Let’s be real—the mere thought of finding a therapist who’s a good fit (or a friend who has time to lend a listening ear) can be downright exhausting. Instead, try opening up even casually to someone you’re super close with by sharing benign details about your day.


Work up to telling her about your emotions and see how she responds: “For some people, they may feel most comfortable by sharing one small detail about how they feel to test the waters,” Chait says.


Ask others how they are.
Realizing that not *everyone* constantly sees the world through peachy shades or lives the life you see on Insta can help you see you’re not alone in feeling down/stressed/anxious/unsure from time to time.
The more consistently you show the people in your life that you care and give them a safe space to talk about what’s going on, the more likely that they will let their guard down in your conversations. They also will probably return the favor, and hopefully motivate you to open up. Then, you’ve built a non-judgmental social environment together.

Keep a journal.
Not quite ready to put it all out there for the world to hear? Put your feelings and thoughts on paper. “Journaling is a great tool that many people find helpful for getting their feelings out of their head,” says Chait. “There is no right or wrong way to do it.”


Keep a formal diary, jot quick bullet points down on napkins, use your voice recorder on your smartphone, or keep a running document on your computer of how you’re feeling. Expressive writing, where you pretty much spill your heart out via writing, can help “offload” worries, lower anxiety levels, and even help boost your performance later.


Challenge negative thoughts.
Think you’re going to be judged? Worried you’ll face backlash if you speak up? Ask yourself whose judgements you’re really worried about, and take a moment to think realistically about the scenario. “Look at evidence from other times you have opened up in the past or sought support,” Issa suggests.


Often, we crack worries up to be waaaayy bigger deals in our minds. Checking in with yourself to see if you’re catastrophizing can help bring you back to reality, she adds.


Do a therapy consultation.
Many mental health professionals offer an initial consultation for prospective clients. “This is a safe way to try telling a non-judgmental person a bit about what you're experiencing and seeing if it feels like something you want to try,” she says.


If it feels right, and financially you can swing it, this may be an entry point into starting a consistent therapy regimen for you. (If you can’t afford it, ask the therapist if a sliding-scale payment system is available, or if they can refer you to someone they trust who may be able to work with you and your financial status.) Don’t love the therapist? A good one will also work with you to find someone you do vibe with, she says.


​

CASSIE SHORTSLEEVE Freelance Writer
Cassie Shortsleeve is a skilled freelance writer and editor with almost a decade of experience reporting on all things health, fitness, and travel.

Acceptance of the good and not so good, your strengths and weaknesses is an ongoing process that requires, patience compassion and awareness but it can be nurtured. Four ways to foster self acceptance are:
1. Learn to forgive yourself. Forgiveness is about letting go of a past that can not be changed. Learn from the mistakes of the past, understand the root problems and let it go and allow yourself to grow
2. Celebrate your strengths. Everyday is a day to celebrate.
3. Consider the people around you. Are the reinforcing the negative self talk? Who speaks negatively to me?
4. Quiet your inner critic. Why not say to yourself, " I am only human. I am doing the best I can. "

​

Some people are under the misapprehension that therapy is for wusses. This couldn’t be further from the truth. As Richard Taite, founder of Cliffside Malibu and big proponent of behavior change, told me earlier this year, “Not only do successful people not fear therapy, they embrace it…. Psychotherapy is a tool that creates success. Smart people use it.” And therapy is not just something that smart people use, it’s something that most everybody should probably try during at least some point in their lives.


Here’s why: Many of us grew up under the impression that internal stuff shouldn’t be discussed – it should be swept under the rug. This is perhaps the single worst thing you can do for yourself. Stamping down your emotions and not working through your psychological issues – especially serious pain or abuse in the past – can culminate in a host of problems. If you need a numbers-based reason to convince you, depression alone is a major player in the global burden of disease, the leading cause of disability worldwide, and responsible for billions of dollars a year in lost work.




To discuss the benefits of therapy, I spoke with Marian Margulies, PhD, a psychologist in New York City and candidate in psychoanalysis at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Education at the NYU Medical Center. The beauty of “talk therapy,” especially forms like psychodynamic, is that it addresses not just the symptoms but also the causes of one’s problems. Antidepressants, though essential for some people, don’t exactly get to the underlying source. “If you’re not getting to the cause of the pain,” says Margulies, “you’re essentially chained to the past. Psychotherapy gets to the root.”


1. Therapy’s effects persist over the long-haul


A huge benefit of talk therapy is that its effects are long-lasting. This is because you’re not only working through stuff, but you’re also developing the tools to help you deal with future stuff. “Psychodynamic treatment is durable over the years,” says Margulies. “The positive gains continue and grow over time as though some of the work gets further consolidated after therapy stops. This makes sense to me because it suggests that we continue to use the reflective lens in thinking about, talking about and expressing feelings about our inner lives after we end treatment. The whole talking-with-the-therapist process gets internalized so that self-therapy picks up where the actual therapy leaves off.” Though medication may be essential for some, it does run the risk of relapse after it’s discontinued. The “getting-to-the-cause” aspect of therapy is a big reason why antidepressants and therapy together are believed to be most effective.


2. Physical symptoms get treated, too


Psychological trauma, or even general ennui, can trigger physical symptoms – and depression and anxiety are well known to have significant, and sometimes debilitating, physical effects. Going to therapy, assuming it’s successful, can help these issues fade away. “There have been some studies that show that many physical ailments are ameliorated when someone engages in therapy,” says Margulies. “When people do not express feelings but swallow them and keep them buried and out of conscious awareness, one’s body often reacts. It acts as a barometer that reads: danger! Something is amiss and needs attention. Somatizing via stomach aches, headaches, sleeping problems, and ulcers are just some of the ways our body reacts to stress and psychic pain.”


3. Repressed emotions will come back to haunt you later on


The most serious drawback of not talking about things may be that unexpressed feelings and traumas can pile up and explode later. “Lots of people avoid talking about their feelings about a whole host of things,” says Margulies. “But repressing or damping down one’s feelings doesn’t make the feelings go away. If anything, they linger and fester, only to explode when an innocuous comment is made.” Even if you don’t have a full-on breakdown later on, not fully processing events and emotions often creates negative thought patterns that can inform every area in your life – your relationships with your spouse, parents, kids, coworkers, and even yourself. So learning how to process them can change how you maneuver in many different ways.




4. And the passive-aggressive shtick will fade away


When you work through ancient (or recent) anger, it actually gets processed so that it no longer has to seep out passive-aggressively. “Angry feelings are often expressed in a passive aggressive manner rather than a more direct and less aggressive manner,” says Margulies. “Someone who feels slighted might make a sarcastic remark in return, or not show up at an agreed upon time, ‘forgetting’ the appointment.” So get rid of the passive-aggressive form of expression – your loved ones will thank you.


5. It will give you a whole new perspective on other people, too


An awesome benefit of therapy is that it not only helps you understand yourself better but it helps you understand other people. When we hold negative thoughts in without processing them, they become ingrained so that we see the world through that lens – and we make lots of assumptions that may or may not be true. “In my work with people in psychoanalytically oriented therapy,” says Margulies, “they come to see how they often make assumptions about what the other person intended. Then when they actually do a reality check by asking a friend what they were thinking when they said something, they are often surprised to hear they had a totally different take.” Without the clutter of your own (often mistaken) assumptions, it’s a lot easier to understand others’ intentions and motivations.




6. It helps you deal with future curve balls


Since big and small problems are going to come up from time to time, knowing how to deal with them in a healthy way is an essential skill. “Conflict is a part of everyday life,” says Margulies. “It’s helpful to be aware of one’s feelings around conflict. If, for example, you are angry with your boss who is piling up work for you when you are getting ready to go away, you are bound to feel resentment and conflict. By reflecting on what’s going on outside (your boss’ demands) and inside (your mounting anger, irritation, and fear of losing your job if you say ‘no’), you are in a better position to resolve the conflict. Talking things through with someone and reflecting on what feelings are evoked, and why, leads to a greater understanding of oneself. Then one is freer to think of ways to respond in a more proactive way.” Learning how not to get swallowed up by events, but instead how to form a game plan to deal with them, is the key (and it takes a lot of practice).


7. Talking about things gives them shape


Have you ever noticed how turning a problem around and around in your head often gets you precisely nowhere? It’s so easy to feel dwarfed by a problem when it’s just an amorphous blob in your head – but talking about it gives it a beginning, middle, and end. And that helps you wrap your brain around it. “When I think of the process of engaging in talk therapy, I think of the analogy with writing,” says Margulies. “The more you write, the more you know what you are trying to say – it clarifies your thinking. Similarly with talking and with talk therapy, one becomes more aware of what is making one feel anxious, sad, angry or frustrated. And then one is freer to decide how to manage these feelings or take action to alleviate them.”




Even if you can’t get to therapy, just talking about a problem with a friend can be helpful: Lay out the issue, and it will become clearer, more logical, and therefore more manageable.


8. You know you’re not alone


Seeing a psychologist can be a huge relief in-and-of itself since you know you’re taking action against what ails you. It also comforting just knowing that you have a built-in support structure that you can go to once a week. And, if you’re so inclined, joining a support group for people grappling with similar issues as you – say, divorce – can be very helpful. “If one, for example, is newly divorced and feeling sad and lonely, then joining a support group might help alleviate some of the painful feelings.” Not that misery loves company, but it is true that being with people who are dealing with similar issues can be very reassuring.


9. It will rewire your brain


One of the coolest things about therapy is that it can bring about change at the level of the brain. We think of medication as changing the depressed brain, but there’s very compelling evidence that talk therapy does the same. With brain imaging methods, psychotherapy has been shown to alter activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. These areas are involved in self-referential thoughts (“me”-centered worry thoughts), executive control, emotion, and fear. (For some interesting research and reviews, see here, here, and here.)




One very effective method, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), helps people identify the negative thought patterns they fall back on habitually – which are no doubt wired into the brain like deep ruts – and replace them with new and more positive mental habits. In addition to helping people experience fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety, it, too, seems to bring about brain changes that are measurable.


10. You won’t have to self-medicate anymore


Self-medicating to “deal” with psychological stuff is incredibly common. But it doesn’t do anything to actually address what’s going on – it just masks it. It also creates an addictive cycle, which may exacerbate the real problem. Getting to the root of your past stuff in therapy will, with time, obviate the need to self-medicate. When you’re no longer living by the negative things in your past, the need to avoid them – and yourself – will disappear.


11. It enables you to teach the next generation a better way




The best thing about dealing with your own stuff is that, if you have kids, it helps you teach them a better way. For those who grew up in households where stuff just wasn’t talked about, look how many decades later we’re still dealing with the fallout of that method. “Parents can help their children learn a vocabulary of feelings early on by modeling it themselves,” says Margulies. “This gives children the feeling that it is not only okay but healthy to express themselves through all the colors of their emotions. That it is important to express anger when they feel they’ve been ignored or unfairly treated or when someone says something hurtful. The alternative is to repress the feeling, feel resentful, perhaps act out one’s anger in defiant behavior. The time to start talking about feelings is as early as possible.”


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People are starting to open up more about their personal struggles and mental health issues. The stigma seems seems to be fading, if slowly. If you feel therapy would benefit you, go for it. And if you can’t, talk with friends – they will be grateful you opened up and it may give them the green light to do the same. Chances are it will help kick off some important dialogues.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/06/03/11-intriguing-reasons-to-give-talk-therapy-a-try/