We all remember our teenage years. For some of us, high school was a cool place where we got to see our friends every day, showed our school spirit at rallies and football games, got to go to dances, explored the dating world for the first time, and occasionally concentrated on classwork. For others of us, high school was a place of dread where we went for eight hours every day, got picked on, didn’t fit in, and couldn’t wait to never go back. And for even others of us, it was some combination of cool and dread that fluctuated each day, and sometimes even within the day.

For a long time now, we’ve been taught to think that the only thing that matters when it comes to our food is the number of calories eaten. This obsession has led to us not paying much attention to the quality of our food (i.e. how nutrient dense the foods we eat are). To top it all off, the busyness of our lives often leaves us searching for what is quick, easy and affordable—after all, when you’re feeling rushed already, trying to eat healthy can feel like a giant burden!

Many of the people that I work with, or have worked with in the past, have suffered from some form of abuse or another—whether emotional, physical, spiritual, financial or sexual abuse. The reality is that abuse doesn’t discriminate, and people from all walks of life, cultures, socioeconomic status, race, and so on, can suffer from abuse.

For those of you who may still be on the fence about whether or not your relationship is abusive, however, reflect for a moment on the following (the opposite of an abusive relationship):

There has been a lot of recent talk about mindfulness, but the reality is that mindfulness has been around for a very long time. In fact, mindfulness practice can be traced back and found in many religious and philosophical traditions—from orthodox christianity, to buddhism, to stoicism, and more.

Almost everyone can relate: we've all said and/or done things that we wish we hadn't when we were upset. The reality is, our emotions can sometimes get us into trouble. But why does this happen? The most common reason for this is that when our emotions peak, they start to take over—something in the clinical world that we like to call emotional dysregulation.

Growing up, the way we learn to cope with stress is mainly through watching how our parents and others cope with stress. Thus, if we see others coping with stress in maladaptive ways, we are likely to cope with stress in a similar fashion. Similarly, if we had parents who invalidated or minimized our emotions growing up, such as telling us to not to cry, etc., we might learn ineffective ways of coping or dealing with our problems.

Contrary to popular ideas about multitasking, when we attempt to do too many things at one time, especially if we are trying to do complex tasks, we end up being less effective and less productive. This can result in something called cognitive overload. Basically, just like a computer crashes, our brain shuts down, drastically limiting our ability to process all that is coming in. We often speak about this as being, or feeling overwhelmed or anxious. It’s kind of like trying to take a drink from a firehose, for example—it’s not very effective and we end up feeling more frustrated and stressed than when we started.

People often come to me feeling confused about how they are feeling. They wonder, “Am I anxious? Depressed? A combination of both? Or something else altogether?” To me, this is not surprising.

When we go through trauma, our brains don’t function like they normally do. We shift into survival mode. Like a deer in the headlights, our brains direct all our mental and physical energy toward dealing with the immediate threat until it’s gone. In normal situations, this state fades over time. Trauma isn't just something we experience after being in a warzone or in a violent situation, we can be traumatized by our relationships.

Let’s be real: when it comes to drugs and alcohol the reason most of us use them is because they’re fun—we like the way they make us feel. We also may enjoy them for their ability to help us “escape” from our daily grind, or from certain problems we are facing or emotions we don’t want to feel—from anxiety to depression to chronic stress.

Whole Wellness Therapy understands that any successful approach to mental health must be holistic to succeed. One of our core techniques is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which works to radically change our relationship with our emotions. What makes ACT successful for treating many mental health conditions, including trauma, is its use of mindfulness. Yoga itself can be a meditative and mindful practice, as the yogic asanas (postures) and focus on breath work not only allow us to get better in touch with our bodies, but provide an excellent starting place for us to better understand our own minds.

During times of crisis, like the one we’re facing with the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of us feel anxiety’s shove. In many ways, it’s surprising that we don't all have anxiety. In fact, how we as humans evolved to respond to threats is what has kept us going for as long as we’ve been alive. When we were early humans, hearing the snap of a twig would evoke a split-second question of whether we should fight or run or freeze. In our modern society, we are asked to answer this same question every day: we face conflict in the workplace or at home; our sense of security is threatened by drops in the stock market or job loss; or by threats to our health and well being. The reality is, we all experience anxiety when such topics arise, and especially when we face an invisible enemy in our community—enter coronavirus.

For some of us, when we first start experimenting with drugs and alcohol a light bulb turns on. It’s like we found the thing we had been looking for our whole lives; the thing that is going to make us feel OK. We think, “Now I have something that can help me deal with almost anything!”