It's just that, with OCD, you don't know when to stop. Eventually, you have to walk away from your house or car after telling yourself that you did everything you reasonably could to make sure they were secured. When OCD gets really bad, you can stare at a locked door …
more ...Aaron Antonowski, professor in medical sociology, studied why certain individuals are able to cope with tough challenges, while others suffer from stress. He studied a group of women who had been concentration camp inmates. Despite deeply traumatic experiences, some of these women were relatively stable and were able to live …
more ...Immediately upon boarding, wipe down the tray table, armrests, and anything else you might touch, primarily to prevent the spread of other infectious illnesses like the flu and norovirus. Consider wearing eye protection. While it's not an official CDC recommendation, Dr Anthony Fauci and other infectious disease experts say wearing …
more ...It's a perfectly good idea to promise yourself some treat--a theater ticket or a yogurt or an ice cream bar--if you manage to wait at least fifteen minutes before you act on some obsessive thought. Then you should record your success in your behavior-therapy journal. Many people come to see …
more ...The way I see it, this is exactly what genuinely positive people have in common. They outfox life's negativity triggers by instead choosing to focus on what they appreciate. These people are good at accepting situations that cannot be altered - like Mondays or bad weather. They know that it is …
more ...More is better. When in doubt, err on the side of safety. In our new normal, no one is going to accuse you of being rude if you want to stay at least six feet apart. Similarly, you'll never be sorry if everyone wears a mask inside a restaurant, but …
more ...The same safety measures for younger children also apply to this age group: Everyone should be wearing masks, washing their hands frequently, and physically distancing. Preteens can be infected with COVID-19 and don't often show symptoms, so they can also transmit the virus unknowingly to adults and other kids. Unlike …
more ...Throughout the weekend, in between delicious meals and constant canoodling, find time to work on your Relationship Contract. Make this discussion about love and connection. Think: Love Actually, not love contractually. THE CHECK-IN RITUAL I love this quotation from psychotherapist Esther Perel: The quality of your relationships determines the quality …
more ...How to Build Relationships That Last Remember the Happily-Ever-After Fallacy? It's the mistaken belief that the hard work of love is finding someone. But that's only the first act of your love story. The next part is hard, too--making the relationship last for the long haul. What are the benefits …
more ...But you will find that as you apply the Four Steps--Relabel, Reattribute, Refocus, Revalue--you will be able to expose yourself for longer and longer periods to those terrible thoughts and urges without performing compulsive rituals in response to them. Initially, you may have to remove yourself from the sink very …
more ...While it can feel unnerving when new information changes the recommended guidance or standard of care, it's important to realize that this is how good medicine can and does work. Whenever you hear surprising health news where the medical guidance or messaging has changed, ask yourself if it's based on …
more ...Complex and rapidly evolving data on its own doesn't instigate an infodemic, however. Supply comes on the heels of demand, and in our new normal, we've demanded more medical news than ever before. Whether we want to watch or not, news about the pandemic has become essential: We can't exactly …
more ...Otherwise, we'd have to touch an unsterile mask after we've washed our hands, which would contaminate our hands. Finally, surgeons don't wear every piece of protective gear available to them just because they can. For example, I could wear a sterile hood or white-paper hazmat suit like those now popular …
more ...Marriage matters, in more ways than you may realize. In their article The Case for Marriage, journalist Maggie Gallagher and sociologist Linda J. Waite found that the happiness and satisfaction of marriage has a tremendous impact on happiness, physical and mental health, life expectancy, wealth, and the well-being of children …
more ...We see Brain Lock alleviated; The next step is to get that new circuitry to become more functional, more automatic. As the circuitry becomes automatic, the striatum shifts gears and runs the circuitry properly because that is what the striatum normally does. Change the behavior; We studied eighteen subjects and …
more ...It's not easy. It's hard work because the gearshift is stuck. But when they shift gears repeatedly, by consciously changing behaviors, they actually start to fix their transmission by changing the metabolism of the striatum. Using the cortex, they work around the glitch in the striatum. And the beauty of …
more ...Especially if you were the one who initiated the breakup. Sociologist and Columbia University professor Diane Vaughan conducted extensive research on breakups in her article Uncoupling and found that we grieve a relationship over a certain timeline. People who initiate a breakup may have experienced negative feelings about the relationship …
more ...Finally, what was all this anxiety doing for her heart condition? People who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder may have up to a 48 percent higher likelihood of dying of heart disease, according to studies. In my medical opinion, these risks outweighed the possible perils Kristin would have faced by …
more ...Formal studies show the same thing: OCD tends to run in families. Frequently, parents of people with OCD were rigid and inflexible and became very uncomfortable if things weren't done in a certain way. For example, at five on the dot each day, Howard Hughes's grandparents went out on the …
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