Excerpt from Transforming Depression

How well you manage your attitudes and emotions each day determines to a large extent how much vitality you will experience overall. Most people think fatigue sets in because of all the things they have to do or because they didn’t get enough sleep. They often overlook the energy drain from out-of-control emotions.

Different triggers in life can cause stress to run through your system, creating frayed nerves, fatigue, and overwhelming, out-of-control feelings. Once this occurs, it’s important to recover from the stress fast, otherwise your energy drains away. Taking emotional responsibility to get into heart rhythm coherence helps to rebalance your system. Coherence also helps you develop the intuitive discernment to see how to stop draining energy and renew your vitality. This is especially important when you are trying to lift depression.

by Susan Albers, Psy.D.

Clients with eating problems often develop a number of mindless eating routines. Eating in the car on the way to work, snacking at their computer, or munching during their favorite TV show each night are a few common examples. Help your clients identify the mindless eating behaviors that have simply become habitual. These behaviors are often much easier to tackle than emotional eating behaviors.

read the rest here.

by guest blogger Melissa Kirk, co-author of Depression 101

I remember the moment I realized my rumination was contributing to my chronic low mood and sense of frustration with life. I lived about a mile away from my job, and in nice weather I would walk to work through neighborhoods of beautiful homes and lush gardens. People in Berkeley love their gardens! On my walk, though, I tended to ruminate - to obsess over what was wrong in my life, to replay difficult incidents and conversations, to worry about what I was missing: the right relationship, the perfect body, the "right" personality. By the time I got to work, I would often feel more tense or distracted than when I had started out, and often I would have missed the beauty of the homes and gardens along the way.

I always thought there was something inherently wrong with me that I got depressed and sad; I figured that somewhere, way back when, I hadn’t learned some vital lesson that others - the ones who didn’t get depressed - had learned. In the back of my mind I always figured I was flawed in a deep, core way that meant that I would never have the things that others had: marriage, successful career, physical beauty, the ability to connect easily with others. This is what I would ruminate over on my walk: why can I never seem to be able to do the things others do? What was wrong with me?

Excerpt from The Mindful Path through Worry and Rumination

Do you become more easily aggravated, frustrated, irritable, or angry than you would like? Do you find yourself driven to tears, feeling overwhelmed or exhausted by things that seem to feel minor to other people? If you’re prone to rumination and worry, you prob¬ably do. Your stress response and your inner critic feed off each other, spending all of your emotional energy so that there’s none left for happiness and joy. One of the things that emerges with both secure attachment and regular mindfulness practice is a skill that psychologists call distress tolerance, which refers to the degree to which you can maintain your peace of mind, equanimity, and focus in difficult situations.

by guest blogger Judith London, Ph.D., author of Connecting the Dots

The appearance of Alzheimer’s touches relatives or friends, close or distant, to change every aspect of their relationship with a loved one who has this disease. As Alzheimer’s advances, the only constant may be the love that you have between you, and that you can still maintain, if you don’t give up on the person prematurely.

by guest blogger Susan Eikov Green, author of Don't Pick On Me.

All children experience some form of bullying. They may the target of a bully or they may be a bystander who witnesses bullying. We usually think of bullying as a physical act – pushing, shoving, fighting, hitting. But bullying can also be verbal – threatening, taunting, teasing, name-calling - as well as emotional. Being ostracized or being the subject of a rumor and gossip can be just as damaging as a push or a shove.

Of course some playful teasing is normal and children need to learn how to "give-and-take" in relationships. But bullying goes beyond that. Many children feel helpless and don’t know what to do when they are picked on. Their first reaction may be to either cry or get angry and go on the attack. They don’t realize that crying or fighting only gives the bully the satisfaction of knowing that whatever he’s done has worked! It won’t stop the bully – it will just make it worse.

But there are some simple strategies kids can learn to help them deal with bullies – strategies that will build their confidence and self-esteem so they can develop healthy relationships and friendships.

Discuss these strategies with your child.