Anxiety
Megan Mulroy, LPC Within the past month, colleges and universities across America have been forced to move to online learning platforms due to the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). This brings a number of unparalleled challenges for college students. Graduation ceremonies have already been cancelled, and some are planning on having a virtual ceremony. Student’s licensing exams have been postponed, and students needing internship hours for graduation are left scrambling for ways to get creative to meet their requirements.…
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Bridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC I know I’m not the only one who is quarreling with quarantine and disappointed and shocked at how 2020 has turned out thus far. Watching people arguing in the grocery store about toilet paper is something I never expected to see. We’ve all been pushed out of our comfort zones – routines have been interrupted, plans completely destroyed and the whole world feels like it’s turned upside down. We continue to hear…
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Bridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC Feeling anxiety related to coronavirus, also known as COVID-19? Well, it’s safe to say that you’re not alone! There are so many things to be anxious about – catching the virus itself, adjusting to a new routine during quarantine, financial burdens, school closures, cancelled events, and many other things floating around on the media. Anxiety related to this virus has seemingly crossed the line. In order to mitigate your anxiety during this…
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Uncertainty can be scary and can often increase symptoms of anxiety and stress. The end of this COVID-19 pandemic is not yet in sight, and I have been hearing from a lot of friends, family, and clients that their levels of stress and anxiety have been significantly higher since Chicago went on lockdown. It appears as though people are hoping to find answers to when life will go back to their day to day normal and tend…
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Maintaining effective communication within a relationship can be a challenging task, yet when individuals within a relationship are able to express their needs and wants appropriately, the relationship is much more likely to flourish and prosper. Expressing our desires to our loved-ones, however, can sometimes be difficult due to extraneous factors such as our fear of rejection, disapproval, or embarrassment for wanting something. Marsha M. Linehan, the founder of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and professor of Psychology…
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Oftentimes our lives can feel incredibly overwhelming with everything we have to accomplish throughout the day. From preparing your kids for school in the morning, going to that yoga class you nervously signed up for last minute, getting the groceries to feed your family, and remembering to turn in the report your supervisor asked for yesterday, we can become terribly distracted and lose focus on what matters most in our lives. Regardless of whether our lives are…
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I work with many clients who describe feeling that midafternoon slump at their job. For those that work the 9-5pm Monday-Friday job, it is very common to feel the midafternoon slump around 2pm due to the simple fact that you likely needed to wake up by 7am at the very latest to get to your job by 9am. As a clinical therapist, I help my clients better understand contributing factors regarding their midafternoon slump; I then help…
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If you read my last blog post referencing the article from The New York Times, “Why you should find time to be alone with yourself” by author Micaela Marini Higgs, you may be curious about not only the benefits of spending alone time, but also how to implement alone time in your life. Below answers those two items from the remaining part of Higgs’s article. What are the benefits of spending time alone? There was a…
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Hannah Hopper, LPC It’s in the news, it’s on social media, it’s all the people in our lives have been talking about lately – Coronavirus seems to have taken over our world and our mental space too. And with so much news bombarding us on a minute-by-minute basis, it’s easy to neglect our mental health. Anxiety can overwhelm before we even realize we’re starting to feel anxious. 1. Stick to Your Routine In times of stress and…
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It is ok to cry. It is ok to cry. It is ok to cry. (insert tears). Why do we feel like it’s not ok to cry? Why do we feel like crying equals a sign of weakness? Why does crying mean that we are sad? Why do people become awkward when someone is crying? I do not know how many times I can say this, but it is OK to cry. It is ok to allow…
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