10 causes of zoning out that hurt your focus
Losing focus for a moment, staring off without quite registering what is happening, is something almost everyone experiences from time to time. Zoning out is considered a mild form of dissociation, a temporary disconnect between the present moment and a person’s thoughts, feelings, memories, and actions. It tends to show up during periods of tiredness, […]
10 stress fighting yoga poses that reset your mind
Yoga keeps showing up as one of the most reliable ways to bring a racing nervous system back to baseline, and the research backs it up. Left unchecked, chronic stress wears down the body in ways beyond a bad mood, including digestive troubles like ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome. Cutting stress out of life entirely […]
Asthma attack or panic attack what is behind the fear
Asthma has a way of announcing itself with a tightness in the chest that can feel eerily similar to something else entirely, a panic attack. Both conditions can leave a person gasping, frightened, and unsure of what is actually happening inside their own body. That confusion is common, and understanding what separates the two can […]
How working students can protect their health from burnout
A silent drain on your body and grades has a simple everyday fix Holding down a job while carrying a full course load is one of the toughest balancing acts around. Shifts bleed into study sessions, deadlines stack up, and the quiet expectation to keep everything running can slowly flatten even the most driven person. […]
Why grandparents matter more than ever for children’s mental health
Grandparents may play a far more important role in children’s emotional development than modern family life tends to acknowledge. With a large share of American teenagers reporting ongoing sadness or hopelessness, one child psychologist believes the decline of extended family involvement has quietly contributed to what public health officials have described as an ongoing crisis […]
7 signs your loved one’s mental state is slipping
Early warning signals worth taking seriously before it worsens Spotting a physical illness in someone close to you is often straightforward. A limp, a cough or a fever tends to announce itself. A decline in mental health rarely works that way, especially in someone who has learned to mask mental strain well on the surface […]
All women deserve great sex and doctors are finally saying it
Sexual health has long occupied an awkward space in medicine, discussed in hushed tones if at all, treated as secondary to what gets called “real” health concerns. Nicole Cirino, M.D., is a reproductive psychiatrist, certified sex therapist, and co-director of the Menopause and Sexual Medicine Program at OHSU’s Center for Women’s Health, which is recognized […]
Mental health maintenance, the daily practices that protect emotional wellbeing before crisis arrives
Mental health conditions rarely arrive without precursor signals. The shift from ordinary stress or sadness into a clinically significant condition is almost always preceded by behavioral and emotional changes that are recognizable in retrospect, and often recognizable in real time by people who know what to look for. Identifying these warning signs early, in oneself […]
Body dysmorphic disorder is not vanity and it nearly costs lives
Mandy Rosenberg was eventually diagnosed with a disorder that had been quietly controlling her life for years. Body dysmorphic disorder, a mental health condition that traps people inside a distorted image of themselves, is not about vanity and it is not about caring too much about appearance. It is something far more consuming than that. […]
Anxiety relief — the 5 nerve exercises that could quiet your mind in minutes
Anxiety affects tens of millions of Americans, yet fewer than half of those living with it ever seek formal help. While professional medical care remains the most important step for anyone managing a diagnosed condition, emerging research is shedding light on a set of simple physical exercises that may offer meaningful relief by targeting one […]