Behavioral & Mental Health

In a recent doc­u­men­tary series titled, The Me You Can’t See, Oprah Win­frey shared the sto­ries of peo­ple who strug­gle with their men­tal health. One of the sto­ries she shares is that of Prince Har­ry who speaks about a form of ther­a­py called EMDR (Eye Move­ment Desen­si­ti­za­tion and Reprocessing).

Going to a ther­a­pist for med­ica­tion is like going to a urol­o­gist with a bro­ken arm – you’ll prob­a­bly leave with a refer­ral to anoth­er provider but no med­ica­tion and this won’t be the fastest route for address­ing your prob­lem. Read on for a break­down of dif­fer­ent types of men­tal health providers and what ser­vices they do and do not provide.

If you want bet­ter men­tal health, there’s no need to com­plete­ly over­haul your life. Well­ness results from tak­ing small steps and main­tain­ing them over time. Since the change has to start some­where, I’d like to chal­lenge you to try sev­en new things, one each day next week, toward improv­ing your men­tal health.

May is Men­tal Health Month. Through­out the month, we’re pro­vid­ing some help­ful tips for all age groups on ways to help sup­port your men­tal health. Men­tal health in the teen years can be tricky as ado­les­cents are going through so many phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and social changes at one time. Here are some ideas for mak­ing it a lit­tle eas­i­er to cope with all those big changes.

Every­one reacts to trau­ma dif­fer­ent­ly. There’s no right or wrong way to feel after a trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ence, but it is impor­tant to know when to seek help.

The teenage years are a whirl­wind of emo­tions and expe­ri­ences. It’s a time of incred­i­ble growth, but also a peri­od when teens may strug­gle men­tal health chal­lenges. Dr. Todd Porter, a pedi­a­tri­cian, and Kathy Nel­son, a behav­ioral health ther­a­pist, both at Quin­cy Med­ical Group, help par­ents and teens nav­i­gate this cru­cial stage. For Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, they share some guid­ance for families.

The ongo­ing COVID pan­dem­ic has affect­ed us all in one way or anoth­er. These times have brought many chal­lenges, which can sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact all aspects of your life, includ­ing your job.

Mem­o­ry loss is a com­mon con­cern for many indi­vid­u­als, often lead­ing to wor­ries about Alzheimer’s dis­ease or relat­ed dis­or­ders. Mar­i­anne McClain, PsyD, Adult Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) and the QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic, empha­sizes that mem­o­ry loss does not always indi­cate a pro­gres­sive condition.

Thanks­giv­ing is tomor­row, so I thought we’d talk about our ungrate­ful lit­tle brats, whoops, I mean our lit­tle dar­ling angels for a minute. But seri­ous­ly, kids can appear to be rather greedy and self-cen­tered at times. It’s in their nature. They are hard-wired for sur­vival but don’t yet under­stand the dif­fer­ence between ​“wants” and ​“needs.” So when they are los­ing their mind because you won’t buy them can­dy at the gro­cery store a mere twen­ty min­utes after you bought them some­thing at the toy store, it’s because their devel­op­ing brains are mis­in­ter­pret­ing your ​“no” as a threat to their needs being met.

Illog­i­cal, maybe. Annoy­ing, def­i­nite­ly. But the abil­i­ty to be thank­ful isn’t born in — it’s a skill that has to be learned.

Last week, I tried to con­vince you that like cake, you need stress in your life. But also like cake, if you don’t have enough or if you have too much, it’s a prob­lem. So how do we find and keep that sweet spot of just enough stress? Spoil­er Alert: There is no cake involved.

A quick Google search for the ​“best stress man­age­ment tech­niques” will tell you that eat­ing right, exer­cis­ing, get­ting enough sleep, med­i­tat­ing, and liv­ing in the moment are some of the best ways to deal with stress. It’s true; those are def­i­nite­ly very effec­tive ways to keep your stress lev­el low.