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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The hol­i­day sea­son is here, and this time of year is often asso­ci­at­ed with joy and hap­pi­ness. How­ev­er, for some peo­ple, the hol­i­days can trig­ger feel­ings of sad­ness and depres­sion. These feel­ings, often described as the ​“hol­i­day blues,” are not uncom­mon accord­ing to Quin­cy Med­ical Group Behav­ioral Health Ther­a­pist Paul Warning.

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.

You know that feel­ing when you’re all caught up at work, the house is clean, the laun­dry is done, your eye­brows are per­fect­ly shaped, the bills are paid, the lawn is mowed, no one is whin­ing, the sun is shin­ing, and all is right with the world?

Nation­al Pet Day is a time to cel­e­brate the fur­ry (or feath­ery, or scaled!) com­pan­ions who enrich our lives. But beyond the cud­dles and cute antics, pets offer a sur­pris­ing range of ben­e­fits for our phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

Our Quin­cy Med­ical Group Behav­ioral Health team shared some ways pets can be ben­e­fi­cial for your well-being:

Moth­er­hood comes with a lot of joy, but it can also bring unique chal­lenges and strug­gles. As moms, it’s nat­ur­al to pri­or­i­tize the needs of our chil­dren, and it’s equal­ly impor­tant to take care of our­selves. Accord­ing to Post­par­tum Sup­port Inter­na­tion­al, one out of five women are affect­ed by mater­nal men­tal health dis­or­ders includ­ing post­par­tum depres­sion, anx­i­ety, OCD, bipo­lar, PTSD, and psychosis.