Feeling overwhelmed by pressure to be more pandemic-productive? You're not alone. Longer isolation has meant more time spent on social media and more blurring of home/work life boundaries, resulting in mounting pressure to be ever more performative and compounding stressors in an already challenging time. Dr. Zhen Xu shares strategies for now, for how to...Continue Reading
As parents, we want our kids to be healthy, body and mind, but sometimes we feel like we have little control or influence. We want them to learn how to take care of themselves in a healthy way, without developing an unhealthy preoccupation with their eating or body image. So, how can we help our...Continue Reading
Some attention to how we eat and where our food comes from can have positive effects on our physical and mental health. Cross that optimal level of stress, however, and preoccupation with the quality of food can start to feel all-consuming. Continue Reading
You’ve been building up to going to therapy for a while. It feels scary, and you’re apprehensive at first but the first couple of sessions go OK; your therapist seems to understand you and it feels good. But then, over the next couple of sessions, you start to get the feeling that they don’t really...Continue Reading
We know that eating disorders grow out of different factors – biological, emotional, social, and cultural – and the effects of the pandemic, like increased uncertainty or isolation, might increase vulnerability. So it's all the more important to name and validate what is new and scary, while finding adaptive ways to cope.Continue Reading
Making life's Big Decisions can be overwhelming, but we can start with smaller steps that will help us build better strategies and use our self-awareness to achieve meaningful change.Continue Reading
Les bienfaits des vacances et du repos ne sont plus à démontrer sur la santé physique et mentale. Pourtant, dans les faits, c’est un tout autre défi de s’arrêter pour plusieurs d’entre nous! Et cela semble d’autant plus vrai dans ce contexte de pandémie! L’observation de soi, le non-jugement et le respect de soi peuvent...Continue Reading
In recent months most of us have experienced an unprecedented amount of upheaval, and although it has happened that a client shares something that I have personally experienced, it is the first time that we have gone through such experiences “together”. Surprisingly, part of what has allowed me to get through these trying times is...Continue Reading
We are all going to slip into self-critical talk at times in the coming weeks or months; the challenge is to catch yourself doing it and see if you can practice compassionate self-talk some of the time; that, in and of itself, is an important thing that we can model for our children.Continue Reading
Understanding our own response to the unknown is the first step to helping us cope with our fears and deal with the potential risks of coronavirus with a level head...and without forgetting to breatheContinue Reading