Psychology Today Column
A Few Empty Chairs Can Help You Find Your Purpose in Life
Key points Differentiating between other people's dreams for you and your own unique desires can be hard. A gestalt therapy empty chair technique session can help you uncover what your own dream in life is. Uncovering your purpose in life might bring you increased...
7 Types of Foods That Can Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
Key points Close to 50 percent of American adults have high blood pressure, which can lead to kidney failure and stroke. Seven types of foods can lower blood pressure, such as magnesium-rich nuts and seeds. Also, potassium-rich foods, such as avocados, can decrease...
Five Secret Tools for a Happy Relationship
Key points It's important for couples to explore meaning, purpose, strength together as well as individually. It may sound paradoxical, but partners in happy relationships should be able to express unhappiness. Also important is the amount of quality time spent not...
How to Push Your Hidden Buttons For Happiness
Key points The key to finding your hidden happy buttons is to use the "categorical perception power" of the brain. Research shows that, depending on which category you place a particular picture or situation in, the feeling triggered will be different. Sharing your...
The Simple Technique That Relieved My Anxiety and Depression
Key points The gestalt therapy chair technique can help people express repressed, censored, or ignored parts of themselves. Expressing different parts of us can be like creating magnificent melodies on a piano, each melody being a stunning scream from the heart. "I...
A Creative Recipe to Better Appreciate Life
How to use imagination to appreciate what we have. Why do we often only appreciate what we have after it’s gone? Why can’t we appreciate what we have while we still have it? Is there a recipe to do so? When I was married to my late husband, Steve, we had a very...
8 Subtle Clues You Are Ignoring Your True Desires
Physical ailments can arise when you don't pursue cherished dreams and values.Are you sick all the time without your doctors finding why? Do you have low energy while all your blood tests, radiology, and physical exams are normal? There are numerous explanations for...
4 Tips for Great Sex After 50
Intimacy can improve mental and physical health in middle age and beyond. As we move from middle age into old age, we tend to have sex less often, if at all. But that doesn't have to be true for you. A study conducted by Stacey Lindau, M.D., and colleagues,...
4 Counterintuitive Secrets of the Happiest Relationships
Key points Some studies show that single people live less long and are less healthy than people who are happily married. Other recent studies show that sacrificing for the other and hiding emotions may be harmful for the relationship in the long run. To create a happy...
9 Tools to Limit Anxiety and Avoid Depression
2. Listen to what people say about you. The percentage of adults with recent symptoms of anxiety or depression increased from 36.4 to 41.5 percent in the U.S. between August 2020 and February 2021, with the largest increases among adults 18 to 29, according to...