Imagine being able to stop worrying and find anxiety relief, even for a moment. Sometimes those moments bring a sense of peace and calm, allowing you to feel happy that your anxious thoughts, feelings, and experiences are leaving you alone. The quiet space is a reminder that, despite how it can seem, the work you're doing to move past anxiety and worries will pay off. In the meantime, there are times when your anxiety may spike and you just need a way to relieve anxiety and stop worrying now, in the moment. Here are 30 little ways to help you find relief when you need it. 

Have you ever noticed how depression can make us feel alone, even when we're surrounded by people? Sometimes it doesn't even matter if the people around us are our closest friends or family members. We may even be talking and laughing; we appear to be having fun, yet, on the inside, our depression has us feeling completely alone. How do we cope when this happens? Are our coping mechanisms always healthy?

There are many different techniques to build self-esteem, from various forms of therapy to self-help exercises. But sometimes, what we really need to build self-esteem is increased connection with others. For people living with self-esteem, it can sometimes feel like you’re the only one struggling with this problem. But the reality is that many people also live with low self-esteem, whether that’s because of a mental health condition or as a standalone issue.

A few months ago I underwent eye muscle surgery to better align my eyes. This is a problem I have struggled with since birth, so it really gave my confidence a boost to look in the mirror and see straight eyes. The surgery was elective and something I really had to ask for.

This post was particularly difficult for me to write because mental health hospitalization is not easy to talk about thanks to mental health hospitalization stigma. This stigma is profound, and both the stigma and the hospitalization itself places great strain on both the individual requiring treatment and their loved ones. I struggled with what to write, who to write it for, and if I should even post at all. If you know me or have read my page, you will know that I write for HealthyPlace because my husband has a mental illness. He has a diagnosis of schizophrenia. He also writes for HealthyPlace as a coauthor of "Creative Schizophrenia." Since his last hospitalization, we moved halfway across the country, had our third child, bought a house to renovate, found good jobs, and learned to work through his minor relapses. A couple of days ago, his condition deteriorated. He suffered a significant relapse and displayed signs of dealing with a significant psychotic episode. Even though I blog about coping with a family member's mental illness, I dreaded what came next and the response from those around us. As I drove him to the hospital, I felt the sting of stigma over his mental health hospitalization.

You've probably noticed that you feel good when you are kind to others, but did you know that regular acts of kindness change your brain over time? There is a lot of fascinating research out there on the health benefits of kindness. Let's explore how kindness changes the brain, so we can all be kinder, healthier, and happier.

Most mainstream films offer stereotypical representations of people with eating disorders. It’s important for our storytellers to start offering honest and responsible portrayals of eating disorders that speak to a wider spectrum of people.

Being honest in therapy is much easier said than done. Even though we go to therapy because we want help, there may be certain things we've never discussed with anyone, let alone a complete stranger. Or if you're like me, it's not that you don't want to be honest, it's that you get all turned around in your head the moment you walk into the office and completely forget what you were going to say. For others, you may never have had a person you could truly be honest with, and now you aren't sure how to go about it.

It's 3:00 AM, and I can't sleep. I'm sitting in the commons area of an eerily quiet psychiatric hospitalization unit while I recover from a relatively severe psychotic break. I wasn't going to blog this week because, well, the obvious. On top of that, all I have is pen and paper. No Internet access. But my wife still managed to post this week despite taking me to the hospital and picking up the slack in my absence. It is good to emulate one's heroes, and I can think of no greater her than my wife. I just wish I were a little more like her. But I have to remember that psychiatric hospitalization does not denote weakness. 

While there are many people in the world who continue to stigmatize mental health, sometimes the most trying situations come from dealing with the people in our immediate lives who continue to spread stigma. There are a number of ways to handle people who approach mental health from a perspective of stigma, but here are 2 easy ways that you can deal with the people in your life.