The Wellness Diary

Insights, advice, new research, tips and tricks, and new resources to help you with your mental health journey.

#blog Sandra Kushnir #blog Sandra Kushnir

Relaxation Techniques: Tips On How To Reduce Stress

Relaxation is not only about peace of mind or about enjoying a hobby. Relaxation is a process that decreases the effects of stress on your mind and body as well. Relaxation techniques can indeed help you cope with everyday stress and even with stress related to various health problems, such as heart diseases, stress and pain.

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Toxic Positivity: It’s Okay To Not Be Okay

Toxic positivity refers to a pattern of behavior wherein a person adopts a lifestyle that engages in being positive at all points of time no matter what, because ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. It involves rejecting the negative triggers of your life, thus investing all your attention and energy into the positive stimulants. How come a lifestyle that sounds like a mental detox, be labeled as toxic?

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An Open Letter To My Fellow Women

Women have been pitted against one another for centuries. Whether it be for the attention of men, careers, looks, or even family life, women are no strangers to the fight. Moving forward, we have turned our fight from one another to the betterment of our own and to nurture the quality of our society.

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How To Silence Your Inner Critic

Your inner critic is the voice inside your head that judges, demeans, and disapproves of your thoughts and actions. This voice is a manifestation of your fears and doubts. In fact, The New York Times notes that people beat themselves up because of a negative value they've attached to past experiences. This self-criticism can easily lead to poor mental wellbeing, low self-esteem, and a greater risk of failure.

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6-Reasons Why You Say You Can’t Meditate, and Why You Actually Can 

We have so many excuses as to why we avoid the practice of meditation. We hear all the benefits and the research describing how it can positively impact your life, your mood, and your overall health, but the excuses just keep coming. Here are 6 reasons why someone will avoid practicing meditation that I have heard throughout my years as a clinician, and what to do or say to combat your avoidance and get yourself to start believing you can meditate.

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How To Use Self-Compassion As A Motivator

Before we go into how self-compassion can help motivate you to take positive action towards your life, let’s first learn about what self-compassion is.  What does it mean to treat ourselves with self-compassion?

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The Cost Of Having Gossipy Friends

Why might some friends be so quick to judge others? to judge you? It’s possible that they have developed a sort of critical reflex to process the world around them, after being conditioned to pass judgment on anything and everything that comes their way.

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8-Benefits of Yoga and Holistic Wellness

There are numerous schools of thought of what “holistic wellness” includes, but typically they are comprised of eight crucial parts in one’s life: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, occupational, financial and environmental.

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How To Reclaim Your New Year’s Resolutions   

We've all been there, starting our "new year, new me" chants and captions. We start out strong and somewhere along the way we lose our fire for our New Year’s resolutions.  However, with the start of a new decade, it's time to change up our patterns and try different tactics to stand strong and continue to honor our commitments and intentions for the next 10 years.

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Signs of Depression in Men

Depression is a significant problem in today's generation, especially among men. Women and children generally express their thoughts, but men, unfortunately, don't have the liberty to do so. No matter how much we sweep this topic under the rug, the fact is that even men are the victims of social stigma and stereotyping. Masculinity is often associated with not exhibiting their emotions.

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4-WAYS TO DATE MORE MINDFULLY

Recent years have proven to be a challenge for many to understand and fully comprehend how to navigate being single and on the market. With apps like Tinder launching in 2012 there was a sudden rise in “hook up” culture and singles everywhere were unsure if they were entering something casual or a passionate love affair.

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4-Mindful Morning Rituals To Start Now

The way we start off our mornings can really affect how we take in the rest of our day. It can be really easy to get into a morning routine that feels like we’re on auto-pilot. Practicing mindfulness has been shown to decrease anxiety over time, so adding some sort of mindfulness practice to the mornings can have a positive effect on the rest of our day.

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8-Simple Tips for Getting Into a Healthy Sleep Routine This Month

Sleep is like a good mattress—you never realize how good it is until you don’t have it. Interrupted sleep can be extremely frustrating for both children and adults. Not only can it leave you grouchy and fatigued for your day, but it can affect children’s mental development and behavioral psyche.

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3-Easy and Calming Thought Exercises You Can Do Before Bed

Falling asleep becomes such a challenge when we feel like our thoughts are racing at night, or we struggle with managing anxiety.  There are ways to quiet our minds and calm our bodies before bed. Following these three calming thought exercises before bed can make all the difference in strengthening our ability to fall asleep, stay asleep and get some good, restful sleep.

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3-Simple Routines For A Healthier Lifestyle

You have to dedicate time to work on your health. With small lifestyle changes like adding more exercise to your routine you can up-level your health drastically, you can even start with investing 50-60 minutes a week! If you include these 3 simple tweaks in your routine, they will start putting you on the right path towards better health!

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How To Create a Balanced Life in a Season of Chaos and Stress

You can’t wrap up all the loose ends at once, and you can’t expect everything to ever be perfect. Don’t set yourself up for failure and disappointment by setting unrealistic long-term goals on a short-term schedule. Instead, start with these five simple ways to steadily chip away at the disorder in your life.

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