Stress Management: How to reduce, prevent, and cope with stress

http://helpguide.org/mental/stress_management_relief_coping.htm

Every college student knows how stressful college can be. Here are a few very helpful strategies for how to deal with stress. 

They include:

Finding the source of your stress, starting a stress journal, changing your reaction to your stressor, eating a healthy diet,  and making time for relaxation. 

Please Click the link above for the entire article. I honestly thought it was really helpful and informative! 

*BTW, if you ever see any articles you think we may like, feel free to send it our way

Psychology in TV

This is an evaluation of the show United States of Tara, about a woman with Dissociative Identity/Multiple Personality Disorder.




When I first heard that they were going to make a show about a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and her family, I was intrigued. I consider myself a TV connosieur (as silly as that sounds) and I'd never seen a show that focused on someone with a mental illness and where all the storylines revolved around this mental illness. This show had lots of great potential to really open up people's eyes about Dissociative Personality Disorder, of which there is very little information about. However, it did not live up to the potential of what it could have been. 

I will get into the most detrimental mistake it made, which I would say was classifying itself as a sitcom, or comedy. As a family member who doesn't watch said, "why would you want to watch a show about something so depressing--especially a comedy?" It's kind of wrong--misplaced laughter at it's most. The mockery of a terrible sickness that is caused by serious childhood trauma--typically sexual abuse? That treads a very fine line  with a very sensitive topic that few people can do justice! 


It's as if the producers/writers thought "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to write about a woman with DID and all the funny adventures she gets into when she changes personalities! That's a fun show, right?" Now, as a viewer, why would I want to watch that? I mean really, Tara, the main character has two teenage children. Does anyone really think they're saying "Oh it's so fun when mom turns into Buck, a beer guzzling, motorcycle-driving man with a temper! Oh and T, that promiscuous, foul-mouthed teenager- so fun when mom becomes her!" That's not funny- and I promise-pinky promise that I have a sense of humor. There is one scene where Tara's teenage alter named T punches Tara's daughter. If that happened in real life Child Services would most definitely be called.  


I watched most of the episodes and I don't think I even laughed once. I mean this woman and her sister (who doesn't have the disorder)  were sexually abused as a child by their stepbrother, resulting in her mind being split into more than four different personalities---and I'm supposed to laugh at everything she has to go through? No, thank you. And her kids are shown being totally desensitized to this and act like this hasn't affected them negatively at all. It isn't until the third and final season that her son begins to lash out at her. Honestly, it probably would have happened sooner in real life. From her son, Marshall's point of view, she has ruined the family by going off her medication to find out what is the cause of her DID. He thinks his dad his awful for supposedly giving into his mother. Most people would think he is an admirable husband, but their son thinks he's pathetic. According to his own son, he should have left his wife and let her fend for herself. That sounds awful, but unfortunately that's probably how a lot of kids feel. 


You're probably thinking "Like you could've done any better!" No, probably not. But this show had the potential to tell a raw and heartbreaking story of a terrifying condition caused by horrible circumstances. Here are a few things that would have made this more  realistic. 


1) Of course, make the show a drama, not a comedy. Betcha didn't know I was gonna say that, right?


2)  Show more realistic develepment in the children's reactions towards their mentally ill mother. In USoT, The son's hatred of his mother and disdain for his father seemingly came out of  nowhere. The first two seasons, he didn't show a lot of negative reactions. Honestly, Tara loved and supported her kids (she was shown as completely supportive of her son being gay).  It didn't make sense that he went from being seemingly accepting to acting out by making about how bad his life. Not that I'm minimizing his feelings, but it just was not developed. 


3) Show her struggling to keep her transitions under control as she's trying to live her everyday life. 


4) Show her struggling to maintain relationships- with friends, family and possible boyfriends. 


5) Make it an educational mini-series of sorts. I know you may think "Why would I want to watch something educational?." But mental illness affects so many people, I really think it would speak to many viewers on a deep and personal level. 


Part of me thinks maybe there shouldn't have even been a show about DID in the first place. It is really a tragic disease caused by abuse at a young age. It would be nearly impossible to do it justice. However, part of me thinks it's a great way to educate people, because there is so little known about it. I just don't know... 


WHAT DO YOU THINK? Would you want to watch a TV show, let alone a comedy about a mental illness? And if you ever saw the show, what did you think of it?


Well, that's it for the ramblings of a bored psych major on summer break!

Psychology is art of the mind, here is some art of the world

All around the world, we are all people with the same thinking patterns, drives, motives, feelings, emotions................... yet we all live our lives so differently: THINK about all the places and the people who live in them, think about the way they live, think, do, act, share, hate, love and be: Look at all these beautiful pictures of places all around the world, and the lives that are lead in each picture

http://justpaste.it/3ky

How To Find True Happiness

Cultivating what gives you joy (From SparkPeople Healthy Reflections)
The easiest way to identify what our heart wants is to examine the feelings that surface when we relate to that subject. Do you find solace when picking up your journal to write a daily reflection? Does time spent with your family thrill you to tears? What feelings arise when you chase down the things that make your heart flutter? True happiness comes when we routinely engage in positive activities that we love. Take a look at your life as a whole. Pursue the things that make you feel alive and fill you with joy and healthy balance. 


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This is so true. I dare you to try this and let me know if it works :)

Quotes about Happiness

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness.  You have to catch it yourself.  ~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin


What a wonderful life I've had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner.  ~Colette


If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.  ~Dalai Lama


Happiness is the feeling you're feeling when you want to keep feeling it.  ~Author Unknown


You need to learn to be happy by nature, because you'll seldom have the chance to be happy by circumstance.  ~Lavetta Sue Wegman


I don't wanna' spend my life jaded
Waiting to wake up one day and find
That I've let all these years go by
Wasted
- Carrie Underwood



The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase:  if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.  ~C.P. Snow



As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: "What do I really need right now to be happy?" What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way. -- Sharon Salzberg


What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about "right" and "wrong," or "good" and "evil," and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?
-- Sam Harris



Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health. ---Julia Child


When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.
- Lee Ann Womack


Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.
- Anne Frank


The path to happiness is forgiveness of everyone and gratitude for everything.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Find out what mental illnesses two favorite disney princesses and Sherlock Holmes, AND the Real HouseWives may have had!

http://www.cracked.com/article_19336_6-beloved-characters-that-had-undiagnosed-mental-illnesses_p2.html--Characters from classic films

http://angelofdevs.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/rhonjs-caroline-manzo-obsessive-compulsive-personality-disorder/  The Real Housewives (come, on don't pretend like you've never watched :)

 *Disclaimer, I did not write either of these pieces, nor do I endorse every single one of their opinions. I am merely providing you the information. Enjoy :)