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10/30/2014

Managing Stress - Stress in the Workplace Part I 

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I recently read an article that reached me both on a personal and professional level.  The article can be found on the Business Insider website if you go to Why Americans Are Stressed Out at Work.   In the news article, it reported a statistic from the American Psychological Association that more than 8 in 10 Americans are “stressed out” by their jobs.  If this statistic is even close to being true, that’s a staggering figure!

The article goes on to discuss some of the top reasons why people are stressed at work:

  • low pay

  • increase workload

  • work-place bullying

  • long commutes


How stress affects us:

  • physical health

  • mental health

  • increased social isolation

  • conflict with family /spouse / friends


Physical manifestations of stress:

  • headaches

  • appetite fluctuations

  • fatigue

  • muscle tension

  • upset stomach

  • change in sex drive

  • teeth grinding


Release of Stress Hormones that impact our general physical health

  • There are three stress hormones,  adrenaline,  cortisol and norepinephrine, that are responsible for our fight/flight/freeze response when faced with a perceived threat.  These hormones play a critical function at appropriate times and are released into the bloodstream to increase our heart rate and energy level.  However, if these hormones are present over long and chronic periods of time, the potential for hypertension and cardiovascular disease increases.  The damaging effects to  the heart and cardiovascular system are increased even more when you consider that many people respond to stress by smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, both of which have been shown to have significant negative health implications. Stress even interferes with our immune system making us more susceptible to illness and disease.  

Recognizing Stress in the Workplace

  • Irritability

  • Lack of interest in work

  • Feeling overwhelmed

  • Perceived lack of control over workload

  • Avoiding peers or supervisors

  • Anxiety and/or depression


What you can do to manage stress in the workplace

  • Evaluate your career goals in relation to where you are in your current job.  Do they match?  Do you enjoy what you do?  Do you believe you are fairly compensated for what you do?  Are you able to take reasonable time off for family, leisure, vacation?  The answers to these questions can help guide you to decisions that may help you with managing work related stress.  

  • Take care of yourself.  If you haven’t done so already, please read my blog on 10 Things You Can Do (right now) to Maintain Good Mental Health

  • Take your lunch break

  • Avoid over committing yourself.  Be realistic about what you can accomplish in the time allotted for work.  When you can, delegate or ask for assistance with large projects.  

  • Take large projects and break them down into smaller manageable steps to help with a sense of progress and completion. 


  • Think before you act.  Avoid those impulsive, in-the-heat-of-the-moment knee-jerk reactions to demands, ultimatums, or stressful situations.  Take a day or two if necessary.  Talk with a peer or supervisor before saying or doing something that might have long term career implications.  

  • Reward yourself for a job well done.  Take the time to recognize your own accomplishments and take pride in your work.  It can go a long way in improving a negative disposition in the workplace.  

While many would agree that their work environment is stressful, it certainly isn't the only thing that is stressful in our lives;  financial obligations, work/family balance, increasing and competing demands on our time, relationship difficulties, and personal loss are just a few things that are challenging to many.  

The way one responds to stress varies widely from individual to individual. Let’s face it, stress is inevitable.  Everybody experiences it.  I can recall many times in recent memory where I've had to step outside myself and think, “You really could have handled that better than you did.”  Sometimes we aren't even aware that we are stressed.   In these instances it usually takes someone close to us may bring it to our awareness. .  Even then,  often enough pretend that everything is “fine”, that we aren't troubled, and that if we just “push through”, the troubling situation will eventually pass.  We often become very good at this and the stress, which really hasn't gone away by the way, becomes something that we get used to and ignore.  Yet the body is aware, and frequently lets us know.  We simply dismiss those sleepless nights, worrying and ruminating thoughts, frequent headaches, fatigue, and muscle cramps and chalk it up to, “that’s just the way it is right now,”  & “it will pass.”  

While we all experience stress, there are many individuals who cope well and are successful in learning to adapt and change in response to stressful situations, rather than letting it overtake their lives.   Stress can actually be a good thing in a way in that it can serve as an indicator or alert that something in our immediate environment is not right and change needs to occur.  I believe that the difference for those individuals who are expert stress managers is that they are more self-aware and recognize the healthy changes that need to take place and are able to make these changes as needed.  Furthermore I believe these individuals are able to re-frame a stressful situation and avoid the negative self-talk that is so often the culprit of poor self care and poor choices.  These individuals are better able to take control of a situation rather than letting that situation take control of them.  If you are interested in learning more about individuals who cope well with stress, you can find more information in the article in Psychology Today titled, 10 Traits of Emotionally Resilient People.   


  Check back next week for Part II of Managing Stress



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10/17/2014

Ten Things You Can Do (right now) to Maintain Good Mental Health

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Thanks to all who read and responded to my last blog.  It was wonderful to hear the positive comments people shared.   It was very personal and it's never easy to put one’s self out there like that.  As I wrote the blog for this week, I have to say that I enjoyed it more than I thought.  Its very satisfying being able to write about something that you are knowledgeable about and love. Hopefully you will find the following ideas informative and helpful.  I also hope that it generates some ideas for yourself as well.   As you read through these, you may comment to yourself, “I knew that!”  The bigger question is “Are you doing any of these things?”  Yes, I know, sometimes its easier said than done.  Yet, some of these things take very little effort and yield surprisingly positive results.  You can always come up with excuses not to try.  “I’m too busy.” or  “Work, school, kids, or routine, leaves me little time for anything else.”  But ask yourself, what’s the worst that could happen if you tried?  What’s the best that could happen?  And finally, what’s realistic?  Have any additional words of wisdom?  Please share at the end of this post!


  1. Stay Connected. - Let’s face it (no not let’s Facebook), we are social creatures.  If we aren’t connected, if we don’t have at least one meaningful relationship that we nurture and work at, we aren’t grounding ourselves, and we can become down and isolated.  Isolation can often lead to, or be the result of depression.  Try to surround yourself with people that are positive and who enrich your life.  If you haven’t reached out to that friend or family member in awhile, what’s holding you back? Again, what’s the worst that could happen?  Friends and family know us best and can be great sources of support when we need them most.  Facebook is OK, but next time you connect with a friend there, suggest a get together or some activity you both enjoy.  Also, seek out new people in activities such as a social club, class, or support group.                               
  2. Eat Well. - There are so many benefits to a healthy diet.  For example, foods rich in Folic Acid and/or B12, such as beans, greens, meats, fish, poultry and dairy have shown potential positive effects on mood, and can potentially prevent some central nervous system disorders such as dementia.  Eating at least 2 servings of fruits and vegetables every day has a high correlation with overall improved functional health.  Eating whole grains that usually contain the mineral Selenium, which is an antioxidant, has also shown some promising results.  Several studies have yielded positive correlations in decreased problems with depression with those individuals that consume foods high in antioxidants.  Try eating more beans, legumes, lean meats, nuts, and seafood to increase your Selenium intake. Vitamin D deficiencies have also been correlated with several mood disorders, including PMS, Major Depressive Disorder, and Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as “The Winter Blah’s”   Short spans of sun exposure and eating salmon, tuna, cheese, and eggs can boost your Vitamin D levels.  Oh, I almost forgot:  CHOCOLATE!  Yes, dark chocolate in particular can have the effect of boosting those “feel good” chemicals” in the brain called “endorphins.”  Some studies have also shown that small amounts of this tantalizing delicacy can also have anti-clogging properties to our arteries.  But please remember the rule, all good things in moderation.   Avoid, large portions of high sugary foods that can boost your mood for a short time but then leave you feeling tired and lethargic after about an hour or so.  Instead, use foods high in complex carbohydrates for sources of energy that are better utilized by your body.  Some studies have also suggested that foods high in saturated fats can also increase depressed feelings in a person.  So its OK to treat yourself on occasion, but do so moderately.                                                                                                                                     
  3. Exercise - Exercise has a way of helping us increase or sense of well-being and adds to our overall belief that we are doing something that is good for us.  It is also a basic requirement for our bodies to function at their best.  Research has repeatedly shown that exercise also has the added benefit of releasing in large quantities those “feel good” chemicals, endorphins, that are our body’s own built-in painkillers.  The nice thing is that you don’t have to go out and run a marathon to reap the benefits of endorphins; 15-30 minutes of moderate activity can bring about these wonderful neurotransmitters, as long as you are increasing your heart rate to a moderately safe level.   Exercise is also a nice way of being able to get away, have “me time”, and distract ourselves from the daily stress and grind that we so often find ourselves in.  It can also be meditative which in itself is beneficial to our mental health.  Joining an athletic club can not only have benefits to your physical health but there’s a social aspect to it as well.                                   
  4. Time Out - Admittedly, we all need a break now and then.  I would say this should occur at least twice per day when we pause from our daily routine.  Sometimes even 5 or 10 minutes away from stressful situations at work or at home is all we need to collect our thoughts and re-focus ourselves in ways that are both beneficial to our mood and help us to be more productive.  Sometimes trying to “push-through” and work ourselves into a state of “zombie-like coma” can have diminishing results.  If we are tired, hungry, or stressed, we are not as productive, and our critical thinking and sense of judgment starts to decline.  So take a break.  If you haven’t had a vacation in awhile, take one.  At minimum, take a mini one or two-day vacation to mentally and physically unwind.  During your work day, try not to work through your lunch.  Instead, take the time that you are owed to unwind and recharge your batteries.  You may be surprised at how much more productive you feel if you do.                                                                                          
  5. Sleep - Sometimes sleep is an elusive goal for us at various times in our lives.  There is certainly overwhelming studies that correlate problems with sleep with mood difficulties.  To ensure your best chances of getting a restorative full-night’s sleep, try the following

  • Try reading in bed instead of watching TV.  Also, try to avoid reading from a backlit device as this light will confuse your brain that its not time for sleep yet.

  • Make your room where you sleep as dark as possible.  Also, try to increase your light exposure during the day time hours.  

  • Whenever possible, avoid alcoholic beverages before bedtime.  They have the paradoxical effect of making you drowsy for the first hour or so and inducing sleep more quickly, but it reduces your time in a stage of sleep  called REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) which is the type of sleep when you dream.  REM sleep has been shown in research as a form of restorative sleep everyone needs to feel refreshed in the morning.  If you're not getting it, you may feel more tired in the morning.  In addition, once the effects of alcohol wears off after a few hours, you may wake up feeling restless and unsettled as the chemical after-effects of alcohol kick in, making it that much more difficult to return to sleep.

  • Set a regular bedtime and wake up at the same time every day.

  • Keep your room cool.

  • As a rule of thumb, try to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night.  If you get less than that, and if you have the opportunity, take a short nap during the day, (not in the evening before you go to bed however.)

  • Remember, evening time is the time to unwind.   If you are increasing your activity at night, it will be harder for you to unwind and convince your body that it is time to rest.  

  • Cut or reduce the caffeine and cigarettes.                                                                                            
 6. Get outside and enjoy nature  - The next time that you are on a nature hike, or at a park, or during a moment when you are observing something in nature, take a moment to recognize the impact it has on your thinking and mood.  No, don’t pick up your phone to answer that text or email.  Unplug and allow Mother Nature, one of the most accessible abundant resources around to work her magic on your disposition and mood.  Nature can be energizing, it can be calming, it can be meditative, and it certainly can be therapeutic.  Take advantage of all she has to offer.

 7. Talk about your thoughts and feelings. - It isn’t always easy to share when something is bothering us.  It sometimes feels risky to allow our vulnerabilities to be seen by someone else.  While it is a risk, it is also immensely therapeutic under the right circumstances.  In order for this to work, you need to have someone you trust with whom you  can talk about and share your personal thoughts and concerns.  Start with a close friend or family member who you know will not violate your trust.  If you are not comfortable with this, a pastor, minister, or support group are nice alternatives. Counselors and therapists are very good objective listeners who are trained to not let personal bias interfere with the therapeutic process and can be very helpful in helping you arrive at solutions that you might not have tired when facing a personal problem or dilemma.  

 8. Pay attention to the running ticker tape of thoughts going through your brain.
There are literally thousands of thoughts that cross our minds every day.  The National   Science Foundation estimates that number to be somewhere in the ballpark of 50,000!  How can we possibly keep track of it all.  The truth is that many of these thoughts are recurring ideas that get recycled over and over again that influence how we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us.   Our beliefs about ourselves affect our thinking, our thinking affects our moods, which in turn influence our core beliefs.  The next time you are feeling happy, confident, or enthusiastic, pay attention to what your train of thoughts are at the time.  Maybe you had just finished a To Do List and are thinking a sense of accomplishment that influences your self-esteem.  Maybe you just had dinner with a group of friends.  Your thoughts could be, “I belong and they like me.”   On the other end of the spectrum, by not reaching out to others and isolating yourself, you may be reinforcing negative thinking such as “What’s the point, everyone is too busy anyway and no one has time for me.”  This in turn influences feelings of loneliness and despair.   These thoughts and feelings may or may not be realistic.  Yet it is the subjective perception of the person experiencing these thoughts that counts.  If negative thoughts are permitted to continue, this can have profound impact on a person’s mood.  Learning how to recognize and break this cycle of thinking is very important to maintaining good mental health.

 9. Help someone else in need. -  There are few things in life that can be more satisfying     in recognizing someone in need and being able to help satisfy that need.  It can add meaning and purpose to your life as well as a sense of accomplishment and improved self-worth.  It is also a way of connecting with others and maintaining the quality of relationships with those that are important in your life.  Helping others helps boost our need of feeling valued and important and boosts our self esteem.  Volunteering has often shown very positive results, not only for the one being helped, but for the helper as well.  It helps us remain connected and add friends to our lives.  It also can help us learn new skills and even advance our careers or personal goals.  

10. Do What You Love. Need a boost to your self esteem?  Feeling as if you haven’t had any significant successes lately?   Its time to return to what you know you can do well.  Being able to recognize your strengths and what you love to do is important to building and maintaining self-esteem and ego strength.  Often what we love to do is also what we are good at.  It helps us enjoy ourselves and our abilities.  In the every increasingly busy world in which we live, our demands on our time seems constantly bombarded with competing tasks and agendas.  Make sure you are carving some of that time for what you like to do and what you enjoy.  

There are certainly many things that  you can do besides the 10 listed above to maintain good mental health.  If there is something that works for you, please feel free to share and post a comment.    




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10/13/2014

The Road Less Traveled - Daring to Test Your Boundaries

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Wow!  This is a little, scary.  OK, maybe more than just a little.  After 23 years working in community mental health, and practicing as a licensed clinician for over 15 years, I’ve finally decided to go my own path and chase my dream of creating and running my own practice.  Almost three weeks ago I decided to resign my position at the local  community mental health agency.  It was there that I managed nearly a dozen clinical professionals from therapists to case managers.  Now, I’m going it on my own.  It wasn’t easy getting to this point but sometimes we need a little push from an unexpected source to move us in the direction of our goals.  Simply stated, I wasn’t happy working in community mental health anymore; always trying to do more with less, and not being able to live up to my own standards of what I believed a good clinician should be. There always seemed to be not enough of me, no time to plan and work through solutions,  not enough hours in the day to meet my own expectations of what I needed to accomplish on a daily basis.  I wasn’t the kind of supervisor and clinician I wanted to be in the face of ever increasing demands.  More importantly, work became so taxing I felt I wasn’t being the kind of father and husband to my family that I could be.  Every night coming home I felt mentally drained.  I wasn’t spending the amount of quality time with my family that I wanted, or that they deserved.  There was comfort in knowing that I would be paid on a regular basis, every two weeks, yet I began to question if that was enough.  I began to realize that financial security, while certainly very important, doesn’t always equate to personal meaning and self-fulfillment in life.   So rather than continue down this road, I made one of the boldest moves of my life. I resigned and started to plan growing my own practice.   


Don’t misunderstand me.   There are amazing and wonderful professionals who work in community mental health agencies across the country who do very important things  and help others in countless ways.  They work for modest compensation and work long hours to provide services to the ever growing population of individuals who suffer from mental illness and emotional difficulties.  I have always respected and enjoyed working and collaborating with these professionals. They are an extremely talented and creative bunch of individuals fulfilling a great need in our society.  Hopefully some of them are reading this now.  If you are, let me express my sincere gratitude for all that you do and how much of a pleasure it has been to work with you.  For me, all I can say is that it was time to channel my strengths and abilities in a way that I believe I could be more effective.  I simply wanted to be in a position where I could offer help to others on my own terms and according to my own values and beliefs.  I’ve always enjoyed building and creating things.  While this is an ambitious venture, it is exciting to think about creating and building something that can provide value and meaning to others in the community in which I live.  


I’ve worn many hats.   I’ve been a residential manager in a group home for individuals with mental illness.  I’ve been a case manager, a therapist, an administrator, a clinical supervisor, an assessment specialist,  a managed care professional, a parent educator, a group facilitator, a trainer, a public speaker, and a director.   What I’ve come to appreciate is that regardless of my role, what gave me purpose and meaning in all of these  positions is the notion of being able to counsel others to be successful in their lives; be it as a therapist, or as a supervisor,  helping another professional in their growth and development as a clinician in meeting the needs of the clients they serve.  We all need purpose and meaning in our lives.  Sometimes its easy to see what provides us that meanings, other times its more elusive. I’m fortunate enough to know what that is for me.  What is also exciting is helping others discover this for themselves.  I hope to be able to continue to do this in a very new way and one that will test my own boundaries as a professional, and as a person.  Part of growing as a person means testing where you think your limitations and abilities lie, and then pushing beyond them.  This is where growth and new potential are discovered.  


Sometimes we need to venture outside our comfort zones to realize our potential   Well, here I am, in a place far from my comfort zone.  Its at the  intersection of Opportunity Drive and Potential Boulevard in the big state of Unknown Possibility.  (I think its the “unknown” part that prevented me to actually commit to action the plans I had contemplated for so long.)  I imagine its like that for many others as well, afraid of failure.  Its not easy running your own business or making any big change in your life for that matter.   Fear of success.  What if I get in over my head?  Where are my limitations anyway?  What might I have to sacrifice?  How will it impact my relationship with my family?  How well will I adjust to this new role?  How stressful will it be and will I be able to manage it?  When you think about it, fear of success is really still fear of failure.  For me, it means the possibility of getting in over my head and not being able to live up to my own or others’ expectations.  However, my family, friends and colleagues have been immensely supportive.  Their encouraging words have contributed greatly to my confidence and provided the affirmation I needed to know that this journey will be a successful one. I feel assured that I have all the tools I need to make this dream a reality.  It wasn’t easy getting to this point.  I’ve been here before.  But I’ve never made the commitment to follow my dream as I have this time.  At times I’ve been dubious and even afraid.   But  I’m here now.  Now I have a new office, one I can truly call my own; tastefully decorated thanks to my wife of 11 years who also happens to be an interior designer.  I’m ready to move forward with the next chapter in my life.  I’m ready to start seeing individuals, families, couples, adults and children, and find ways that allow them, and myself, to Keep Moving Forward.  


That’s the name of my practice by the way, Keep Moving Forward Counseling & Consulting LLC.  While some may find the name unique and catchy, to me it means something quite more.  Its part of my vision not only for myself, but representing my approach to counseling others.   Often times in life I have found myself discouraged by a lack of success in one way or another.  I certainly have been discouraged by a lack of achieving what I wanted countless times over.   I imagine for many, not achieving one’s goals may lead to a sense of futility, of simply giving up.  I have been there.  Everyone has or will be at some point in time in their lives.  In the broadest sense, there are two ways that one can respond to failure.  The first is to simply give up.  It didn’t work.  There’s no point in trying again.  This is the kind of negative self talk that occurs in one’s mind that solidifies and guarantees that success will never be achieved.   The second is to take a lesson from that failure.  Don’t give up, but learn from what didn’t work and apply a different solution to the problem.  This may happen dozens of times until success is achieved.  Without perseverance, success often remains out of one’s reach.   Albert Einstein said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”  It's easy to get discouraged from failure.   Lacking an adequate support network makes it even more difficult.  Yet valuable lessons can be learned from a failed attempt at something great.  Those individuals that are most successful probably don’t consider the word “failure” in their lexicon.  They simply see efforts that don’t achieve their objective as lessons to apply to their next attempt.  And they Keep Moving Forward.  


Which brings me to how I came up with the name for my business.  Bear with me as ideas come from the strangest places.   Years ago, I was once watching a family movie with my toddler son.   Now I must embarrassingly reveal two things: one is that the movie was pretty outlandish, as modern children’s movies often are;  and two is that I enjoy children’s cartoons.  However, this one held my attention quite well and I drew an important lesson from the deeper meaning of the movie.  It was about a young orphan boy who was extremely bright and on his way to becoming a talented inventor.  However, he became discouraged by a rather significant failure in one of his inventions, which he hoped to use to help him remember and help locate the identity of his birth mother.  He felt so miserable after this failed attempt that meant so much to him that he decided to give up at making any other attempts at building things.   It would have ended there for the boy and his dream except for an unexpected encounter with a stranger that would lead him down a different path.  And through the magic of animation and a little bit of imagination of the producers, the boy was able to see into the future a new family, of which he was the center.   This was a family of inventors and innovators just like himself, with more failures than successes in their creative endeavors.  They were immensely supportive of each other in their efforts to build and create new and interesting things, and they never became discouraged when their attempts didn’t work.  They saw each failure as another step towards success.  The boy learned that what matters is that you never stop trying; that you learn just as much from your failures as you do your successes.  And he learned one more important thing.  He learned that he wasn’t as alone as he had felt he was and that there were meaningful relationships all around him if he just took the time and effort necessary to nurture those relationships.  


As a final thought, there was a quote at the end of the movie that tied it together for me very nicely.  “We keep moving forward, opening new doors and trying new things, because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”    - Walt Disney  


Post Script:  Here endeth my first attempt at a blog.   Funny word “blog”.  It sounds like some weird character from a 1950’s science fiction movie.   I hope that my future attempts at blogging are more practical and relate specifically to practical ways of maintaining good mental health.  But for all intents and purposes, I wanted the reader to learn a little about me and hopefully gain some insight as to the kind of therapist I am.  


Thanks for reading.  I’m open to your feedback.  But please be kind.  Critical and complimentary comments are fine but malicious ones are not welcome.  I hope to write at least weekly so look for my next blog sometime in the coming week.  

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    Brent Bernard is a Master's Level Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor with over 25 years of experience in the state of Ohio.  

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