Lisa Find Love

We’ve all had them — one of “those” days. And for singles, having one of “those” days might include one of “those” dates. Bad days–and the occasional bad date–are unavoidable.

Here are 15 effective ways to better handle life’s hassles:

1. Identify your style. Are you a night owl or a morning lark? Are you a creature of habit or do you hate routine? Knowing these things about yourself will help you get more out of every area of life.  

2. Plan ahead. A little foresight goes a long way. So do some research on that must-try restaurant before you find yourself facing a two-hour wait (and a frustrated date).

3. And have a backup plan. You wouldn’t prepare a presentation without backing it up. Apply this same mentality to your dating life, and expect the unexpected. If that concert gets rained out, have an alternative ready to go.

4. Make an appointment with yourself. Give yourself a set amount of time each day to get organized. That way, you can enjoy yourself when it’s time to relax.

5. Be your own best friend. Dating can be challenging and sometimes hard on your self-esteem. So resist the urge to be your own worst critic. Self-reflection is one thing, self-scrutiny is another.

6. Unwind. If you’re constantly on the go, it may be time to slow down. Take your date someplace relaxing and soak in the peace and quiet — together.

7. Give thanks. Even when you’re in a rough patch, there’s a lot to be thankful for. Set aside regular times to recall the things you love about yourself, your life, your job, and your social circle. 

8. Lend a hand. One of the best remedies for feeling burdened is to give back. Going above and beyond for another person can enhance every relationship, and benefit you in the process.

9. Get perspective. Don’t be afraid to ask friends and family for feedback. Maybe they can see something you don’t. 

10. Live (and date) within your means. So many of life’s anxieties could be avoided by creating and sticking to a budget. Finding creative and inexpensive ways to live and date will reduce stress while adding joy.

11. Don’t date while distracted. Multitasking makes everything more difficult and less enjoyable. Disconnect from your devices and recharge with the person in front of you.

12. Act the way you want to feel. Most of us tend to think that our feelings dictate our actions, but the truth is just the opposite. Whether you’re at the office or out on the town, remember: If you want to be interested, you need to behave like you already are.

13. Scale back. If your life is bursting at the seams, you can be sure that the seam will soon split. Pare down your obligations so when an opportunity presents itself (either at work or play), you’re able to take it.

14. End the night on the right note. You may be having the time of your life, but it’s important to know when to call it a night. Quality sleep is the fuel you need to rise to tomorrow’s challenges.

15. Laugh about it. Turn that tedious work meeting into a hilarious dinner date topic. Odds are good that you’re not the only one who needs a laugh after a rough day.

Two wheeled bicycle

waiting to be ridden

Are you something I must try,

or fruit that is forbidden?

With thoughts of falling over,

I shake and you’re unsteady

Do I climb upon your seat,

or come back when I’m ready?

Clinging to the handlebar

I pedal up and down

Shall I smile fearlessly,

or wear a somber frown?

Reassuring adult hands

appear to comfort me

Now will I lose my balance

or defy Earth’s gravity?

– The Balancing Act, from Psychoetry by Brian Wohlmuth

This is one of over a dozen original poems in Brian Wohlmuth’s book, Psychoetry: Lessons in Poetic Parenting. This warm and insightful book offers an overview of parenting children from infancy through adolescence, each chapter accented by a poem. The book delivers a quick read — each chapter only a page or two, which may be just the right length for a busy, sleep-deprived parent. Chapter topics range from separation anxiety and trust to bullying and loss, important topics in the life of a developing child.

Wohlmuth knows what he’s writing about — he is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a Master’s in Psychological Counseling, and over 25 years of experience working with families as well as specializing in children and teens with special needs. He brings this knowledge to the bear in this book, combining poetry and prose in a light but meaningful text.

The chapter Divide and Conquer begins with the poem Day One. “Amidst the tears/ you’ve dried for years/ You said, ‘Don’t cry/ Give this a try/ You’ll be alright/ out of my sight/ Do what they say/ Make friendly play/ And share the toys/ with girls and boys…/ Then as I feared/ you disappeared…” Wohlmuth uses this as an opening to discuss the challenges a child faces when beginning to separate from his or her parents and how, as parents, we can support them. He outlines the need for encouragement, companionship and also emotional containment as the child begins to individuate. He offers simple activities, such as role-playing the separation, sharing stories, and providing structure in order to facilitate this process.

Another chapter, Food for Thought, opens with the entertaining little poem Food F(l)ight. He writes, “Flying spoon to control/ this is feeding patrol/ radar spies two small lips pressing tight/ The hanger is closed/ All commands are opposed/ Captain Broccoli is not a delight;/ Using similar tact/ on a fantasy track/ locomotive with cargo are steaming/ The tunnel is blocked/ Baby teeth firmly locked…” The poem goes on like this, painting an entertaining, if rather messy, picture of feeding time with a toddler. Rather than merely see the pursed mouth as an inconvenient sign of stubbornness, Wohlmuth points out that by closing his or her mouth “your child is actually engaging in a process that will have independence as its eventual destination” and notes that, rather than a power struggle, this is an opportunity for the child to experience autonomy.

His final poem, Beyond Eighteen, reads, “Once the duckling/ now a swan/ your awkward adolescence gone/ Ever after/ flapping wings,/ responsible/ for what life brings/ Airborne over/ mountain tops/ or turbulent/ low pressure drops/ Large and legal/ free to fly,/ soar gracefully/ through adult sky.” There is no text to accompany this poem. It stands alone.

While moving in and of itself, this poem, like the rest of the book, leaves me wanting more. Many of his chapters bring up interesting and important concepts in parenting that merit further discussion. However, they feel somewhat underdeveloped, ideas that may be difficult to apply without more structure and explanation. Wohlmuth incorporates concepts that those versed in psychodynamics will pick up on — bringing up ideas such as twinship, mirroring, and optimal frustration. However, he does little more than mention these in passing, with little further explanation of their use or meaning. This feels like a lost opportunity, both for the author, who clearly has a significant breadth of knowledge on these topics that could be shared, and the reader, who would likely benefit from a more thorough explanation of these principles. In contrast, sometimes, he goes disproportionately in depth on a subject, such as an entire chapter on taking a child to the doctor.

Overall, the book is a light, easy read, but I felt it could be much more. It can easily be consumed over the course of a few afternoon nap times, which, for some, may be ideal.

Psychoetry: Lessons in Poetic Parenting
Comteq Publishing, 2014
Paperback, 76 pages
$19.95

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Shakespeare said, “The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” Often repeated and even more often actualized, this concept of the transference of “sins” through a generation is now supported by scientific evidence, as explained in Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle.

This groundbreaking work on generational trauma educates, comforts, and empowers individuals from all walks of life to both identify and disassociate from traumas that were passed down from previous generations.

Wolynn’s work is rooted in a journey he traveled to find healing from his own hang-ups and traumatic experiences. The path he took and the healing he found then became his gift to others through this book and his work with clients. Based on a mix of experiences and scientific evidence, Wolynn clearly and verifiably demonstrates the impact of generational trauma, down to the way it changes the expression of a particular gene.

Pulling on a mix of epigenetics and trauma psychology, he provides both a primer on the ancestral transmission of trauma and its symptoms and a method to recognize and deal with the lingering aftereffects. His liberal use of personal anecdotes, client testimony, and tangible examples balances the somewhat cerebral topic in a masterful way, providing an accessible and easy to understand resource for both the casual reader and the practitioner; however, the tone, style, and delivery make this an ideal tool for those seeking freedom from trauma in all its forms.

In the realm of self-help/recovery books, It Didn’t Start With You is equal parts refreshing and heavy; there is a definite weight when realizing that a family’s history can so deeply affect each member. There is also something very refreshing about realizing that there is a solution that doesn’t require years and years of therapy — it starts with taking an honest look at yourself, what you say, and what that says about you and your history. As an avid reader of these types of books, It Didn’t Start With You struck the right balance between diagnosis and prescription without falling into the self-help cliché traps of blaming parents, blaming yourself, or relying solely on positive self-talk.

The key premise of the book is found in the title: It Didn’t Start With You. By identifying core issues and the words we use to describe them, Wolynn asserts that any individual can trace back depression, suicidal tendencies, anger, and other negative emotions to ancestral issues rooted in traumas such as abandonment, detachment from the mother, deaths of either parent, and issues relating to parents as a whole. What was particularly interesting was the reality that these experiences can be translated into three generations, considering the fact that the precursor cells for the third generation are present during the first generation’s pregnancy.

These traumas appear often as what Wolynn calls “core complaints,” which are communicated via “core language.” Through a simple analysis of the two, one can identify a bridge back to an ancestral trauma that may have carried down. To illustrate this, Wolynn used examples such as grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, children of 9/11 survivors and the generations that followed the Rwandan genocide. In each case, there were core complaints and core language that traced back to the trauma experienced by an ancestor.

The final portion of the book was perhaps the most empowering section of a self-help book I’ve ever read, mainly because they provided more than rhetoric about the issue. Wolynn walks the reader through the process of identifying the core complaint, core language, and core descriptors, turning them into a core sentence, bridging the gap between the generations and finally, letting go of trauma in a positive and respectful manner.

From a holistic perspective, It Didn’t Start With You is a groundbreaking resource that provides a thorough yet understandable primer on the science behind trauma, as well as a step-by-step methodology to constructively work through the trauma.

It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
Viking/Penguin Random House LLC, April 2016
Hardcover, 251 pages
$28.00

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As a licensed marriage and family therapist and mental health writer, I am always interested in new books about mental health and the way we treat those with mental illnesses, so it was with interest that I picked up Marianne Richards’s self-published new book, Understanding Mental Illness: Comprehensive and Jargon Free 6^th Edition. While Richards does give a comprehensive overview of the history of mental illness, the ways in which we as a society often treat it, and the defining characteristics of the most common diagnoses, I was left wondering just how this information might apply to someone who suffers from a mental illness or a professional treating this person.

Richards, who herself was diagnosed with Asperger’s years ago and experienced firsthand the stigma that those with mental illness often feel, begins with a historical look at mental illness. “Throughout history, individuals who have not conformed to the expectations of society (or their tribe) risked exclusion,” she writes. Much of this can be attributed to the difficulty society has in defining just what sanity is. While it is helpful to recognize non-conforming behavior, it is not helpful to act upon it irrationally, which is often referred to as “moral panic.”

Historically, this exclusion was most often in insane Asylums. “These were not only people with active mental illnesses but so-called social misfits whose only problem was eccentricity or minor social aberrations,” Richards writes. However, mental illness, rather than appearing in rigid categories, is better explained as existing upon a continuum, where no person remains neuro-typical throughout their life.

Much of what actually appears strange to us, Richards tells us, is not always the problem of the individual, but rather our own perception of that person. Yet because mental illness has so frequently been sensationalized, it has been given a negative image. And when those who are different experience this stigma, it often has an exponential effect. “Sometimes it’s not a matter of where you live but the society you are born into which determines your fate if you have a mental condition,” Richards writes.

It wasn’t until the Greek philosopher Hippocrates proclaimed that madness was “no more divine nor sacred than other diseases but has a natural cause,” that societal attitudes began to shift toward mental illness. The parallel is that while Hippocrates believed that mental illness was caused by imbalances in the vital fluids, psychiatrists now treat mental illness with medications to balance brain chemistry.

What also emerged out of the study of mental illness — which we can attribute to Carl Jung — was that many character constellations can be found across numerous cultures and generations. For example, the archetypes of the hero, wise man, mother, and fool have deep historical roots and are easily recognized in many different cultures. A second important finding was the value of the therapeutic relationship, which exists across the wide range of treatment modalities.

Adding to our understanding of mental illness, Richards takes a look at the Mental Health Act of 1983, which regulated the “reception, care, treatment of mentally disordered patients, the management of their property, and other related matters.” This regulation defined the ways in which patients could be removed from public places and admitted to treatment, and the need for their consent to do so, as well as the situations in which consent is overridden by concern for public safety.

Richards then explores the typical treatment modalities for mental illness and offers the following advice: “When selecting a therapist, there are two vital criteria. Therapists who have unresolved life problems will not help anyone. Therapists with a wide life experience are more likely to have a quality called empathy; good therapists possess this in spades.” However, while Richards explores both the psychotherapeutic and medical approaches to mental illness, I was left wondering how a patient with mental illness might know if their therapist has unresolved life problems.

Richards then provides “pen portraits” of therapists which I found interesting and engaging. For example, she describes Vera, a private practice counselor specializing in brief therapy, whose day consists of offering a distressed client practical problem solving skills, listening to an anxious client, helping an unhappily married man clarify his thoughts, and dealing with a passive aggressive co-worker.

Richards also explores some common mental conditions, their defining criteria, typical treatment approaches, and case histories, which again, I found interesting and informative. For example, Richards tells us that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is often experienced as an inability to tolerate disorganization and a compulsion to make things orderly that are not under the person’s control.

Lastly, Richards offers eight keys to mental health, such as eating well, talking about feelings, learning new skills, and being creative. On the topic of stress, Richards reminds us that stress is a necessary part of life, but excessive stress results in unpleasant symptoms.

While Understanding Mental Illness is a clear and informative synopsis of the history of mental illness and the ways in which it has been treated, those who are looking for practical advice on just how to manage mental illness, or the stigma that often accompanies it, will need to look further.

Understanding Mental Illness: Comprehensive and Jargon Free 6^th Edition
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, September 2015
Paperback, 169 pages
$12.99

“Goodbye,” she sang cheerily, skipping off to her new dorm after giving me a light peck on the cheek as though we were no more than acquaintances. A young woman. A college freshman. No longer my baby.

Her casual parting stung me. Had she outgrown me?

As I walked away I was arrested by a child’s voice shouting “Mommy!” A word I hadn’t heard in years.

Before I could turn around she was in my arms, her face buried in my neck. She didn’t need to say anything in that moment. I knew then that she’d always be my little girl.
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Just how is a child cope when her mother goes off the handle in fits of rage, often leaving painful welts on her arms and legs, only to, days later, dress her up, buy her new clothes and take her to the theater? How is a young mother to cope when her mother regularly sends her three pages lists of her shortcomings? Questions such as these inspire Diane Dweller’s new book, Mom, Mania, and Me: Surviving and Changing a Volatile Relationship.

Dweller begins her story in hiding. Often hiding under the kitchen table, ducking behind doors, or simply trying not to be seen, she describes living in constant fear of the one person who should love her the most — her mother. And yet, Dweller’s mother is not the typical abusive mother. Her spells of anger are often followed by erratic, and often extravagant, behavior.

“How pretty we looked ranked high on Mom’s checklist…,” Dweller writes as she describes her mother sending her to a beauty salon for a perm which burned her scalp and, for Dweller, felt like torture that lasted forever. And yet try as she might, nothing Dweller does seems to please her mother and dinnertime becomes a nightly ritual of criticisms directed at Dweller.

When her father stands up for Dweller, telling her mother, “Dinnertime is not the place for correcting Diane,” Dweller senses a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak world. The criticisms, however, do not stop and only became more frequent and more severe. Finally, teen rebellion overwhelms Dweller and after defying her mother’s absurd demand that she not wear jeans to school, Dweller tells her mother that she hates her.

Still fuming with anger and yet not ready to be on her own, Dweller escapes into a marriage that she soon discovers is not much different from her relationship with her own mother. As her husband’s behavior evolves into a pattern of deceit, condemnation, and heavy drinking, Dweller vacillates between wanting to leave and hoping things will get better. When finally she gathers the strength to tell her husband that she is leaving, he quickly changes tone, begging her to stay. It is only years later, after her two children are born that Dweller discovers her husband has been hiding an affair for many years.

Finally summoning the courage to leave, Dweller faces a new challenge: how to explain her divorce to a community, and a mother that disapproves of divorce, and the single mothers it leaves behind. Yet her efforts are futile. Dweller is quickly reminded in one of her mother’s caustic letters that she is an embarrassment to the family, an expensive failure with two children and a costly education.

Just days later, Dweller finds a fateful letter that changes her life. Written in the unsteady hand of a seven year old, Dweller swears that when she is a mother she will not, “Whip my children, scream at them, make them cry, scare them, or tell them they do things all wrong.” Recognizing the many ways in which she had failed her seven-year-old self, and in fact, become like her own mother, Dweller vows to tackle the challenges in her life, and take back control of the one thing she does have control over — her behavior.

With renewed confidence, Dweller meets her second husband, a man who counters every one of her mother’s criticisms, with a simple, “You’re beautiful.” Shortly thereafter, Dweller has an epiphany. Her third child just born, she is taken off her thyroid medication. When she finds herself angry, irritable, and either screaming at everyone or flying off the handle, she realizes that her mother’s behavior may not be as under her control as she thought.

When Dweller’s father unexpectedly passes away, the extent of Dweller’s mother’s condition is revealed. After visiting a psychiatrist to help “keep (her) from going into a depression,” she is diagnosed with manic-depression, a mood disorder. “I understood firsthand how critical it was to get body chemicals that got out of whack back in balance,” she writes.

Dweller’s next challenge, however, is to keep her mother on her meds. After hope for stability soon turns into fear of her mother going off her meds and igniting an array of manic, often dangerous behavior, Dweller realizes that perhaps her mother “didn’t want to stay normal.” However, Dweller’s protective instinct takes over when she finds her mother criticizing her own daughter and finally tells her, “That’s it. No more. That is the last criticism you are allowed this trip.”

Then Dweller explains to her mother that her manic-depression is like diabetes and without staying on her meds, she will be placing herself at risk of harm. As her mother’s behavior finally stabilizes, Dweller realizes that while she may not ever receive the warmth and affection from her mother that she has longed for her entire life, she can, instead, give this affection to her mother. In a dramatic final scene Dweller’s mother attempts to push her feeble frame up off her chair and Dweller asks her what she wants to do. Dweller’s mother’s answer shocks her: “I want to give you a hug.”

With poignant and insightful writing, Dweller’s story is of one heart break, loss, and the power to endure as long as it takes to find compassion.

Mom, Mania, and Me: Surviving and Changing a Volatile Relationship
Writing Ink, L.L.C., August 2016
Paperback, 207 Pages
$14.49

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A friend of mine recently ended an intimate relationship because she felt her beau not only misunderstood her, but that he also prevented her from being her true self. There were telltale signs of the end, as there always are, things like needing more time apart, feeling trapped during time spent together, and more. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she confided. “I’m losing more of myself the longer I stay in this relationship.” So, should she have stayed and tried harder? Or, was she right to end an otherwise dead-end relationship? If only relationships were that easy. Few of us have weathered intimacy without enduring at least a few broken-hearted moments.

It is true that a certain amount of compromise is required in a healthy relationship, but as with anything, there are limits to how much of ourselves we should suppress. Too much compromise may result in a loss of self and personal identity and an imbalance in the relationship. According to Amy Banks and Leigh Ann Hirschman’s new book, Wired to Connect: The Surprising Link Between Brain Science and Strong, Healthy Relationships, relationships with people who do not understand you may weaken neural circuits that enable you to connect in healthier ways. “Healthy relationships nurture our neural capacity for resonance,” write Banks and Hirschman. Damaging relationships, on the other hand, cause those same circuits to “wither from disuse.” Relationships come in many shades, from parent-child to sibling-sibling to friend-lover, and more. Any relationship can be damaging or hold the opportunity for forging deeper human connection. But how do we know which relationships are promising and which ones are doomed from the start?

As it turns out, the truth resides in the physical body as well as in the emotional life. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, better known as the places where our “fight, flight, or freeze responses” come from, are warning signals for the stress we feel. The problem is that “fight, flight, or freeze” aren’t the only options on the nervous system menu, write Banks and Hirschman. According to evolutionary theory, mammals have evolved a much more sophisticated way to identify and respond to stressors. That evolutionary nugget is the smart vagus, and it lets us know, through facial expression, body language, and other means, whether we are in the company of trustworthy people such as friends and family.

The safety feeling set off by the smart vagus, say Banks and Hirschman, permits us to be more animated, more open, and to respond in other socially appropriate ways that signal our comfort level around those with whom we feel secure. The smart vagus, however smart, can be wrong. Misreading friend for foe and vice versa comes, suggest Banks and Hirschman, from early childhood shaping and from subsequent patterns of dysfunction. This is not to say that we should blame our parents for our broken nervous systems; instead, we should see the issue for what it is and work to correct the error. In effect, we need to retrain ourselves to correctly identify signals and respond in socially appropriate ways.

“Neural pathways compete for brain space” and if you want the good ones to stay, then “you must starve” the negative ones that are competing for space. Whenever you identify a negative message “relabel it as a cultural message that sabotages your goal of reclaiming your connected brain…With practice, the world can transform in front of your eyes.”

Banks and Hirschman do an excellent job detailing the primary parts of the brain that are responsible for connection and sustaining healthy relationships. Perhaps most intriguing about the book is the discussion on how to reprogram the brain and, in effect, how to free oneself from patterns of dysfunction. Neuroanatomy and brain function are not easy subjects, but the authors present them in a way that makes them accessible to nearly any reader. Through masterfully selected clinical examples and easy-to-understand self-assessment tools, Banks and Hirschman avoid some of the primary problems often present in books of this kind. They brings a complex and invaluable topic to their readers in a way that makes it palatable and also extremely practical. This is no easy task where brain science is concerned and the authors handle it with aplomb.

I strongly recommend this book, not only for those who wish to better understand the mechanics of intimacy, but also for all of those who wish to shed outdated patterns and reprogram the brain for a healthier, more joyful life.

Wired to Connect: The Surprising Link Between Brain Science and Strong, Healthy Relationships
TarcherPerigee, February 2016
Paperback, 310 pages
$16.00

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“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”
~ Albert Einstein

For some, the symptoms are more subtle — it is the child who sits gazing out the window, her mind far from the classroom where her classmates are hard at work. For others, the symptoms are more blatant — a child who cannot sit still, bouncing up from his chair, calling out in class, poking his neighbor. At home, chores are left undone and often not started, homework is a battle, and the latest videogame is like a black-hole sucking in all of the child’s attention. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can take different forms and affects all aspects of a child’s life, which can frustrate parents, teachers, and children alike. In her new book, The Conscious Parent’s Guide to ADHD: A Mindful Approach for Helping Your Child Gain Focus and Self-Control, Rebecca Branstetter, PhD, offers advice on parenting children with ADHD, who can sometimes stretch the skills and patience of the most committed parent.

Dr. Branstetter is a psychologist who works both in private practice and as a school psychologist, giving her a wealth of experience that she shares in The Conscious Parent’s Guide to ADHD. The book starts with the basics, offering an overview of ADHD and detailing the different ways children with ADHD may interact with the world. She incorporates basic neuroscience in an understandable way that will resonate with those who share their lives with children who have ADHD. For instance, Branstetter notes that “researchers have found that a sluggish reward circuit in the brains of children with ADHD makes otherwise interesting tasks seem mundane or boring. Children with ADHD need a higher level of reward or interest to sustain attention. Video games and other high-reward and stimulating activities seem to fit the bill.”

Suddenly, that child’s ability to spend hours staring at an interactive screen, but only three minutes on homework seems less a case of poor willpower (or poor parenting) and more the result of biology. However, having a sense that there may be an issue is only the first step. She follows this with a chapter on how to navigate getting a diagnosis, including descriptions of the experts who may or may not be able to offer help.

The next section of the book focuses on how to support a child with ADHD from preschool through the teenage years. Each chapter highlights the challenges children with ADHD may face at different stages of life, but rather than dwell on the negative, Branstetter also highlights these children’s strengths. For example, on the section about attention to detail, she reframes the issue to highlight that, “many children with ADHD also have a holistic thinking style that focuses on the big picture at the expense of details that they find boring or mind-numbing.” Regarding hyperfocus, she points out that many of these children are able to spend hours poring over topics that they find interesting, often to the detriment of their spelling or math homework.

However, “the ability to concentrate intensely can be an asset — especially when a child with ADHD goes to college, where creativity and thinking outside the box are more highly valued.” Each chapter also includes specific ways to help the child succeed at every stage, whether that’s which classroom structures work best or how to facilitate homework completion. In addition, each chapter contains ways to encourage the child to practice mindfulness using age-appropriate methods. For preschoolers, that includes things like engaging their senses and blowing bubbles, while for teens she offers ways to help them find their own mindfulness rituals. The latter half of the book delves further into many of these themes, discussing mindfulness, how to help the child face scholastic and social challenges, and offering guidance on sorting through various treatment options.

Throughout the book, Dr. Branstetter provides a mix of hope and reality, offering practical guidance for what can be a frustrating disorder. Each chapter is thorough without being weighed down with details. This is a worthwhile read for those who love a child with ADHD.

The Conscious Parent’s Guide to ADHD: A Mindful Approach for Helping Your Child Gain Focus and Self-Control
Adams Media, December 2015
Paperback, 240 pages
$26.75

When you experience anxiety, worry, or fear, have you ever thought about embracing it rather than running away from it? In The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety, John P. Forsyth and Georg H. Eifert present a whole new way of thinking about anxiety that is quite different from traditional treatment methods. What’s interesting is that they do not aim to teach the reader ways to control anxiety. Instead they try to go to the root of the problem and get beyond simply treating the symptoms. They do make a very good point when they say that, ”thinking and feeling well does not automatically translate into living well, nor is it a path to genuine happiness,” and that’s why their approach is more holistic than traditional treatment methods.

Part One of the book invites the reader to consider this new way of thinking about anxiety and using a new treatment approach. Forsyth and Eifert say,“We know that to get a different outcome we need to change what we’re doing now.” It’s such an easy concept, yet it’s one we tend to forget as we fall back into our old habits and routines. This section of the book gives a lot of introductory material that is beneficial to those who are not familiar with the concept of mindfulness. It starts with the practice of helping people learn how to be in the present. From the very start, Forsyth and Eifert teach readers practical exercises that can be done at home. They also provide recommendations at the end of each chapter on how to practice what was learned. A number of quizzes are provided to help readers understand the difference between anxiety and fear, and understanding the difference between the two helps people learn how to respond to those feelings.

Although their intention is not to label, Forsyth and Eifert do distinguish between panic disorders, phobias, social anxiety disorder, OCD, GAD, and PTSD. This is helpful for readers who can sense that something is wrong but do not have the background or education to distinguish between the different types of anxiety disorders. The authors steer away from complicated clinical language and provide easy-to-understand descriptions of a concept. For example, they compare anxiety to poison ivy, saying that when people scratch at poison ivy, it only gets worse. Likewise, if you scratch anxiety by struggling against it, anxiety only gets worse. I also appreciate that they discuss common misconceptions about anxiety and fear, which will give hope to those readers who might not have had good experiences with anxiety treatment in the past.

Part Two provides steps to start this new journey of self-care. The authors help readers determine how invested they are in their own treatment by asking them to examine the current cost of managing their anxiety. Whether this impacts them with career, health, energy, or emotions, there is a cost in trying to continually manage anxiety. Readers are also asked to evaluate what they’ve given up to manage anxiety using only traditional treatment methods. The authors challenge readers to think about how they want to be remembered, what legacy they want to leave behind, and how that is negatively impacted by spending so much time managing anxiety. The solution they propose is to stop struggling with anxiety and surrender to it.

Surrender does not imply that one is surrendering the hope of getting well, but rather accepting that thoughts and feelings will be with the reader wherever they go and that continuing to fight may not the best answer. One thing everyone has control over is his or her own actions. And yes, it can be hard to admit that at times because it is much easier to blame someone else and adopt a victim mentality. On the other hand, it can be reassuring to know that many things people don’t like in their lives are things they do have control over.  Acceptance in this context is about accepting the experience of the anxiety, not liking the experience. But awareness is the first step to help people recognize what might need to change. As Forsyth and Eifert say, “we can only choose what we pay attention to, how we pay attention, and what we do.”

Part Three is very detailed, with suggestions on how people with anxiety can reclaim their lives. This process starts by examining their values, asking, “Am I making choices based on what I deeply value and care about for my life? And am I doing things that really matter to me and make my life worthwhile? Or have my choices and actions been driven more by avoiding or minimizing my pain?” Defining one’s values is a way to get started and to stay focused on healing. It involves stopping to examine the actions one takes and determining if those actions get him or her closer or further away from living the type of life desired. This section is filled with exercises that build on the concepts presented in Parts One and Two. Exercises are both cognitive and behaviorally based, encouraging the reader to take action.

As a therapist, my one caution about The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety is that some clients might do best working through this book with a counselor. Although the book was written as a stand-alone workbook, patients with severe anxiety would benefit from the support and guidance of a trained clinician as they get at the root of these concerns. Also, readers have to be very self-motivated to address these concerns on their own. It is a lot of work and can seem overwhelming initially, which is why I would recommend having a guide or even accountability partner to help walk someone through this workbook.

What I appreciate about Forsyth and Eifert’s approach, though, is the focus on quality of life instead of avoiding anxiety. And it makes sense. Do we really want to spend so much of our effort and focus on things we do not want? Instead, shouldn’t we invest our efforts on the things we do want in our lives? And although this is a different approach, it is similar to CBT with the emphasis on how we think and take action through our behaviors. The takeaway from this workbook is that as people begin to examine what they need to live a valuable life, the anxiety, worry, and fear will naturally decline.

The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety: A Guide to Breaking Free from Anxiety, Phobias, and Worry Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
New Harbinger Publications, April 2016
Paperback, 342 pages
$24.95

For any parent coping with raising an autistic child, managing the chaos that earmarks the disorder — not to mention the dizzying array of medications, treatments, and therapies — can often feel exhausting, overwhelming, and quite frequently, disheartening. autism is simply a very difficult and very complex disorder to treat. Yet, according to Janet Lintala and Martha Murphy, authors of The Un-Prescription for Autism: A Natural Approach to a Calmer, Happier, and More Focused Child, the problem might just be that we are targeting the symptoms and not the root cause of autism.

Janet Lintala, a mother of an autistic son herself, lends her many years’ experience coping with her son Evan’s violent outbursts, irritability, poor impulse control, and difficulty focusing before uncovering that it was only through using a natural approach heavily anchored in restoring gastrointestinal health that her son found any palpable relief. Now the founder of Autism Health, Lintala writes, “We discovered that children on the [autism] spectrum aren’t mentally ill or inherently violent, that they have underlying gastrointestinal, immunological, and other metabolic dysfunctions that cause many of the problems Evan was experiencing, and that they are in a lot of pain.”

According to Lintala, the typical constellation of autism symptoms — difficulties with mood, behavior, language, cognition, and mental clarity — only masks a much deeper and more pervasive problem autistic children face: poor gut health. And while medications may attenuate some autistic symptoms, they don’t improve gut health and often make it worse. Gut health, Lintala tells us, begins during birth, and children who are born through C-section are not exposed to the necessary bacteria that create a healthy gut microflora. Without this, children often suffer from constipation, rashes, allergies, infections, chronic inflammation, and irritability.

Treating the gut microflora then becomes the first step toward improving autistic symptoms. To do this, Lintala offers a helpful questionnaire, including everything from bathroom routines to in-school behavior to demonstrate just how interconnected gut health and autism are. “It is estimated that 60 percent of ASD children may struggle with mitochondrial dysfunction which may be due in part to oxidative stress caused by chronic inflammation,” she writes.

To go about restoring gut health, Lintala’s approach is comprehensive and ongoing. To begin, parents must first correct their autistic child’s constipation, as it leads not just to reflux, poor sleep, and difficult behavior, but also disables the body’s natural ability to detoxify and absorb nutrients. Through progressive use of enzymes — Lintala offers advice about just which types to buy — gastrointestinal regularity can often be restored.

Lintala then emphasizes the importance of probiotics: “As a matter of fact, in 2005, probiotics were suggested as a beneficial addition to therapy for depression.” In addition to improving mood, probiotics serve a wide range of helpful functions including, activating neural pathways, improving brain signaling systems, and enhancing brain development, all of which are critical for autistic children. Here again, Lintala offers a wealth of helpful information on just which probiotics to buy, when to give them, and any potential drawbacks. For example, she advises never starting a probiotic at the beginning of the week as use can lead to some initial discomfort.

On the topic of antifungal rotation, Lintala shares the story of Bindee, a young girl who was initially treated for Helicobacter pylori (a bacterium that may cause peptic ulcers) upon which her behavioral symptoms resolved. Six months later, however, Bindee’s screaming fits, crying, and irritability returned, along with a bloated belly. What Lintala discovered through a stool test was a parasite called Ascaris lumbricoides, also known as giant human roundworms. Lintala writes, “Bindee’s story is a call to action to parents and pediatricians everywhere to realize that irritability is a symptom, not a core deficit of autism.”

However, autistic children can also suffer from chronic immune deficiency and particularly inflammation. Lintala writes, “Inflammation, which is a tool of the immune system, may be left in the “on” position leaving a child in a state of systemic inflammation, including brain inflammation.” Restoring proper immune function, like with gut health, is an ongoing practice, but Lintala offers many helpful and some surprising tips: use Zinc, moderate levels of Selenium, exercise daily, and avoid hand sanitizers as they are thought to be endocrine disruptors.

And if parents are left wondering just how to put the wealth of information Lintala provides together, she includes a year-long sample of her basic gastrointestinal health diet, along with a list of typical setbacks and how to prevent them. One setback is not giving her methods time to work. Treating autism, and ultimately transforming a child’s behavior, she reminds us, is not impossible, but it does take time, dedication, and perseverance through the tough times.

The Un-Prescription for Autism: A Natural Approach for a Calmer, Happier, and More Focused Child
AMACOM, April 2016
Paperback, 234 Pages
$18.95

Over the last several years, as an author, educator, and mentor of women, I have analyzed marriage from a multiplicity of angles—that is from material written by professional governmental, educational, and faith-based sociologists, scientists, and psychologists, as well as journalists, philosophers, and novelists. What strikes me overall is how each source (regardless of the author’s personal background, purpose, or professional credentials) assert, or at least assume, these general trends in the Western world:

1. There has been a titanic cultural shift in the roles of men and women. 
2. This social transformation has left many men in a quandary over their identity. The lack of definitive social expectations leaves men at a disadvantage compared to their male progenitors, who knew for thousands of years exactly what was expected of a man.
3. This adjustment is affecting men’s personal and professional relationships with women.
4. Men are increasingly looking to strong women to help them direct their energy, inspire their dreams, and channel their ambitions in constructive ways.
5. This progressive view is allowing more and more men and women to act as true partners in achieving family and professional goals.
6. Of all the strengths women bring to partnership, one of the most vital is their natural orientation toward relationships. Women generally, by virtue of biochemistry, social tradition, contemporary cultural developments, or all of the above, are frequently more adept at relationship dynamics than men are.

Thus, in a nutshell, women today, either by design, development, or accident, depending on your belief system, are in a very powerful position when it comes to creating and maintaining truly rewarding relationships with men.

Of course, any relationship is a two-way street, linking two people who share responsibility for its outcome. But the truth of the matter appears to be that women have a disproportionate amount of influence on both the day-to-day and the long-term tenor of their marriage. The feminine energy we bring to the partnership is intuitive, relational, receptive, connective, intimate, and inclusive.

Musing over the idea that women in general (at least Western women) wield significant influence in their relationships, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a student who took exception with this one aspect of Wife for Life (the body of successful marriage principles and skills I teach to women exclusively). I agreed with her—right out of the box—that each party in the marriage is responsible for 50% of the partnership.

“But aren’t you,” I challenged, “100% responsible for your 50%?”

She went on to concede that life is not really about numbers, and relationships that keep score inevitably fail. Plus–once we got off the principle platform–she admitted to reality: her man was persistently ignoring their troubles and resisting permanent change. Attempts to move the dial had repeatedly, frustratingly, topped out, at best, somewhere in the middle.

After our conversation however, my new friend made a new tact, fully embracing her relational power. With that simple shift, she felt suddenly motivated to learn and practice all she could about relationship dynamics, particularly marriage, so that, like thousands of others in my experience (including myself), she could move the dial past center, toward maximum. I watched her work day-by-day, week-by-week, year-by-year; her partner necessarily responding to, and learning from, her relational influence. She is now one of the most satisfied, successful wives I know, with a truly beautiful marriage—one for the family history books.

I believe that same outcome is possible for most intelligent women partnered with well-intentioned men because feminine intuition, inclination, and imagination is nothing less than potent, pure energy. Modern women really do have more power than ever before; and in terms of human happiness, it’s the power the counts the most.

Ramona Zabriskie, a wife of 38 years, is the multi-award winning author of Wife for Life: The Power to Succeed in Marriage and founder of the highly acclaimed Wife for Life University, a one-of-a-kind virtual school for wives that transforms marriages through a step-by-step, principle based approach via live mentoring, classes, and community. Watch Ramona’s free information-packed webinar, “Your Power to Succeed in Marriage” on demand at ramonazabriskie.com.

For the past 34 years, my dad has milked every day, twice a day, without missing a milking. That’s 24,836 milkings, give or take a leap year. The last milking he missed was in 1982 when he had surgery on his cheek after a softball injury. Meanwhile, he and Mom raised a tobacco crop each year, grew their own hay, raised three kids and sent each of us to college.

So no, we never once took an overnight family vacation. But my parents more than made up for it with all the little things they did for us and with us. Dad would always throw the ball with me while he was grilling on summer evenings. And he’d help me with my homework in the milking parlor while he milked.

Mom taught me how to drive in our old farm truck—the same truck they used to bring me home from the hospital after I was born. And each night Mom made a home-cooked meal, then we waited until Daddy was done milking and we all ate together.

My brothers and I played school sports. Mom fed the calves early and she’d drive to all of our home and away games. Dad could not make it to the faraway games, but he kept the phone close and came to all of our home games. He would alter his milking time to catch as many tournament games as he could.

One year I played in the Class A state softball tournament in Louisville, about 50 minutes from home. Because of rain delays, we played five games that Saturday. After a game ended at 4 p.m., Dad told me he was leaving to milk. I gave him a hug and said goodbye, thinking that I would see him in the morning; we were scheduled to play another game at 11 p.m.

About 10, I was sitting with my team when I looked up and saw my daddy. He had gone home, fed the calves, milked and come back for the last game. Afterward, the team and I went to a hotel. My parents got home at 2 a.m.

Daddy awoke at 5 to start milking. Mom got up soon after to feed, and they both walked into the park for my game at 8 a.m. We ended up getting fourth place, in case you were wondering.

One of the happiest moments in my life came on my graduation day from Western Kentucky University, about three hours from home. Dad was determined to make it to the 9:30 a.m ceremony, so he got up at 3 to milk the cows. When I walked into the ceremony and saw both my parents sitting there with the rest of my family waving at me, tears came to my eyes.

Out of everything my parents have done, the most important is to teach me two things: One, keep your family close no matter how crazy they make you. And two, do what you love and work hard at it. My dad couldn’t get up every morning to milk cows if he didn’t love it. That’s 24,836 and counting. Keep it up, Dad.

MORE: 14 Short Studies About the Kindest, Bravest, Wisest Dads in the World

A few years ago I was working a part-time summer gig at a local ice cream shop. While handing a hot fudge sundae to an older woman at the drive-thru window, I noticed that she had a box of what appeared to be purple tomatoes. (If you’ve ever worked a drive-thru job, you know that it’s hard not to look into someone’s car when you’re inches from his or her face.) That’s when I felt the itch coming on.

As I handed her the sundae, I said, “Those tomatoes look delicious! What kind are they?”

She grinned so big I thought she was about to start laughing, but instead she replied, “Here, have some!” Within seconds I had a handful of gorgeous purple tomatoes.

“Oh, no, you don’t need to give me any!” I said. Those tomatoes looked expensive. “Here, have more,” she insisted, and now I had six of the plumpest, prettiest tomatoes I had ever seen. I weakly tried to protest: “Really, you didn’t have to give me any, but I appreciate it.”

The woman smiled again and said, “I hope you enjoy them. And to answer your question, it’s an heirloom breed that my mom used to plant. So they aren’t like the ones you get in the grocery store.”

I said thank you again, and she sped off. She was like an adult version of the tooth fairy: I gave her ice cream and she gave me tomatoes.

About two weeks later, my boss at the ice cream store sent me a text message: “I wanted to let you know that your gardener dropped off a box of vegetables for you.” Baffled, I replied, “My gardener?”

That night, my boss showed me the box. It was full of tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and zucchini. The tomato fairy was back! I was both happy and confused. Why was this woman being so generous?

I never saw her again, but to this day her random act of kindness inspires me to share my garden bounty with anyone who’ll have it.

All I ask is an ice cream cone in return. Better yet, pay it forward and be someone else’s secret gardener.

MORE: 24 Stories You Must Read About the Touching Kindness of Strangers

Dad was a self-employed chemist and inventor who inherited some money from his grandfather and invested it in a laboratory. It was a fascinating place full of beakers, test tubes, Bunsen burners and pipes that ran into huge tanks where he concocted his formulas.

Both the furniture polish and the car polish he developed were produced and promoted by a nearby company and gained a good share of the area market. Unfortunately, Dad told us, a large national company obtained his formula and changed it just enough so it wasn’t covered under his patent. It was a huge blow.

During this stressful time, my mother was expecting her third child, my little brother. I was 10 and my sister was 5. We were living on the ragged edge financially, although my parents didn’t discuss money problems in front of us. I just knew that we wore hand-me-downs and shopped at secondhand stores, and that Mom did a lot of sewing.

One day our grocer knocked on the door and asked my mother where she wanted him to put the groceries. She protested, “But I didn’t order any groceries.” He replied, “They’re all paid for. Where shall I put them?”

My mother mutely indicated our large kitchen table. While she stood by, he brought in carton after carton holding meat, produce, canned goods, laundry detergent, shampoo, soap, toothpaste and more.

After he left, she sat down at the table and cried. She had been making chicken soup for the family meal that evening. I found out later it was the last food she had in the house. She hadn’t told anyone, not even my dad. She didn’t want him to feel as if he wasn’t providing for his family.

Much later, we learned that our pastor had awoken in the night with a strong sense that our family needed help. He called the grocery store the first thing in the morning.

My mother’s faith had been tested but was strengthened immensely afterward. I discovered early that God could indeed be trusted, and I remember it again every time I make Mom’s chicken soup.

MORE: This Dad Responded to His Son’s Request for Extravagant Gifts in the Best Way Possible

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” ~ Richard Branson

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ~ Thomas A. Edison

“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” ~ Wilma Rudolph

An entrepreneur, an inventor and an athlete, emerging from varying life experiences with a shared perspective. They have learned that before the ultimate success may initially come several failures.

They are not alone, as some of the world’s most iconic figures had a long runway to traverse before they each skyrocketed to fame. They include: Steve Jobs, Milton Hershey, Walt Disney and Arianna Huffington.

Relationships end, businesses fall apart, folks change careers, students drop out of school, those in recovery relapse. These may be considered failures or they can be viewed as an opportunity for do-overs.

Consider a child who is learning to walk. Generally, at around a year old, he or she takes a first step. Most likely it will result in a tumble to the ground, with diaper padding cushioning the landing. If there are supportive adults around, clapping and cheering will occur. That little one is likely going to pull up again and take the next step. Nowhere in that child’s mind is the thought, “I’m so clumsy that I will never learn to walk and will scoot around on my butt for the rest of my life.”

This anecdote was shared by a friend and it stands as a testament to the power of paradox in the area of success and failure.

“Failure grooms us for success: I heard this incredible story the other day. That at a dinner table, a dad asked all his kids each night: “What did you fail at today?” And they would each recount their failures for the day. And he would celebrate them. He would always say: “Good for you! You tried something. You put yourself out there. That is the real success anyway. Keep trying new things. Don’t worry about how it turns out. Just keep trying, learning and growing.”

This counterintuitive approach to parenting encourages curiosity and expansion, rather than fear. This is a rare occurrence, as most view failure as an indication of character flaw, of inadequacy or incompetence.

Maria was taught that nothing could be considered failure if she put her heart and soul into her endeavors. She grew up in a family in which education was valued. There were books in nearly every room of her childhood home. Even the bathroom was not exempt as her father referred to it as “the library.” She was read to by her parents each night before bed and many happy hours were spent at the library up the street.

Her questions were met with the best responses her parents could offer and when they didn’t know the answers, they told her, “Look it up.” As a result, she learned to research until the resolution was found. They encouraged her to stretch her comfort zones in academics and athletics. She became an A student and a blue ribbon-winning swimmer. In the midst of all of this, she still had self-doubt, which even the most confident-seeming person can harbor. Her fear was not specifically of failure, but rather, of disappointing her parents and others who believed in her. This was not directly communicated to her, but she interpreted their confidence in her as contingent on her performance.

Megan McArdle, MBA, the author of The Upside of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key To Success, reinforces the belief, “You’re not a failure. You’re someone who has failed. . . just like everyone else who ever lived on the planet, from Alexander the Great to Abraham Lincoln. Failure is what makes success possible. It’s how we learn what doesn’t work — and therefore how we learn what does.”

Does Failure Build Character?

According to New York Times journalist and commentator David Brooks, who penned The Road to Character: “We live in a culture that teaches us to promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success, but that gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character.”

Success and Failure Seesaw

There are times when we feel as if we are on a seesaw that has us up in the air with delight that our goals have been achieved and then bumping our bottoms on the ground as we feel let down that we haven’t crossed the finish line ahead of the pack. Here are some markers that shape our relationship with these two polarities:

• Lack of belief in your own abilities or faith in them
• You have figuratively fallen and skinned your knees (or perhaps literally) and are fearful of getting hurt again
• Perfectionistic tendencies
• Unworthiness to have what you want
• Failure can be a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Your internalized definition of what success means
• What you were told success means by the adults in your life
• There may be a family history of failure that seems as if it is encoded in DNA that is passed down from generation to generation
• Your role models for success and failure
• An entrenched belief that before you can be happy, you have to be successful, rather than the other way around

How to see failure as friend, not foe:

• See it as a learning experience rather than one that is demoralizing
• Refrain from perceiving it as a measure of your worth as a person
• Be willing to take calculated risks
• Know that most endeavors are not a matter of life and death
• Ask yourself if a particular outcome will matter five years down the road
• Be curious and ask yourself, “Hmmmm…I wonder if I can do it this way…. I wonder how this can work…”
• Have ‘now what?’ thinking. You can complain, “Oh no, now what?” or motivate yourself by inquiring, “Okay, now what?”
• Know what you can and can’t control
• Envision successful scenarios and keep your eye on the prize
• Know that progress and not perfection is the ideal
• Stretch comfort zones to the point that a manageable bit of nervousness (not full blown anxiety or panic) is present as fuel for your endeavors
• View obstacles as exercise equipment that makes you stronger and more flexible
• Take responsibility for your choices, successes and failures
• Be open to constructive feedback from those who have been where you are
• Have a vision for your life and move in that direction, knowing that there will be detours
• Use positive self-talk to reinforce what you do want, rather than what you don’t want
• Recognize your resilience, remembering that you have survived everything that has ever happened to you

Gino Santa Maria/Bigstock

When you think protein, you usually think meat. But these plant-based proteins are fantastic sources just waiting to nourish your body.

It’s one of the toughest places in your house to keep clean, but these tips can help you get the job done.

Does food rule your life? Look for these clues you might have a problem.

Your resume is the first impression you give a potential employer. Here's how to make sure it is not your last impression.

In a few easy steps, you can plump up before you pucker up.

Surprising tips from architects, landscapers, designers and more experts to create a soothing getaway right outside your front door

Kat Duff’s carefully researched, engagingly written, and wide-ranging The Secret Life of Sleep is an ode to sleep. The author documents the contemporary preoccupation with productivity, alertness, and cheating sleep. She points to the many ways we are urged along on that path, from breezy sloganeering (e.g., “you snooze, you lose”) to the popularity and easy availability of stimulants. But she’s not cheering for that mindset.

Instead, she enlightens us about the ways in which contemporary Western ways of sleeping and thinking about sleep are out-of-step with the ways people have been sleeping for centuries, and the ways they have been, and still are, thinking about sleeping and dreaming beyond the Western world.

Drawing from the latest research, Duff addresses all the questions you would expect in a book on sleep. They include, for example, how much sleep we need and how much we get, how it matters when we don’t get enough sleep, and what’s important about the different kinds of sleep we get and the different kinds of dreams we remember.

But then, instead of adding to our alarm about our sleep deficits and the effects of our sleep deprivation on our functioning, health, and well-being, she soothes us with reasons to relax. For example, she reassures us that we shouldn’t worry so much about not sleeping through the night. Throughout most of history, people rarely did and rarely expected to.

Yes, she concedes, it is true that people who are woken from a sound sleep — as happens often in sleep studies — don’t think as quickly, remember as well, or do math as successfully as those who got to sleep through the night. But why, she asks, do we measure and value such a narrow set of qualities? Instead, she asks, “Why not test for mental flexibility, emotional receptivity or creativity, qualities that emerge at the soft edges and lapses of waking focus?”

And why are we so obsessed with alertness and focus, to the exclusion of pensiveness and dreaminess? Duff goes on to say, “While there are some professions that truly demand long hours of sharp focus, such as surgery, most of us do not risk anyone’s life when our attention drifts. We can allow ourselves to cycle between phases of rest and activity, diffuse and pointed awareness, as our biology requires.”

More fundamentally, why do we cherish our waking hours so much more than our time spent sleeping? Why do we try to draw such a sharp distinction between the two, when in fact, the states are not so separate, and “our waking and sleeping lives require and inform each other?”

Duff doesn’t deny the serious implications of getting insufficient sleep or of sleep experiences that are disturbing rather than replenishing. But she thinks our contemporary perspectives on sleeping put too much of the onus for change on the individual rather than broader social forces: “Even though the causes of insomnia are usually located in larger socioeconomic contexts, be it the hectic pace of modern living, the prevalence of shift work, or new-fangled technology, the solutions offered are inevitably individual. Experts address the sleepers, rather than their employers or the city light department, with their lists of things to do and not do.”

There is a famous dictum in journalism and politics: Follow the money. That’s how you figure out who is ultimately benefiting. Duff follows the money of the sleep industry. She finds, for example, that in 2005, “more than twenty-six million prescriptions for Ambien were written in the United States alone, totaling more than $2 billion.” Yet on the average, sleep medications “increase the total sleep time by only 11.4 minutes. Moreover, functioning does not improve the next day.”

The big picture is even more telling: “Prescription and over-the-counter medications, sleep studies, white noise machines, earplugs, eye masks, apnea devices, sleep monitors, specialty mattresses, high-thread-count sheets, aromatherapy pillows, high-end beds, and alarm clocks fuel a sleep economy worth more than $20 billion a year.”

Over the course of The Secret Life of Sleep, Duff nudges us to be more open-minded in how we think about sleep and dreaming. In a section on dream visitations and travels, for example, she notes, “The notion that each of us has an immaterial soul, a shadow or secret self, which separates from the body in sleep, is ubiquitous among non-Westernized people.” I confess to being far too entrenched in my Western ways to take spirit travel seriously, but The Secret Life of Sleep was still a mind-expanding experience for me.

The Secret Life of Sleep
Atria Books/Beyond Words, March 2014
Hardcover, 256 pages
$24.00

Think dating is difficult? Try dating with a five-year-old or fourteen-year-old watching your every move. Suddenly your romantic life is immersed in the morals, values, and integrity you’ve established for your children. Can you hold fast to them or are you just talking out of the both sides of your mouth?

Every single parent must remember they are showing their kids how to date: what to look for in a man or woman, how to act, how to be treated, is sex before marriage ok, is a lot of sex with a lot of different people before marriage ok?

Children notice a strange man in mom’s bedroom, they notice a half naked woman in the kitchen in the morning. They’ll quiz you incessantly about your date, did you like the guy, do you think you might get married to that woman. They’ll also be loaded with opinions about your dates: be ready to hear not that just “he’s nice” or “she’s pretty” but “he looks mean” or “She doesn’t like me, I can tell.”

So there are some proven suggestions for loving, caring parents who for one reason or another find themselves back in the dating game.

1. Ask yourself — how important are your kids to you? This is a serious question. “I love them to death,” isn’t a serious answer. “I love them so much I’m willing to put off any relationship for a year or two or three,” is a serious answer. I’m not saying that’s always necessary, but sometimes it is. God put the destiny of these young children in your hands, you can’t be willing to throw it out the window for the first good-looking regional manager that walks into your life.
2. If your first relationship ended in divorce, remember your kids probably still love their parent. They don’t want to hear how much nicer this new woman is than their mother. For awhile they won’t want to hear how much more you love this new person.
3. You don’t have to, in fact you shouldn’t, introduce every date to your kids. This will only confuse them and let them build up false hope about a person they unexpectedly like.
4. Let every date know you have kids. This will eliminate future complications with prospective partners who absolutely aren’t ready for the responsibility of kids.
5. Do not let your kids find half-naked strangers roaming around your house in the early morning.
6. When you feel a relationship has become serious enough to introduce the kids, keep everything low key. Maybe a picnic or trip to the zoo with young kids, so the focus isn’t on “the new person.” Older kids can be tougher or easier depending. Sometimes, if the parent is a widow, they just want their parents to be happy. Other times, if they are children of divorce, don’t expect them to love the new person overnight.
7. Remember, somebody can be a fun date and suck at being a mom or dad. The more you’re around them, the more you’ll be able to tell.
8. If things are getting serious, take your date to the PTA meeting. Let them know what their future looks like.
9. If things get real serious, bring all the kids into the discussion of do we want this person as part of our family. Then tell him or her together.

Harry H Harrison Jr. is a NY TIMES best selling parenting author with some 4 million books in print. He has been interviewed on over 25 television programs, and is featured in over 75 local and national radio stations including NPR, throughout Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Norway, South America, China, Saudi Arabia and in the Far East. His books are available in over thirty-five countries. He is a featured expert at kidsinthehouse.com. For more information visit http://ift.tt/2bEKmcs.

Dawn Ionescu, MD, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, will never forget the first time she saw the drug ketamine in action. “Within hours, a severely depressed patient was talking to other people in the dayroom, eating dinner, and looking brighter,” says Dr. Ionescu. “I decided: I want to know how this is working.”

Ketamine was FDA-approved in the 1970s as an anesthetic and has since been hijacked as a hallucinogenic “club drug.” Recently, researchers noticed it can lift depression quickly, possibly by fixing damaged neurocircuits. “If you think of neurons as trees, depression looks like branches in winter—thin and unhealthy. After treatment with ketamine, the branches look like spring—flowering and plump,” says Dr. Ionescu, based on her observations of animal studies.

The grand research plan: Scan the brains of depressed patients before and after ketamine triggers relief. “If we can see the brain changing, we may be able to understand the actual neurobiology of depression and discover new antidepressants,” Dr. Ionescu says. “I would say it’s one of the most hopeful times we’ve had in decades.”

Here are 8 hidden signs that you might be depressed.

When my son Dan was first diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, he did not receive proper treatment. This is actually not uncommon for those with OCD. Wrong therapy, wrong drugs. His OCD spiraled out of control and less than a year later it was so severe he could not even eat.

So when he entered a top OCD residential treatment program, my husband and I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Dan was on his way! The therapy used in this program was exposure and response prevention (ERP), the recommended psychological treatment for OCD.

By all accounts from his social worker, Dan settled in quickly at the program and was already working hard: facing his fears (exposures) and refraining from engaging in his compulsions (response prevention). And from what we were told, he was making good progress.

We were so pleased and excited! We couldn’t wait to see Dan and almost ran into the clinic for our first weekly meeting. How wonderful it would be to see him not so tormented by this horrible disorder!

Well, what we found was not what we imagined. Dan had lost more weight off his already tall, much-too-thin frame and had black circles under his eyes. He was noticeably nervous, anxious, and jittery, and appeared to be in even worse condition than when he first entered the program.

What went wrong?

Actually, nothing.

What my husband and I didn’t realize at the time is that ERP therapy, by its very nature, raises anxiety. Our son was being asked not only to face his greatest fears, but to refrain from engaging in the thoughts or actions that he believed (at least on some level) kept him, or those he cared about, safe.

Let’s take an example. A common obsession in OCD is worrying about the possibility of hitting someone while driving. Maybe a person with this obsession might avoid driving, but if he has to drive, he makes sure to go back and check every time he thinks he might possibly have hit someone. This compulsion temporarily reduces our friend’s anxiety, but actually strengthens his OCD.

Enter ERP. Now he not only has to face his fear of driving, he has to force himself not to turn the car around to make sure he hasn’t hit anyone. This causes a spike in anxiety, which is actually an integral part of ERP therapy. While the anxiety will be intense, it always resolves at some point. It might take a long time at first, but each time this person drives without checking, the anxiety will typically take a little less time to dissipate until finally, the person with OCD is no longer tormented by this obsession. He has learned to live with the uncertainty of the situation.

Back to Dan. So while we didn’t know it at the time, my husband and I should have been happy to see him so anxious. As he himself told us, “I feel horrible, but that’s good.” That meant he was truly immersing himself in his ERP therapy, and it was working. It’s a tough battle, but as I’ve said many times before, I’ve never met anyone who has regretted doing ERP therapy. The only regret is not having done it sooner.

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