Showing posts with label SelfImprovement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SelfImprovement. Show all posts

Sunday, October 11, 2026

The Simple Daily Change Experts Say Can Boost Your Memory Over Time

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Sticking to a routine can save you time and help make life easier and more predictable. However, breaking out of the norm can also be beneficial especially for your brain. “Being stuck in habitual behavior isn’t something that helps memory in the long run,” says Nicole Issa, Psy.D., founder of PVD Psychological Associates, based in Rhode Island. “In fact, it holds back any improvements.” Learn more about when and why you should change things up. Habits are important. They help simplify, increase efficiency, and are necessary when it comes to activities where consistency is important, such as sleep and exercise………Continue reading…

Source: Real Simple

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Critics:

Life routines are a sequence of actions regularly followed to create structure, balance, and efficiency in your daily life. Key benefits include reduced decision fatigue, increased productivity, and a greater sense of stability. A balanced routine can include a morning routine (e.g., waking up, exercising, and eating breakfast), a workday focus plan, and an evening wind-down ritual, all while incorporating personal care, hobbies, and rest.

The “best” daily routine is one that is personalized to your specific needs, goals, and lifestyle, but it generally includes a consistent sleep schedule, healthy eating, regular physical activity, structured work or tasks, and time for self-care, reflection, and hobbies. A good routine provides structure, reduces stress, and optimizes your time, leading to increased productivity and improved mental and physical well-being.

30 Days to Better Habits is a free 30-day email course by James Clear, author of the New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits. Subscribers receive one short email every three days for a month. This email course will set you on the path toward a new lifestyle filled with good habits. The followings are the mainly healthy habits:

  • Measure and Watch Your Weight
  • Limit Unhealthy Foods and Eat Healthy Meals
  • Take Multivitamin Supplements
  • Drink Water and Stay Hydrated, and Limit Sugared Beverages
  • Exercise Regularly and Be Physically Active
  • Reduce Sitting and Screen Time
  • Get Enough Good Sleep
  • Go Easy on Alcohol and Stay Sober

A wellness routine is a daily schedule that incorporates all of your healthy habits, such as your movement, sleep, meals, work/study/social life balance, and self-care activities. The best wellbeing routine will support you on the tough days and give you some extra energy and good feelings on the best days. A routine is how you build habits. Routines can be enjoyable and fulfilling, and their health benefits may make you wonder why you did not start one earlier.

A routine can help you: Manage stress more effectively: Stress can put you at higher risk for heart disease and negatively impact your overall health. The seven key habits to reduce dementia risk are being physically and mentally active, eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, controlling blood pressure, managing cholesterol, and keeping blood sugar levels in check.

These habits support overall brain health, and research shows that adopting them can significantly lower the chances of developing dementia. You can change your life immediately by adopting a more positive mindset, taking immediate control of your environment and habits, and setting clear, actionable goals.

Start with small, manageable actions like decluttering your space, making a plan for your day, and practicing gratitude to build momentum and a sense of accomplishment. Unhealthy habits include behaviors that harm your physical or mental well-being, such as a lack of exercise, poor diet, excessive consumption of alcohol or sugar, insufficient sleep, and prolonged sitting.

Other habits, like compulsive social media use, procrastination, excessive worrying, and smoking, also negatively impact health. We spend the most time working and sleeping. Together, paid work, housework, leisure, eating, and sleeping take 80–90% of all the 1440 minutes in a day. Work is an important activity where we see large differences.

That way, you have a built-in trigger to kick off the new one: “After I do [Habit #1], I will do [Habit #2].” For example, if you’re trying to build a consistent journaling habit, you might choose to spend a few minutes journaling after you brush your teeth each morning or evening. The “best” daily routine is one that is personalized to your specific needs, goals, and lifestyle, but it generally includes a consistent sleep schedule, healthy eating, regular physical activity, structured work or tasks, and time for self-care, reflection, and hobbies.

A good routine provides structure, reduces stress, and optimizes your time, leading to increased productivity and improved mental and physical well-being. Although it may seem boring to the rest of us, highly sensitive people (HSP) tend to thrive when they follow a routine, which is actually a vital part of their survival strategy. Have you ever noticed that some people need to follow a routine to stay grounded and productive?

New men’s wellness and mental health group launches in Greenock Greenock Telegraph, Scotland 22:11 Fri, 03 Oct 

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Thursday, September 24, 2026

Gen X Women Don’t Have The Bandwidth To Figure Out Why They Feel So Terrible

Overearth/getty images

At the end of last year, I started to see a cognitive behavioral therapist. My executive function, the set of mental processes that help order the day-to-day  like organization, working memory, time management and focus  was in shambles. In my intake interview, the therapist asked when I noticed that my focus had gotten worse, and I said that I’d been diagnosed with ADD when I was in my mid-40s, but added that I was also possibly in menopause.My ex-husband and co-parent had recently died, and I was now the single mother of a grieving teen.……Continue reading….

By: Andi Zeisler

Source: Salon

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Critics: 

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that combines basic principles from cognitive psychology and behaviorism.[1] It aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions by challenging and adjusting convictions and assumptions, while helping patients learn better-adapted behavior by trying and training new behaviours. While CBT has philosophical precursors in Stoicism, it developed in three waves in the 20th century.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown as an effective treatment for clinical depression. Among psychotherapeutic approaches for major depressive disorder, cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy are recommended by clinical practice guidelines including The American Psychiatric Association Practice (APA) Guidelines (April 2000), and the APA endorsed Veteran Affairs clinical practice guideline.

CBT has been shown to be effective in the treatment of adults with anxiety disorders.[147] There is also evidence that using CBT to treat children and adolescents with anxiety disorders was probably more effective (in the short term) than wait list or no treatment and more effective than attention control treatment approaches. Some meta-analyses find CBT more effective than psychodynamic therapy and equal to other therapies in treating anxiety and depression.

A 2013 meta-analysis suggested that CBT, interpersonal therapy, and problem-solving therapy outperformed psychodynamic psychotherapy and behavioral activation in the treatment of depression. According to a 2004 review by INSERM of three methods, cognitive behavioral therapy was either proven or presumed to be an effective therapy on several mental disorders. This included depression, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress, and other anxiety disorders.

The first wave consisted of the development of behaviorism in the 1920s and behavioral therapy in the 1950s and 1960s. The second wave focused on the importance of cognitions in the therapeutic process, resulting in the development of cognitive therapy by psychoanalyst Aaron Beck in the 1950s and the establishment of classical CBT, when cognitive and behavioral approaches were combined.

The third wave took place in the 1980s and 1990s, when principles originating from Buddhism, especially mindfulness and acceptance, significantly contributed to the development of various new forms of CBT. Over time, cognitive behavior therapy became an umbrella term for all cognitive-based psychotherapies. CBT is a “problem-focused” and “action-oriented” form of therapy. The therapist’s role is to assist the client in finding and practicing effective cognitive and behavioral strategies to address identified obstacles and alleviate symptoms of the disorder.

CBT is based on the belief that thought distortions and maladaptive behaviors play a role in the development and maintenance of many psychological disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing these cognitive distortions (thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and help the individual develop coping strategies to address problems. CBT includes a number of cognitive and behavioral psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.

These therapies include, but are not limited to, rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), cognitive therapy, metacognitive therapy, metacognitive training, reality therapy/choice theory, cognitive processing therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and multimodal therapy. New forms of CBT specifically influenced by mindfulness approaches include dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and compassion-focused therapy.

Though originally designed to treat depression, CBT is often prescribed as an evidence-informed treatment for many mental health and medical conditions. These include obsessive–compulsive disorder generalized anxiety disorder, substance use disorders, marital problems, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and eating disorders. Along with interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), CBT is recommended in treatment guidelines as a psychosocial treatment of choice.

It is recommended by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the British National Health Service. CBT is also recommended as the first line of treatment for the majority of psychological disorders in children and adolescents, including aggression and conduct disorder. Criticism of the therapy has focused on its lack of double-blind tested research, relatively high drop-out rates, and tendency to target symptoms rather than the underlying condition.

CBT may be delivered in conjunction with a variety of diverse but related techniques such as exposure therapy, stress inoculation, cognitive processing therapy, cognitive therapy, metacognitive therapy, metacognitive training, relaxation training, dialectical behavior therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy. Some practitioners promote a form of mindful cognitive therapy which includes a greater emphasis on self-awareness as part of the therapeutic process.

CBT is used to help people of all ages, but the therapy should be adjusted based on the age of the patient with whom the therapist is dealing. Older individuals in particular have certain characteristics that need to be acknowledged and the therapy altered to account for these differences thanks to age. Of the small number of studies examining CBT for the management of depression in older people, there is currently no strong support.

A typical CBT program would consist of face-to-face sessions between patient and therapist, made up of 6–18 sessions of around an hour each with a gap of 1–3 weeks between sessions. This initial program might be followed by some booster sessions, for instance after one month and three months. CBT has also been found to be effective if patient and therapist type in real time to each other over computer links.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is most closely allied with the scientist–practitioner model in which clinical practice and research are informed by a scientific perspective, clear operationalization of the problem, and an emphasis on measurement, including measuring changes in cognition and behavior and the attainment of goals.

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