Daily routines can reduce stress, help us break bad habits (and create better ones), and introduce structure to our lives. However, it’s also beneficial to open ourselves to change and new opportunities as they arise—doing so reduces rigidity and increases happiness. The key is finding a healthy middle ground between…
It’s important you make time for your hobbies, as partaking in your favorite activities is vital to stress management, social connection, and your overall happiness. When you engage in an activity you enjoy, you release a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which makes you feel good! Additionally, your hobbies provide you with…
You can work toward self-improvement by making small changes each day. A few actionable tips include practicing gratitude, logging out of social media, exercising, and saying some positive affirmations in the mirror. To further your self-improvement mission, set out to adopt a more positive sense of being—always look for the…
A personal mission statement simply states your purpose in life—it considers and combines all of your values into just a couple of sentences. It’s important to have a personal mission statement as it motivates you to have a positive impact on the world and helps you feel more satisfied in…
When life becomes overwhelming, it helps to consult your personal value system, which outlines your priorities and guides your actions. Your personal values also help to determine what kind of people you keep around, what purpose you seek, and how you treat others. To create a healthy personal value system,…
Let’s get straight to business. First and foremost, what in the world are positive affirmations? Positive affirmations are statements that help us overcome those negative thoughts that clog up our minds. For example, “I forgive myself for my imperfections, I’m only human,” or simply, “I believe in myself and my…
I’ve always loved to write. (Go figure.) Therefore, I’ve always loved journaling. I got my first journal in elementary school; it was a bulky, white, furry diary with a rainbow patch in the center of the front cover. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and wrote in it…
I struggle with social anxiety. It takes some time for me to warm up to people, and until I do, I’m incredibly quiet and decently awkward. This makes first impressions and introductions pretty painful—I’m talking job interviews, blind dates, work functions, meet-the-parents… I never know what to say, what to…
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is fleeting. Love is friendship on fire. Love is sacrifice. Love is…impossible to define. But the good news is, it’s aplenty—even if we don’t know exactly how to give or receive it. Alex Runolfson, Clinical Mental Health Counselor, understands this all too well….
We are all guilty of being overly critical, demeaning, and simply unkind to ourselves. Whether we’re shaming ourselves for gaining a couple pounds, pouting in the mirror for having messy hair, or literally telling ourselves that we’re not good enough. The time is now to crush that superego, stop those…
I prefer the comfort of my bed and Netflix to a loud night out on the town. Give me a good book or two, light a candle, and I’m set for hours. Very rarely do I make plans with friends during the week, and I’ve gotten really good at scurrying…
In this day and age, a majority of men and women are exceedingly concerned with how they look: how big their legs are, how thin their arms aren’t, how messy or unruly their hair is on any given day. And it’s often difficult to focus on anything positive. So, what…
