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Like most people, you’ve probably experienced a certain level of social anxiety. You may not always feel comfortable socializing in large groups. You may prefer to spend time alone or one-on-one with a longtime friend. You may find your palms sweating before you speak before a crowd or your heart racing in case you’ll be called to answer a question in class or in the workplace.

But if the anxiety you feel in social situations is so intense that you’re overwhelmed to the point of avoiding social interaction altogether, you may be experiencing a social anxiety disorder.

What Is A Social Anxiety Disorder?
Social anxiety disorders are the third most common mental health issue in the U.S., behind depression and alcoholism. People who suffer from what used to be called “social phobia” often feel as if they’re being evaluated and judged in a negative way by everyone around them. This can give rise to feelings of:

• Inferiority
• Humiliation
• Embarrassment
• Inadequacy
• Depression

Social situations can become so stressful that sufferers take great measures to avoid person-to-person contact. They’ll often have trouble making and keeping friends, communicating with colleagues, and maintaining romantic relationships.

Shyness Vs. Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is not your garden-variety shyness. Shyness can be a matter of temperament, and it can usually be overcome. Social anxiety, on the other hand, is debilitating and requires the help of mental health professionals to diagnose and treat.

Suffers are so afraid of putting themselves in the spotlight that they experience physical symptoms of extreme stress, such as:

• Nausea
• Trembling
• Blushing
• Racing heart
• Sweating
• A mind that “goes blank”

They also tend to avoid eye contact and speak softly, as if they could wish themselves smaller and unnoticeable.

Treatments For Social Anxiety
Treatments for social anxiety tend to fall into three categories.

• Psychotherapy, in particular Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), can help sufferers learn techniques to modify their thinking and behavior to cope better.
• Support Groups, where suffers can listen to others who have similar anxiety issues and discuss methods of handling the condition.
• Anti-Anxiety Medications, as a way to give immediate relief until behavior modification and other methods can be learned and implemented.

It takes consistent work and persistence to overcome social anxiety, but with the help of experienced mental health professionals, you’ll be well on your way to a less stressful life.

Do you ever find yourself, in times of stress, polishing off a pint of ice cream, scraping the bottom of a bag of salty potato chips, or gorging yourself on candy? Binge-eating is a common reaction to stress. Unfortunately, the foods chosen are usually of the empty-calorie type, causing blood-sugar spikes and plunges, which just exacerbates your sinking mood and adds guilt to anxiety.

Whether you’re grappling with constant daily stress or facing an extreme situation, what you eat can make a big difference in how well you cope. Check out these five healthy foods that help reduce garden-variety stress.

Berries
Sweet, snack-worthy, and stuffed with antioxidants, blackberries, black raspberries, blueberries and other dark-skinned berries contain anthocyanins which help in your body’s production of dopamine. That neurotransmitter helps modulate your brains’ reward and pleasure centers to regulate emotional responses to many stimuli, including stress.

Nuts And Seeds
Sunflower seeds, almonds, cashews, pine nuts, and pumpkin and sesame seeds contain healthy amounts of magnesium, a mineral necessary for many vital cellular functions, including the regulation of hormonal responses and the production of serotonin. Low levels of serotonin have been linked to depression, as the neurotransmitter is one of several tasked with regulating mood.

Green Vegetables
Yes, your mother was right when she told you to eat your vegetables. Broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus, okra and most leafy green vegetables contain high levels of folate, a natural form of Vitamin B9. The vitamin helps your body produce certain mood-regulating neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin.

Fish Oil
It’s not an old wives’ tale: There’s a reason why grandmothers tried to spoon-feed your parents cod liver oil. Fish oils contain Omega-3 fatty acids, long since shown to have beneficial effects on skin, cardiovascular, and mental health. That doesn’t mean you have to pinch your nose and take bad-tasting medicine, however. Foods that are high in omega-3 fatty acids include:

• Salmon
• Sardines
• Walnuts
• Eggs
• Winter squash
• Spinach
• Purslane
• Cauliflower
• Linseed Oil

Protein
Blood-sugar spikes can exacerbate an already stressful mood into an angry or irritable one. There’s a biological basis to being “hangry.” When your blood sugar is low, serotonin receptors are suppressed, causing irritability and a quick trigger to temper. The best antidote isn’t empty calories, which will only cause a blood-sugar crash later, but protein-rich foods which take longer to digest and emit a steadier supply of sugar into the blood. For a double benefit, choose proteins that also contain tryptophan, an amino acid necessary in serotonin production. These include turkey, cottage cheese, almonds, yogurt, and dried dates.

In the modern-day world, it’s all but impossible to remove stress from your live. But there are ways to cope with it. Eating well is just one first step to good mental and physical health.

Depression is a difficult and debilitating disorder. It’s not uncommon for symptoms to sneak up on a person, starting with crankiness, weight gain, body aches, a lack of energy, or a feeling of numbness as you walk through your daily routine. The sooner you recognize the warning symptoms, the sooner you can take action.

Check out these eight natural ways to deal with the onset of depression

Exercise
Exercise bathes your brain in endorphins, happy hormones that can help offset the chemical imbalance that may be associated with your sinking mood. The adrenaline burst of regular exercise also helps you feel more energetic and connected to the world.

Sunbath
About ten million people in the U.S. suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder, a mood disorder related to the amount of natural light available in certain seasons.

Yet even those who don’t get the winter blues can feel a boost in mood by spending some time in the sunshine. Sunshine aids in the production of vitamin D and regulates circadian rhythms to help you sleep at night.

Sleep Better
Getting a good night of deep, restful sleep is vital for physical and mental health. Without it, you’ll be cranky and chronically fatigued, which can worsen depression symptoms. Set up good sleep habits by adhering to a routine bedtime and wake-time and removing all screens from your bedroom.

Eat Healthy
While theories on nutritional supplements for depression vary, maintaining a healthy diet, low in refined sugars and “junk food”, helps regulate weight gain and smooth out the blood sugar swings that can lead to moodiness and irritability. Take a multivitamin supplement to ensure that you’re getting the vitamins and minerals your brain needs.

Socialize
Depression often leads to isolation, so make a point to socialize with good friends. Social interaction with caring loved ones can turn your thoughts to happy interests as well as draw you out of yourself.

Seek Adventure
Involving yourself in new activities and adventures helps push back on the urge to burrow under the covers. If you’ve ever wanted to take a Zumba class or visit that new museum exhibit, now’s the time to indulge. New experiences cause chemical changes in the brain and release dopamine which positively affects cognition and emotion.

Write
Keeping a journal of the symptoms you’re experiencing and the negative thoughts you may be having can help give perspective. Seeing those thoughts on paper will help you question their logic and thus challenge them. A journal may also be helpful in recognizing when your symptoms aren’t abating and you may need more help.

Get Professional Help
Natural methods of dealing with depression may only go so far. If you feel your symptoms persist despite your efforts, or they’re getting worse, never hesitate to seek professional help. Depression is a mood disorder that can be treated both in therapy as well as medically to give you real relief.

If you’ve got a normal, hectic American life, it’s likely you don’t eat as regularly or as well as you should. If meetings run long, a child needs to be picked up, or you’ve got a spreadsheet due, the first thing sacrificed is the regularity of square meals–and healthy eating.

The next time you’re feeling peckish, avoid the vending machine and instead indulge in one of these five healthy foods that give you energy.

Bananas
Yes, these handy, easy-to-transport snacks are full of fruit sugars, but they won’t give you the sugar rush-and-crash that a candy bar would. That’s because bananas have a whole lot of fiber that help slow-release the banana’s bounty to keep you feeling full and energized until you can have a real meal. Smear slices with almond butter for an extra protein boost.

Oatmeal
Available in handy packets (although try to avoid the packets with sugar added), a quick bowl of warm, thick oatmeal is full of carbohydrates. Carbs are a prime source of energy, and in the form of whole grain like oatmeal, those carbs are released much more slowly than, say, processed white bread. Oatmeal also offers up lots of B vitamins necessary for metabolism. Stir in a handful of blueberries for antioxidant benefits, as well.

Hummus
This chickpeas-and-olive-oil puree delivers carbs, protein, and fats for a solid energy boost. The presence of bean protein and fat slows the release of carbs, offering you a steady and long-lasting input of energy. Hummus comes in lots of different flavors like red pepper and garlic, and can be used instead of mayo or avocado on many sandwiches. Use it as a dip with raw cut carrots, broccoli florets, sugar peas, and/or celery to boost your vitamin and fiber intake.

Almonds
Almonds are nature’s perfect protein snack. Although they have few carbs, they do have vitamins and minerals that are necessary for peak metabolic function, such as manganese, copper, phosphorus, zinc, and iron. They’re also packed with B vitamins like riboflavin, thiamine, niacin, and folate, Vitamin E, and heart-healthy oils.

Eggs
Eminently portable (when hard-boiled), eggs are packed full of protein. It’s the ideal composition of protein, as well, since our bodies can absorb nearly 100% of it. Included in the humble egg are also all the amino acids that our body needs to build and rebuild muscles. A single egg contains almost a third of our daily requirement of protein, which makes us feel full and helps reduce sugary cravings.

It’s important to note that food not only fuels our bodies but it also fuels our brains. Healthy eating can make a big difference in how we feel, both physically and emotionally.

“In this world,” Benjamin Franklin is purported to have said, “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Were the venerated patriot to be transported to the hyper-competitive, hyper-kinetic twenty-first century, he might very well have added “stress” to his list of life’s certainties.

Though it is inevitable, stress can be managed. Check out these three types of exercise that can help.

Cardiovascular Exercise
Vigorous exercise, the kind that raises your pulse, breathing, and heart rate, has long been determined to proffer loads of benefits to the body. But aerobic exercise like running, jogging, Zumba, and spinning also have a marked effect on the brain.

Science has shown that aerobic exercise, done regularly, can:

• Decrease overall anxiety
• Elevate and/or stabilize your mood
• Improve sleep quality
• Improve alertness and focus
• Increase cognitive function

There’s a scientifically-proven neurological basis to these claims. Cardiovascular workouts reduce stress hormone levels. They also increase the amount of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators, in the brain.

Meditative Exercises
You don’t have to risk your hip or knee joints in order to reduce stress and reap the mental rewards of exercise. Meditation and meditative exercises, including some variations of yoga and tai chi, afford the same benefits.

At Coventry University in Great Britain, a review of eighteen studies on the effects of meditation, yoga, and tai chi on the human genome revealed that mind-body activities work on the genetic level to ease depression and alleviate poor health. This works, in part, by muffling what stress and anxiety can do to your body on the molecular level.

Group Sports
Group sports have multiple benefits. First, engaging in group exercise via a team, whether it be kickball, bowling, dodge ball, or tennis, increases the probability that you’ll stay on track. It’s a lot easier to skip that early-morning sub-zero run than it is to skip a pick-up baseball game when the team is counting on you.

The second benefit is to your mental health. The Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise studied the connection between team sports and mental health in two Australian club sports, tennis and netball. They determined that women who took part in team sports enjoyed stronger mental health and overall life satisfaction than women who worked out on their own.

If you’re looking to reduce stress levels using exercise, don’t make the exercise another source of stress. Be sure to choose a fitness routine that fits your life and makes you happy.

You’ve probably heard the terms ADHD and ADD bandied about indiscriminately. Maybe you’ve been exposed to them in reference to children who have similar symptoms and behaviors, which makes parsing out the diagnosis codes difficult. Check out this brief primer on the difference between these acronyms, and how the diagnosis of patients has changed.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is actually an outdated term. It used to refer to individuals who have trouble focusing and organizing, but who do not suffer from the constant energetic eruptions of hyperactivity. A child like this may be dreamy, inattentive, quiet, and disorganized, but by no means boisterous or disruptive. This form of the attention disorder is more often manifested in girls and women, but as of 2013, patients are no longer diagnosed with it.

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association changed the way the range of attention and hyperactivity disorders are labeled. ADD has been replaced by one of three distinct types of ADHD:

• Primarily Inattentive ADHD
• Primarily Hyperactive-Impulsive ADHD
• Combined ADHD

A child exhibiting the inattentive behaviors of what would formerly have been called ADD would now be diagnosed with ADHD-inattentive.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Hyperactivity (along with impulsive behaviors) is what separated ADD from ADHD when ADD was still a recognized diagnosis.

Hyperactivity includes a distinct set of behaviors:

• Impulsivity
• Excessive movement
• Excessive talking
• Difficulty “settling down” for periods of quiet
• Difficulty waiting, taking turns, etc.

Since the 2013 revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a child who exhibits hyperactivity and impulsive behaviors but does not show inattentive behaviors would be diagnosed with ADHD-Hyperactive/Impulsive.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Combined
In case the conflation of ADD and ADHD didn’t confuse us enough, the changes in diagnosis have included a third version of the overall condition.

ADHD Combined is, as evident by the label, a diagnosis that includes all three major elements of the disorder: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness.

Diagnosis labels like ADD and ADHD and others evolve as psychiatric science makes greater strides in understanding the underlying issues. If you’re concerned that someone you love may be suffering from ADHD, contact a mental health professional for testing. The sooner a diagnosis is made, the sooner your loved one can get the help he or she needs.

Workplace stress is inevitable. At some point, you’re bound to deal with an irascible co-worker, an unreasonable boss, an excess of paperwork, or looming deadlines. You may also become overwhelmed if your job is at risk because of potential layoffs or a poor performance review.

Unfortunately, few workplaces have ping-pong tables, Xboxes, and comfort llamas. So check out these 5 more sensible ways to deal with stress at work.

Take A Physical Break
Time is limited but work is unlimited. That doesn’t mean you have to grind through your lunch break. For the sake of your mental and physical health, getting away from the stress-boiler of the office is a great way to shake it off. Whether it’s a walk around a nearby park, a healthy lunch off campus, or a quick trip to the gym, the physical exertion and change-of-pace will do a world of good.

Communicate Better
Stress is sometimes self-imposed. Are you taking on more work than you can physically complete? Are you nursing resentments over unfair workplace practices or preferences? Do you feel that your boss is inflicting unreasonable deadlines?

Get it off your chest by learning how to communicate your concerns in a constructive, positive manner. If, for example, your boss gives you a new project when you already have three others on your desk, pause to ask him how this new project fits in with your other priorities, and then list them. Your boss has his or her own worries and may not realize how hard he or she is leaning on you.

Prioritize And Delegate
Smart workers take the time to prioritize tasks and then tackle the hardest ones earlier in the day when they’re feeling freshest. If you have access to additional help, consider what you can delegate to other workers. If it’s in the budget, send large batches of work out to be photocopied rather than standing over the office photocopier yourself.

Hold The Phones
…and the emails, instant messages, faxes, and texts. If you absolutely have to get something done that requires full concentration, a few hours out of touch with the world may be just what you need to get it done stress-free, efficiently, and well.

Eat And Sleep Healthy
If you’re going to the vending machine several times a day, you’re only making yourself more prone to sugar highs and crashes. And if you’re staying up to finish a project only to arrive early the next morning, day after day, you’re depriving yourself of the sleep your body and brain need to refresh themselves.

Short-term stress is inevitable, but if high stress is part of your everyday life, you may begin experiencing physical symptoms such as insomnia, weight gain or loss, stomach upset, loss of focus, headaches, and overall irritability. For the sake of your health and relationships, make an extra effort to de-stress at work.

Everybody’s had the blues, according to the old Merle Haggard song. Though it’s true that everyone experiences profound sadness during their lifetime, most would agree that there’s a big difference between a temporary bout of the blues and a depression that affect’s one’s ability to cope.

Yet there’s one kind of depression whose key characteristic is how it ebbs and flows: Seasonal Affect Disorder.

What Is Seasonal Affect Disorder?
Season Affect Disorder (SAD) is a form of depression that occurs over the span of a weather season. Just like depression, sufferers of this malady may experience all or some of the following symptoms:

• Sadness and/or swings of mood
• Apathy and/or disinterest in activities that were once enjoyed
• Loneliness and/or self-imposed isolation
• Changes in sleep patterns such as sleeping excessively or insomnia
• Appetite changes and/or weight gain
• Anxiety

Since there are treatments for SAD that are unique to the condition, paying extra attention to certain other factors is critical to an accurate diagnosis.

What Distinguishes SAD From Depression?
Depression is a persistent, unrelenting condition that pays no mind to what’s going on out-of-doors. The onset and ebbing of symptoms for SAD, on the other hand, is linked to the time of year. Most suffers find that the symptoms begin in the late fall and worsen through the dark of winter, and they do so every year. In rare cases, some sufferers experience these conditions during the spring and summer.

Researchers believe that the waning of natural light triggers certain biochemical changes. Melatonin levels begin to vary, which can disrupt your circadian rhythms. The reduction of sunlight can also alter the production of serotonin, the brain’s mood-regulating drug.

In order for a mental health professional to make a clinical diagnosis of SAD, two cycles of the experience are necessary to be sure. There are also particular risk factors for SAD to take into account:

• A family history of SAD or depression
• Women are more prone than men; 75% of sufferers are women
• Younger people are more likely to be diagnosed; late-life onset is less common

Many mental health issues share similar symptoms, which can make them hard to accurately diagnose. If you think that you, a friend, or a family member may be suffering from Seasonal Affect Disorder, contact a mental health professional to get the help needed.

Learning is not a simple process. We all hope that our children fly through academic milestones, and we can relate when one or two particular subjects prove troublesome. But what do you do when test scores don’t seem to mirror your child’s abilities, your child struggles with learning issues that seem baffling, and the school psychologist can only offer limited assistance? That’s when a professional psycho-educational evaluation can help.

What Is A Psycho-Educational Evaluation?
The title sounds intimidating, but this kind of evaluation is just a series of tests and empirical observations by a specially-trained psychologist meant to analyze your child’s mental processes and behavior patterns.

By identifying your child’s learning style, processing patterns, and memory abilities, the professional evaluator gets a good look at your child’s fundamental strengths and weaknesses. Armed with this information, he or she can begin to identify any learning disabilities or behavioral issues that may be hindering your child’s full potential.

Fundamentals Of A Psycho-Educational Evaluation
The evaluation itself usually begins by measuring a child’s cognitive skills using a test like the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). This test, done on a computer or with a pencil and paper, measures four aspects of your child’s cognitive abilities:

• Verbal Skills
• Perceptual Reasoning
• Memory Skills
• Mental Processing Speed

This analysis may be followed by an academic achievement test to measure skills in reading, math, and other subjects. Discrepancies between this test and the former can help identify certain learning disabilities.

Depending on the particular challenges your child faces, a third test or set of tests may be administered to evaluate other cognitive and behavioral issues, such as:

• Attention issues
• Executive function abilities such as organizing and seeing a project through to completion
• An overall psychological assessment

The evaluation process can take several hours in one sitting, or shorter periods over a span of a few days.

After all the testing is done, evaluators offer the test scores and as well as a written explanation of what they mean in terms of your child’s situation. The evaluator offers solid advice and recommendations on how to enhance your child’s educational experience based on their individual profile. If the data they collected warrants it, they may also diagnose learning disabilities and recommend accommodations in the classroom so your child can charge forward in sync with his or her peers.

Everyone gets the blues at some time or another. Sadness is a natural emotion and an expected response to setbacks such as a romantic break-up, a demotion at work, or the loss of a friend or relative. Grieving is a process that we all must acknowledge and experience. But since, at first glance, sadness and depression share some of the same symptoms, how do you know when your blue mood is a sign of something more serious?

Duration
Sorrow is usually a response to a specific, disheartening event, a natural emotion that follows personal loss or change. It can continue for a long time, but, in general, the intensity of the experience ebbs, evolves, becomes intermittent, or eases over time.

Depression, although it can be triggered by a single event, is far more stubborn. The duration and intensity of the sad feelings (among other emotions) are markers that determine the difference. Depression doesn’t easily ebb and can quickly change for the worse.

Despair
Although sorrow is one of the emotions that the clinically depressed can experience, it is only one of many. Sufferers of this malady often express feelings that go far deeper than what would necessarily be expected of someone grieving a particular event or series of events. Some of those feelings include:

• Hopelessness
• Pessimism
• Guilt
• Worthlessness
• Helplessness
• Despair
• Emptiness

Debilitation
Although sorrow can surely cause a loss of appetite, insomnia, and many other physical symptoms, red flags should fly if those symptoms persist and multiply to the point of inhibiting normal function. One of the hallmarks of clinical depression is a raft of physical conditions, such as:

• Ill-defined maladies, such as headaches, backaches, cramps, etc.
• Sleep pattern changes, including fatigue, restlessness, insomnia, oversleeping
• Appetite changes, to the point of sudden weight gain or loss, or digestive issues

Disposition
Whether we’ve experienced it or not, we’ve all seen people grapple with sadness. We expect tears, withdrawal, and a period of mourning. But those who suffer from clinical depression often exhibit mood and behavioral changes that aren’t usually expected from someone with “just” the blues. These may include:

• Cognitive trouble, such as difficulty in making decisions, remembering things, and concentrating for any length of time
• Personality changes, such as becoming withdrawn or irritable and losing interest in what once brought joy
• Self-harm (such as cutting) or suicidal thoughts

Grief is an emotion, but depression is a mental health issue that can be treated by medical professionals. If you believe that you may be experiencing some of the signs and symptoms of depression, never hesitate to call a mental health professional to get the help you deserve and need.