A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to edit an article about a topic that was unfamiliar to me. I agreed to do this, not knowing how complex the text would be. After a few minutes, I stressed out about why I couldn't comprehend the content. My stress soon morphed into anxiety, pounding my head with thoughts like, "I'm so stupid" and "If I can't edit this piece, my friend will be disappointed." I was tempted to give up and apologize to my friend. But before I did, I remembered that my stress and anxiety didn't have to consume me. To learn more about my experience with stress and anxiety and how I have learned to deal with them, continue reading this post.

I'm focusing on not drinking soda. Many people have different habits and addictions that they turn to during stressful times. Some common ones include social media, Netflix, alcohol, food, and drugs. In this post, I discuss how my habit of drinking Diet Coke affects my life. I also share four ways that I plan on using to stop drinking soda.

Self-awareness matters when dealing with anxiety. In the midst of anxiety, my mind creates a mess of thoughts. I cannot figure out when they started, how they began, or how to end them. This struggle sometimes leads to unhealthy temptations and behaviors. After nine years of anxiety treatment, I learned a very helpful skill to understand and change my thoughts and my behaviors when I'm anxious: self-awareness. In this post, I discuss four ways that my self-awareness around anxiety has improved.

Anticipatory anxiety is more severe than stressing out about a current situation. Clinical psychologist Sally Winston and master clinician Martin Seif define anticipatory anxiety as a fear of failure and other bad things that might happen in the future. As a result of anticipatory anxiety, many people avoid important tasks and new things. To learn about my experience with anticipatory anxiety and change and how I managed it, continue reading this post.

At some point, everyone experiences some degree of anger and sadness. Some people can control those emotions easily. For others, self-control is much more difficult. My anxiety and depression have caused me to lose control over sadness and anger verbally. In this post, I discuss my triggers for anger and sadness and how I am learning to deal with them.

In my experience, eczema and mental health can be linked. In my early to mid-20s, I enjoyed wearing makeup and scented lotions. I didn't think much about the chemicals in these products because there didn't appear to be a reason for concern. But when I was 27, I developed painful eczema rashes that changed my perception of chemicals and mental health. To learn about my experience with eczema and how it affected my mental health, continue reading this post.

I recently learned how much healthy activities matter. Last week, I had two consecutive days off from work, which does not happen often. Usually, I spend those days oversleeping. But last week, I tried to stay busy with healthy activities. Here are five ways that I benefited from staying active on my days off work.

There are coping skills for breakups, but learning them took me a while. One of the things I hate most about the summer is that it seems to be my season of breakups. Every time it happened years ago, I felt like something was wrong with me. I lost hope in ever having a lasting relationship. My mind went to dark places for several months. This time, however, I have techniques to ease the healing process. Continue reading to learn about my list of breakup coping skills.

Five symptoms of anxiety and depression include feelings of worthlessness, intense fear, rumination, thoughts of suicide, and guilt. I have experienced all of these symptoms. This has led me to miss out on opportunities that could have helped me improve my self-esteem, reach my goals, and find fulfillment. Last week, I decided to change that by volunteering for the Crisis Text Line. (Note: This post contains a trigger warning.)

During my childhood, my dad was one of my best friends. So Father's Day was a very exciting time. But after my father died, I dreaded the holiday. Over the years, I have learned to cope with grief through writing. This Father's Day, I want to share some writing prompts that have helped me to remember my father's special place in my life. This post contains six of my writing prompts.