Category: Psychology Tips
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Understanding Our Sleep Cycle
Sleep is a natural state that could not be controlled or forced. Our circadian rhythm, i.e. the body clock, is responsible for regulating our sleep-wake cycle which is roughly 24-hour per cycle. Governed by the rhythm, our alertness increases in the morning until around noon when we tend to experience a drop in alertness. This…
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Overcoming Trauma Avoidance: Steps Towards Healing and Growth
Given the threat system’s proneness to react with full-blown fight or flight response in response to trauma related cues, avoidance of places and activities that remind one of traumatic memories can be both an automatic response to triggers and an active attempt to cope with the impact of trauma. The questions is, how can we…
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Reassuring Your Mind After Trauma: Mindful Compassion Techniques
In the aftermath of trauma, the threat system in our mind can frequently say to us words like “It’s just like the time when (trauma) happened” in response to minor triggers in the surrounding. Worse still, the threat system can turn to blame us, the victim, because it is easier, feels safer and more in…
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Coping with Flashbacks: Techniques for Trauma Recovery
Flashback refers to re-experiencing traumatic events as if they are happening right now. It can come in various vividity, from intrusive recollection of what happened in the mind to dissociative experiences where one feels like reliving the traumatic event in real time. Flashback is one of the major suffering trauma survivors struggle with because every…
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Traumatic Life Events and Compassion Focused Healing Approaches
Traumatic life event refers to significant event that bring actual or threatened physical and/or psychological harm to us or someone close to us. For example, natural disaster or accident that leads to injury or death, physical violence, sexual violence etc. Traumatic event can lead to intrusive re-experiencing, hypervigilance, avoidance behaviours and emotional distress. The symptoms…
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Effective Goal Setting in Therapy
There is a saying that “everything will come to you at the right time.” However, waiting for our efforts to be rewarded could be an emotionally draining journey. In face of unknown and uncertainty, we all ask the question “am I doing the right thing?” Setting clear goals is particularly important at these moments because…
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Understanding Anxiety’s Impact on Daily Life
Anyone who had experiences living with anxiety issues would be able to testify that anxiety and fear driven coping behaviours could make lives more difficult than it already is. In psychology, we call these the “unintended consequences” of fight-or-flight coping when our decision making process is dominated by the threat system. Excessive checking in response…
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Understanding Anxiety Through Compassion Focused Therapy
From a Compassion Focused Therapy perspective, our anxious self is part of the threat system functioning that strive to protect us from physical and social threat. It is most often triggered by unknown, uncertainties or reminders of negative past experiences. Sometimes, people struggling with anxiety might ruminate about events or become paralyzed with worries that…
Compassionate Living Psychology 