After the excitement and celebration of the holiday season is behind us and the new year is under way, I’d like to propose that you join me in paying closer attention to the spaces between the sound. With all the conversations — those we have with others and those rattling around in our minds — it’s not often that we find a place for silence. Can you find the space between the sound — can you find the silence between the chatter? How can we possibly pay sincere attention to what’s right in front of us, if we cannot even stop to hear our own breath?

January is a perfect time to take the opportunity to learn to meditate or simply reconnect by exhaling and hearing the quiet and stillness all around you. The holidays can sometimes seem like a constant buzz of excitement and energy, and after all the hustle and bustle is behind us and the cleanup is complete, there is a sense of quiet, crisp, clear air that supports us. This sense of silence can support us in renewal and is part of a healthy cleansing of old unnecessary negative thoughts and feelings we may be holding.

There are many benefits to meditation, stillness and silence. There are many physiological benefits. Did you know that people who meditate have a reduction in their anxiety levels simply by reducing their blood lactate levels? They also tend to have a stronger immune system to fight off illness. People who find time for silence and stillness also have a more relaxed nervous system and can even normalize to an ideal weight easier than those who do not practice regular meditation.

There are also many psychological benefits. People who meditate on a regular basis can increase their serotonin that influences mood and behavior. Taking time for meditation and introspective silence can also make you less aggressive and more tolerant, more creative and focused. and can improve your concentration.

Aside from the proven benefits of meditation, silence and stillness, there is a secondary gain of listening to and hearing your own inner voice more clearly. As a psychotherapist, I’m not in the business of giving advice, but rather nurturing and supporting the quest for an answer within yourself. A therapist may assist with reframing thoughts or gently guiding toward another perspective, but ultimately the solutions to challenges we face in life are typically found deep within our own knowing, intuition and strengths. Sometimes we cannot hear these answers because we’re not taking the time to really listen.

I hope you’ll allow this January to be the beginning of a new season for you — a season of silence, stillness and crisp, clear, quiet thinking. Take time to “clear the clutter” of unnecessary negative thoughts and feelings and make room for a more positive you. For your own inner awareness, I hope you’ll join me in discovering the space between the sound.

We could all stand to reduce our stress this holiday season. How many times do you find yourself rolling into New Year’s saying “Next year I’m doing this differently.”

Deep in our hearts we understand that simplifying our lives supports a more enjoyable, relaxed holiday season. Yet we continue to complicate and over think many holiday decisions and plans, leaving us feeling exhausted and overextended with little or no energy left to really be in the moment.

This year, I encourage you to stop and think. Stop and think before over committing and saying “yes” to every holiday party and event you’re invited to. Stop and think before making purchases and stick to your list. Stop and think before decorating or baking, and ask yourself: Is this contributing to your quality of life, or increasing your stress level?

Maybe this year it’s time to really simplify. Are there holiday traditions that you can streamline or modify? For example, instead of the $10 or $20 office gift exchange, how about suggesting a charity or cause to contribute to instead? Do you typically bake a large assortment of cookies in small batches to give out to guests or neighbors? Maybe it would be a good idea to pick two of your favorite recipes and bake a double batch instead. Living more simply and minimizing the feeling of being overcommitted can significantly improve your mood and reduce your anxiety level during the holiday season.

Let’s also take a moment to remember what is really important during the holidays. What is meaningful to you? What matters the most to your family, your children, your spouse or partner? Are you able to simplify and allow yourself to be more present with what is right in front of you, rather than thinking of the next thing on your list, next party or event? At the end of the day, the holidays should remind us of a time of peace and joy. I am certain one way to get there is to simplify and not over extend yourself.

Maybe this is your season to really slow down. Perhaps this is your season to take in the holidays through your senses. Maybe this is your season to pay attention to the quality and meaningfulness of the relationships in your life. Maybe this is your season to commit to the philosophy of “less is more.”

Let this be the season to simplify.

We use the term “stressed out” loosely in our language and freely in our culture to describe everything from generally feeling frazzled to experiencing severe duress. But what does being stressed really mean? What are the true signs and symptoms of experiencing stress at a dysfunctional level where it begins to create an impairment in our lives? To understand the stress response we must first address the fight or flight. When we are stressed, our system typically engages in a fight response or a flight response. Both responses are created by multiple chemical changes within your body that happen in the blink of an eye. Without even thinking about it — your system assesses a stressful encounter with a “life and death” meter and from that calculation, your body engages prepared to confront the challenge or retreat. We react to outside threats to our system with a discharge of our nervous system and that “flooding” of chemicals creates action.

Stress creates both physiological and psychological effects on the mind, body and spirit. Some of the physiological effects may include accelerated heart and lung action, paling or flushing of the skin, slowed digestion, headaches, muscle tension, shaking or tremors. The psychological effects can be more difficult to pinpoint. These may include: excessive worry, irritability, difficulty concentrating, feelings of loneliness or isolation, moodiness, or problematic sleeping. The stress response is valuable. In our earliest existence, it kept us alive. Think of a cave man confronted with a bear. The flood of chemicals rushing through his body helped him make a life or death decision in the blink of an eye. However, these days, in most current situations, a strong and severe stress response can be disruptive and unnecessary.

Why is feeling stressed out a problem then if it’s meant to help keep us alive? Well, first, a prolonged stress response may result in chronic suppression of the immune system, leaving the body open and susceptible to infection. Second, chronic stress contributes to illness and disease and is a detriment to general wellness and healing overall. And third, the cumulative effect of a build up of stress on the system can impair functioning, judgment and the quality of your life.

Stress can tend to trick us. We tend to forget that both positive and negative life events can lead to stress. For example — coping with a loss of a loved one, or planning for a wedding can both create the same type of stress response, even though they are both very different life events. Another trick stress pulls on us is that alarming experiences, either real or imagined, can trigger the stress response. Imagine that. The power of our own anticipatory anxiety around an upcoming stressful life event can cause a stress response just as significant as what we might experience actually going through that stressful life event. We also know that stress is impacted by a lack of control or helpless feeling over the following: security of our housing, job security, access to food, environmental circumstances, physical health, financial considerations, mobility, choices and freedom.

So how do we cope? As a practicing psychotherapist, I like to ask my clients to take a holistic inventory of their lives from physical, to mental to emotional. Let’s take the time to assess multiple influential factors in your life and see where the problematic areas lie. What is your support system like? Tell me about the quality of your relationships, your job, how you make meaning in your life. What are your nutrition substance use, or sleep patterns like? How do you balance work and play? Once we discover where the stress is coming from, I then ask my clients to assess if irrational beliefs may be contributing to their stress. What is the evidence that this is a real threat to your life or system in general? Sometimes we are generating and fueling a steady stress response all of our own accord. We’re creating a way to maintain a level of stress in our lives all on our own. Other times, we are blaming others for the way they make us feel stressed out — when we could benefit from asking ourselves how to change our own response to that external source of stress.

Many times, a stressful life event is out of our control. But what we can control is how we cope and how we choose to respond to stress and these, I believe, are the tools that can be gained from supportive psychotherapy. An objective opinion from an expert in the field can help you reframe, focus and feel better. Therapy provides a safe container to be vulnerable and explore all the “what ifs.” If you’re feeling like stress has taken over in your life, it may be time to reach for additional support.

In these times of economic strain, we are reminded of what’s really important, of needs vs. wants and what we can and cannot live without. Through these fiscally challenging months, we may have been blessed with the reminder that sometimes less is more. Having “more” can be complicated. “Less” is simple. “More” can feel chaotic, “less” is focused. “More” feels unattainable, “less” more realistic.

At times we are paralyzed by choice saturation. We are completely overwhelmed by the number of options. Aisles in grocery stores are devoted entirely to salad dressings. Menus have turned into overly descriptive short novels with chapters dedicated to soups, salads and starters. In turn, having too many choices has created a high-maintenance culture. Multiple small daily decisions overwhelm or cloud our thinking, and we find it difficult then to make larger life decisions.

There is no better time to be simplifying our lives. Living in a simple way feels like lifting a thick fog that surrounds our thinking and judgment. Minimizing and streamlining our lives helps us prioritize and think more clearly.

When we focus on the concept of “less is more” we begin to shift our attention back to the things that really matter. We spend more time with families - but we spend less money making those memories. As a psychotherapist, I work with parents who often feel a tremendous sense of guilt that they cannot, especially during the recent financial downturn, afford the Disney trip or luxurious family beach vacation. However, when you ask a child what they liked best about their family vacation, most likely they’ll answer “time spent with my parents.” Less is more.

Living with less helps us return to a simpler way of life. Perhaps as we make cuts to our family budget, we’re cooking more at home, walking more instead of driving, hosting potlucks with friends rather than expensive dinner parties. These simple lifestyle changes can make our lives richer and more complete. Because at the end of the day, it’s our relationships that truly matter, not the things we’ve accumulated, the wealth we’ve earned or how we spend our money.

When we cut back on material wants and focus more on needs, we decrease clutter and distraction. Since we don’t have to have all the things we’re learning to do without, our stress level goes down. Let’s remember, too, from a more global perspective that even though budgets are tight and our finances are limited, we are still living a “rich” life compared to most worldwide.

There are some things that a bad economy cannot take from us. It cannot rob us of our freedom. It cannot take away the importance of deep and meaningful relationships. It cannot rock our spirituality and it never changes who we are inside. Let’s recognize that economic challenges are also temporary. The economy has peaked and crashed many times over the years. Perhaps we can help alleviate anxiety through reframing the way we think and feel. Maybe the answer is in adapting to a philosophy of “less is more”.

What is it that makes female friendships so significant? Sure, we validate, support one another, bring the casserole to a friend in need, nod, laugh and listen. But what is it that truly makes a woman-to-woman relationship so strong? Chances are, since childhood, you can recall girlfriends who were dear to your heart. What made those friendships unique? Many researchers have studied this question and some have found that there is a special importance in the role of female friendships among women. The literature has indicated that these special relationships not only support a woman’s emotional development, but improve her physical health, too.

How is this possible? A Univeristy of Michigan study (June 2009) by researcher Stephanie Brown found that “dishing” with a girlfriend actually does wonders for a woman’s mood. When we feel emotionally connected to a friend, the hormone progesterone actually increases, which in turn helps to boost our feelings of well-being and has been proven to reduce anxiety and stress.

Gender communication also has something to do with why female friendships can be so significant. Women need women in their lives for a sense of support and empathetic listening, support without necessarily “fixing” the problem.

A woman typically collects details while processing information, whereas a man may tend to look for a solution.

Not all female relationships are comforting and supportive, however. There can be aspects of intensity and difficult periods in female relationships. According to author Terri Apter in her book, “Best Friends,” many females carefully negotiate their relationships with other females. There may be periods of intense competition, possessiveness, unrealistic idealization and envy. Some friendships cannot weather these storms. However, for those who choose to address these challenging aspects of a female-to-female relationship, great outcomes are possible.

As a psychotherapist in private practice, I specialize in women’s issues. Many of my female clients discuss their struggle with friendships and relationships. A common thread that I tend to hear is the need to connect with other women and develop lasting friendships and supportive nurturing relationships. Sometimes it feels like we surround ourselves with lighter, surface relationships, but it’s those deeper, trusting relationships that are more difficult to maintain. Many times, it’s because making ourselves vulnerable to another person creates a sense of discomfort we’re not willing to risk.

When you think of your friendships, imagine a bull’s-eye with our inner most friends next to us in the inner circle, and layers of friends extending outward all the way to acquaintances on the outer ring.

I encourage you to take an inventory of the meaning of friendship. Who do you let into your inner circle? Who are the friends on that outer ring? Think about your relationships and what type of investment you’re making. When we disclose and reach out, it creates a sense of trust in others to reciprocate that trust and confidence. Do we want to surround ourselves with lots of superficial or surface relationships, or find the emotional and physiological benefits of nurturing a few true friends?

Remember: True friends are those who know you in a special way that others don’t. Overall, nurturing true friendship is not only good for the soul, but is good for our health as well.

In my practice as a psychotherapist, I see several clients who describe a sense of discontent. They find themselves wondering: “Why is it that I never have enough time to do everything I want to do?” or “I feel so overwhelmed, like I’m just going through the motions, but not really feeling meaning in anything I do.”

In this fast-paced world, I believe it’s only natural to get caught up in an over-committed, “under-prioritized” way of living. Sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the cycle of doing things we don’t really want to be doing over and over again because we feel like it’s something expected of us, or something we “should” be doing. Consequently, we get busier and we’re not really aligned with our priorities. As this builds up, we may find ourselves experiencing a general feeling of discontentment.

When these types of issues arise for my clients, I ask them to think of a time when they felt really content or genuinely at peace. What was unique about that time in your life - what were your priorities then and how are you, or aren’t you, aligned with those now. This can be a challenging question for some. I have found a simple value assessment exercise helpful in illustrating this point: Get a pencil and paper and take few minutes to write down your “Top 10 Values.” This list could comprise anything from family, love, honesty, integrity, creativity, or I’ve seen clients use words like humor, compassion, communication, nature, or spontaneity. Some people start writing and get to about the sixth word and stop. “I can’t think of anything else,” they say. Well, how would others describe you? What are principles or values you can’t imagine living without?

When you get to a list of 10 values, divide them in half - and come up with a top five list out of those 10. Then, for the last step, rank in order these top five values from one to five, No. 1 being the most important.

What did you come up with? What is the No. 1 value on your list? Is it family? Is it trust? Is it love? Whatever it is for you, you must then ask yourself: How well are my priorities in life aligned with my top five values? If family is No. 1 on your list, for example, are you finding that your priorities are really aligned with what that means to you? If not, how can you start to make changes to get back to a way of living that individually matches what you deem valuable. This exercise is a concrete way of taking the time to assess what is truly important in your life. It sounds simple, but you may find the results surprising.

Understanding symptoms of depression in women can be the first step towards seeking effective treatment and learning new coping strategies. Women with depressive illnesses do not all experience the same set of symptoms with the same frequency, duration or intensity. In fact, there are many unanswered questions when it comes to understanding the complexity of depression and why women generally are at higher risk for being diagnosed.

What we do know is that there are many contributing factors that lead to a diagnosis of depression for women. These include not only a genetic history, hormonal and chemical changes, but also environmental and psychosocial factors. Women typically juggle multiple roles in their lives and the challenge of balancing work and family can, at times, create a strain. Women are particularly vulnerable to depression after childbirth or during menopause when hormonal changes as well as the impact of such significant life transitions can illuminate features of depression including mood changes, irritability, changes in sleep or appetite, or feelings of emptiness.

We know that stress and stressful life events such as significant changes in relationships or major life transitions, the loss of a loved one, serious illness or traumatic events can also trigger a depressive episode. Typically women carry the role of primary caregiver, and added work or home responsibilities can also strain our resources and resiliency making it more difficult to cope with stressful life events.

At times of significant stress, women can experience “situational depression” without having any previous history or features of the illness. What’s important to recognize, however, is that no matter the severity or duration of symptoms, depressive illness can be treated.

Treatment options can include medication, psychotherapy, group therapy and holistic approaches such as increasing self-care, improving exercise and nutrition, as well as incorporating spirituality or relaxation techniques like meditation or yoga.

While our culture overall continues to understand mental health needs, we need to work harder toward reducing the stigma associated with mental health care. Media images that portray mental health disorders unrealistically only perpetuate the stigma attached and deter those experiencing symptoms from seeking help.

We would never deny someone with a physical illness their medication or treatment. For example, we would never pass judgment on someone with diabetes requiring insulin, or a cancer patient seeking chemotherapy for treatment. Therefore, we, as a community, need to recognize that similar to a physical health concern, mental health diagnoses require treatment and at times, medication management. Understanding depression can help reduce the stigma and misunderstanding associated with the illness.

Psychotherapy can provide a safe place to process issues related to a depression with an objective trained professional to provide support and feedback. By learning new coping strategies and new ways of thinking and behaving, women often find ways to change patterns that have contributed to their depression. Taking steps to help yourself or someone you know who suffers from depression should not be seen as defeat, but rather a commitment to yourself and to the important first step toward feeling better.

No doubt, Americans live in a hyper-accelerated culture where fast food, high speed Internet, express lane checkout counters and speed passes at gas stations are not fast enough for some. The problem with living in a world that continues to race all around us is that some things continue to move at only one pace — slow. Grief work can be exhausting work and there is no rushing through the process. Just as we cannot change the speed of the seasons, we cannot change how quickly we move through grieving the loss of a loved one. The old adage “time heals all wounds” may not be entirely true, but what is true about that statement is that as time passes, our grieving process seems to lighten ever so slightly.

Our grief may come and go at predictable moments — like anniversaries or special dates that remind us of our lost loved one, or it can come at unpredictable moments — like on a random Tuesday morning on the way to work where we can’t anticipate any sort of trigger for the wave of emotion we sometimes feel. As our lives continue to change or our role in life changes — we may go through significant life events that create a sort of “upsurge” in our grief years after that special person has died. For example, if we get married, have a child, change jobs, move to a new home, we may find our grief comes back to us at those moments when we may have felt years beyond our grieving.

The grief process can depend on many factors. Was it a sudden, traumatic, unexpected loss, or was this an anticipated death from a long-term struggle with illness or disease? Does the family feel the death was preventable or unpreventable, sudden or anticipated? The nature of the relationship with the deceased is also a factor that plays a large role in complicated grief. If there was a lot of unresolved conflict, or if the relationship wasn’t what the survivor had hoped it would be, there can be in essence, two losses. We may, for example, grieve the loss of the father who died, but we also grieve the loss of the father we didn’t have — a father, for example, who may have been an alcoholic, or emotionally absent, or inattentive. This is also true for those who care for a loved one who is “lost” over time, such as a person with a degenerative disease like Alzheimer’s or Lou Gehrig’s disease. With these examples, a person can lose their ability to communicate or function as they used to and, consequently, when they die, the family may feel as if they’ve lost that person twice — once when they were declining, and once at the time of death.

Defense mechanisms, such as denial or avoidance, are temporarily OK and can sometimes protect us from an emotional overload of thoughts and feelings. We can only handle so much processing at once and sometimes our system, mind and body, only allows a small amount of reality in at a time. It’s never our job to rob someone of their defense mechanisms, but to support them at the pace that feels right to them. After all, you cannot jump in the express lane or increase the speed of the grieving process. It naturally unfolds at a pace that is comfortable for you. Overall, grief work can be emotionally and physically draining. If you are currently experiencing a loss in your life, remember to nurture your mind and body, move slowly through the process and be gentle with yourself.