Tag Archives: mental-health

A Racing Mind is when thoughts seem to move rapidly, jump from topic to topic,…

“Please, speak with a qualified mental health professional promptly”

A racing mind is when thoughts seem to move rapidly, jump from topic to topic, repeat worries, or make it difficult to focus, relax, or fall asleep. It may happen during stress, anxiety, excitement, sleep deprivation, excessive caffeine, and sometimes certain mental health conditions.

Things that may help in the moment

1. Stop trying to force your mind to be blank.

Trying to not think often makes thoughts louder. Instead, notice them:

“I’m having a lot of thoughts right now. I don’t have to solve all of them tonight.”

2. Get the thoughts out of your head.

Keep a notebook nearby and do a quick mind dump. Write down worries, tasks, ideas, and reminders. Your mind may relax when it no longer feels responsible for remembering everything.

3. Slow the body first.

A racing mind may accompany physiological arousal. Try slow, comfortable breathing, relaxing your muscles, or grounding yourself in physical sensations: Consult with a Medical Doctor.

For example:

  • Notice 5 things you see
  • 4 things you feel
  • 3 things you hear
  • 2 things you smell
  • 1 thing you taste

4. Give your attention one simple anchor.

Focus gently on something repetitive: your breathing, a calming sound, counting slowly, or the physical sensation of lying in bed. When your mind wanders, simply return without criticizing yourself.

5. Reduce stimulation.

If possible, step away from stressful conversations, news, social media, bright screens, caffeine, or multitasking.

A useful question

Sometimes ask yourself:

“Is this a problem I can do something about right now?”

  • Yes: Write down the next small action.
  • No: Give yourself permission to postpone it.

You don’t have to solve tomorrow’s problems at midnight.

If it happens at bedtime

Don’t turn sleep into a battle. Keep the environment quiet and dim, and avoid repeatedly checking the clock. If you’re lying awake for a prolonged period and becoming frustrated, doing something calm in low light until you feel sleepy again may help break the association between bed and mental struggle.

When to seek professional help

If racing thoughts are persistent, severely disrupt sleep, occur with unusually high energy, decreased need for sleep, impulsive behavior, agitation, or feeling unusually euphoric or irritable, it’s important to speak with a qualified healthcare professional promptly. Those symptoms can have causes beyond ordinary stress or anxiety.

The goal isn’t necessarily to stop every thought. It’s to reduce the struggle with thoughts and help your mind and nervous system shift from high alert into a calmer state.

Shervan K Shahhian

Mental Rehabilitation (MR), sometimes called: psychiatric rehabilitation or psychosocial rehabilitation (PSR):

Mental Rehabilitation, some might call it: psychiatric rehabilitation or psychosocial rehabilitation (PSR), could be a process designed to help people with mental health conditions recover skills, independence, confidence, and quality of life.

The focus may not be simply on reducing symptoms. It also asks:

“How can this person live as independently, meaningfully, and successfully as possible?”

Possible, Key goals of mental rehabilitation

Depending on the person’s needs, rehabilitation may help with:

  • Daily living skills: hygiene, cooking, shopping, managing money, transportation
  • Social skills: communication, relationships, boundaries, and conflict resolution
  • Employment or education: preparing for work, maintaining a job, or returning to school
  • Independent living: finding and maintaining stable housing
  • Medication and treatment management: Consult with a Medical Doctor,

-understanding and participating in one’s treatment.

  • Coping skills: managing stress, anxiety, depression, or other symptoms
  • Relapse prevention: recognizing warning signs and developing a plan for difficult periods
  • Community integration: reducing isolation and participating in meaningful activities
  • Self-esteem and empowerment: helping the individual regain a sense of competence and control

Who may benefit?

Mental Rehabilitation may be used for people living with conditions that significantly affect daily functioning, such as:

  • Consult with a Psychiatrist/Medical Doctor
  • Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Severe depression
  • Serious anxiety disorders
  • PTSD and complex trauma
  • Substance use disorders
  • Cognitive or functional difficulties associated with mental illness

What might a rehabilitation program include?

A person might participate in a combination of:

  1. Individual therapy
  2. Group therapy
  3. Social skills training
  4. Vocational rehabilitation
  5. Case management
  6. Supported employment
  7. Life skills training
  8. Peer support
  9. Family education and support
  10. Community based programs

A simple example

Imagine a person with schizophrenia who has been hospitalized several times and is now stable but struggles with isolation, employment, organization, and managing daily responsibilities.

Mental Rehabilitation might help that person:

Stabilize, develop practical skills, build confidence, reconnect socially, find meaningful work or activities, maintain independence.

The central idea

Treatment asks: How can we reduce distress and symptoms?

Mental Rehabilitation asks: How can we help this person function, recover, and build a meaningful life even if some symptoms remain?

In modern mental health care, rehabilitation may be a person centered and recovery oriented program. The goal may not be necessarily to make someone “perfect” or define them by a diagnosis, but to help them develop their strengths and pursue independence, dignity, purpose, and quality of life.

Shervan K Shahhian

Overcoming Insomnia, The good news is that insomnia could be treatable:

“CONSULT WITH A MEDICAL DOCTOR”

Insomnia is difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting restorative sleep, even when you have the opportunity to sleep. The good news is that insomnia is often treatable.

Practical strategies

1. Keep a consistent wake up time

Try to get up at roughly the same time every day, including weekends. A consistent wake time might help you regulate your body clock.

2. Don’t force sleep

If you’ve been lying awake for a while, get out of bed and do something quiet and relaxing in dim light. Return to bed when you feel sleepy. This might help your mind reconnect the bed with sleep rather than frustration or worry.

3. Limit stimulants

Avoid or reduce:

  • NO, Caffeine later in the day
  • NO, Nicotine
  • NO, Heavy meals close to bedtime
  • NO, Excessive alcohol, which may disrupt sleep later in the night

4. Create a wind-down routine

For 30–60 minutes before bed, try calming activities such as:

  • Reading
  • Gentle stretching
  • Relaxation or breathing exercises
  • Meditation
  • Listening to quiet music

5. Manage the racing mind

Keep a notepad nearby. Write down worries, tasks, or reminders for tomorrow. This may reduce the feeling that you must keep thinking about them.

6. Be careful with naps

Long or late afternoon naps may or may not make nighttime sleep harder. If you nap, keep it relatively short and earlier in the day.

7. Get daylight and move during the day

Regular physical activity and exposure to natural daylight, especially earlier in the day, may support your circadian rhythm, Consult with a Medical doctor.

One psychological treatment could be

For chronic insomnia, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) could be considered be a treatment option. It may address the thoughts, behaviors, and habits that may perpetuate insomnia,

Consult with a Medical Doctor.

Possibly, CBT-I may include:

  • Stimulus control
  • Sleep scheduling/restriction therapy under appropriate guidance
  • Relaxation training
  • Cognitive restructuring
  • Sleep education
  • Consult with a Medical Doctor

Please, seek professional help

Consider talking with a qualified healthcare professional for insomnia:

  • Persists for weeks or months
  • Significantly affects daytime functioning
  • Causes severe fatigue, mood changes, or concentration problems
  • May be related to medication, substance use, chronic pain, or another sleep disorder
  • Consult with a Medical Doctor.

Persistent insomnia may sometimes coexist with conditions such as sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, anxiety, depression, or circadian rhythm disorders, so identifying the underlying cause matters.

A key principle:

The harder we try to force sleep, the more alert and frustrated we can become. Often, improving sleep involves creating the right conditions and allowing sleep to return naturally. Consult with a Medical doctor.

Shervan K Shahhian

ThetaHealing® is a spiritual and alternative healing practice:

Please contact ThetaHealing® for more information: www.thetahealing.com

ThetaHealing® is a spiritual and alternative healing practice developed by Vianna Stibal in the 1995. It is based on the idea that a practitioner may enter a theta brainwave state, a deeply relaxed, meditative state, and use intention, visualization, and prayer to help identify and change limiting beliefs or promote emotional and “physical healing: Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor.”

The possible, basic idea

Practitioners believe that when the brain is in the theta frequency range roughly 4–8 Hz, a person may have greater access to:

The subconscious mind

Deeply held beliefs

Emotional memories

Intuition

Creativity and imagery

Spiritual experiences

A typical ThetaHealing® session may involve the practitioner guiding the client into relaxation and then exploring beliefs such as:

“I am not good enough.”

“I don’t deserve success.”

“People cannot be trusted.”

The practitioner may then use visualization, focused intention, or prayer to attempt to replace these beliefs with more positive ones.

What does science say?

“Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor.”

This may be an important distinction:

Theta brainwaves are real and may be associated with states such as drowsiness, meditation, relaxation, and some aspects of memory processing.

However, the broader claims that could be made by ThetaHealing®, especially claims of direct physical healing, accessing universal information, or supernatural abilities, may or may not be established by strong scientific evidence, “Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor.”

Some people may nevertheless find the practice subjectively helpful because of factors also found in meditation, hypnosis, guided imagery, expectancy, emotional support, and the therapeutic relationship.

ThetaHealing® vs. Hypnosis

They may look somewhat similar because both may involve relaxation and altered states of attention, but they are conceptually different:

ThetaHealing®

Spiritual/alternative healing system

May often include prayer and spiritual beliefs

Developed as a proprietary modality

Makes broader metaphysical claims

Clinical Hypnosis

Mental Health/Hypno-clinical intervention

May be entirely secular

May have a substantial scientific and Hypno-clinical literature

Typically focuses on attention, suggestion, imagery, and behavior change

Bottom line

ThetaHealing® is best understood as a spiritual, belief change, and meditation based alternative practice may not be an established medical or evidence based psychological treatment. Some individuals report meaningful personal experiences, but extraordinary healing claims should be approached critically and should not replace appropriate medical or mental health care.“Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor.“

Shervan K Shahhian

 Please contact ThetaHealing® for more information:

www.thetahealing.com

People who knew us in our youth may never see us for who we are today, but Why?

There could be a powerful psychological reason for this: people may often carry an outdated mental representation of us.

Someone who knew you when you were young may unconsciously continue to see you through the identity you had at that time, or the identity they think you in the past, even when decades have passed and even when decades have of growth have changed you.

Why this happens

1. Their memory freezes a version of you.

When people know us during our formative years, their memories become organized around that period. We may be 50, 60, or 70 today, but to them, we may still feel like the teenager, the young adult, the shy person, the rebellious person, the joker or the person who was not serious back then.

2. They confuse familiarity with knowing.

Knowing someone form a long time ago, doesn’t necessarily mean knowing who they have become. They may know your past better than your present.

3. They have an established a false “schema” for you.

In mental health, a schema may be a mental framework through which we interpret information. Once someone has formed a strong schema, “That’s just who they are”, they tend to notice information that confirms it and overlook evidence that contradicts it.

4. Your growth may be uncomfortable for them.

If you have changed substantially, your development may challenge their own narrative about you. Accepting that you’ve become more confident, knowledgeable, independent, emotionally mature, or accomplished may require them to revise their understanding of the past.

5. They remember your role in the old relationship, years ago.

This is especially important. People don’t only remember you; they remember who they were in relation to you. If you were the younger sibling, playful friend, joker, classmate, or just a quite person, they may unconsciously continue interacting with that version of you.

6. They may not have witnessed your transformation.

Personal development is usually gradual and happens privately. You experienced thousands of small changes, new experiences, failures, insights, relationships, education, losses, accomplishments, and choices. Someone who hasn’t been present for those changes doesn’t have the same evidence you have.

The interesting part

Sometimes strangers may see us more accurately than people who knew us decades ago.

A new person encounters who you are now. They don’t have to reconcile your present identity with an old mental picture.

An old acquaintance may unconsciously think:

“I know who you are.”

A newer person may be more open to:

“Let me discover who you are.”

And that distinction may be profound.

You don’t necessarily need their recognition

One of the psychologically liberating realizations of adulthood is:

You are not obligated to remain psychologically consistent with the person someone remembers from a long time ago.

You may say, internally:

“You knew me then. You don’t necessarily know me now.”

Their memory of your past “may” explain your past?, but it will not define your present.

And sometimes the people who knew us in our youth are actually Refusing To See Our Growth, or they simply don’t have enough current information to update their mental picture of us, or Their jealousy and competitiveness prevent them from seeing how much we have grown.

Shervan K Shahhian

Age Affirming Beliefs (AAB) are healthy ways of thinking that challenge ageism:

Age Affirming Beliefs could be healthy ways of thinking that challenge ageism, self-stereotyping, and the idea that getting older automatically means becoming less capable, valuable, attractive, or relevant.

Great Age Affirming Beliefs

  1. My age is part of my story, not a limitation on my future.
  2. Getting older does not diminish my worth.
  3. I may continue to learn, grow, and change throughout my life.
  4. My experience is an asset, not a burden.
  5. I don’t have to compete with younger people to have value.
  6. There is no expiration date on curiosity, creativity, or personal growth.
  7. I am allowed to discover new interests at any age.
  8. My wisdom may coexist with openness to new ideas.
  9. I may be both experienced and still learning.
  10. My life may not have to look like anyone else’s timeline.
  11. I don’t need to apologize for my age.
  12. Growing older may not be the same thing as becoming irrelevant.
  13. I may redefine what aging means to me.
  14. My appearance may not determine my worth at any age.
  15. I deserve respect regardless of my age.
  16. I may remain socially connected, engaged, and purposeful as I age.
  17. It may never be too late to begin something meaningful.
  18. I may adapt to change without losing who I am.
  19. My past experiences may inform my future without controlling it.
  20. I may appreciate what my younger self accomplished without wishing to become that person again.
  21. I may not have to hide my age to be valued.
  22. Age may bring perspective, depth, resilience, and self-knowledge.
  23. I may take care of my changing needs without seeing those changes as personal failure.
  24. I am more than my age, my appearance, my productivity, or my abilities.
  25. Every stage of life has its own possibilities.
  26. I WILL ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF MY HEALTH, REGARDLESS OF MY AGE!

A particularly powerful one

“I am not aging out of life; I am continuing to live it.”

And perhaps the deepest age-affirming belief:

“My value is inherent. I do not have to remain young to remain worthy.”

These beliefs may be especially useful for countering internalized ageism, when negative cultural messages about aging become part of a person’s own self-image.

Shervan K Shahhian

Internalized Ageism could be when a person absorbs negative stereotypes:

Internalized Ageism could be when a person absorbs negative stereotypes, assumptions, or prejudices about aging and older people and then applies those beliefs to themselves.

In simple terms: society’s negative messages about aging become part of your own self-image.

Common examples

A person may think:

  • “I’m too old to learn something new.”
  • “People won’t value me because I’m older.”
  • “I shouldn’t try to change my appearance anymore.”
  • “My best years are behind me.”
  • “I’m becoming useless.”
  • “Older people aren’t attractive.”
  • “I shouldn’t need help, I should be able to keep up with younger people.”
  • “It’s normal for me to be ignored or treated as less important because of my age.”

How it can develop

Internalized ageism may be developed through repeated exposure to:

  • Media portraying youth as more desirable or valuable
  • Workplace discrimination
  • Family or social attitudes toward aging
  • Cultural emphasis on youth and physical appearance
  • Repeated jokes or derogatory comments about older people
  • Experiences of being dismissed or stereotyped because of age

Over time, these external messages may become internal beliefs and self-judgments.

Psychological effects

Internalized ageism may contribute to:

  • Lower self-esteem and self-worth
  • Shame about getting older
  • Anxiety about aging
  • Body dissatisfaction
  • Social withdrawal
  • Reduced confidence and self-efficacy
  • Feeling less competent or relevant
  • Avoiding activities because of assumptions about what is “appropriate” for one’s age
  • Greater vulnerability to depressive thinking

One particularly important mechanism is self-fulfilling prophecy:

if someone believes aging necessarily means cognitive or physical decline, they may stop challenging themselves, become less active, or withdraw socially, potentially reinforcing the very decline they fear.

Internalized ageism vs. ordinary awareness of aging

Being aware that aging may involve genuine physical or cognitive changes isn’t automatically ageism.

The distinction is whether someone turns a realistic limitation into a global negative judgment about their worth or potential.

“I may need more time to learn this than I used to.”, Realistic self-awareness.

“I’m too old to learn this.”, Potential internalized ageism.

A healthier alternative

The goal may not be to deny aging. It’s to develop age affirming beliefs:

“I am aging, but aging does not determine my worth, intelligence, usefulness, attractiveness, or capacity for growth.”

This may connect closely with self-compassion, self-efficacy, age acceptance, and healthy identity development across the lifespan.

Shervan K Shahhian

Internalized Oppression (IO) is a Psychological and Social Process:

Internalized Oppression may be a psychological and social process in which a person absorbs negative stereotypes, beliefs, or attitudes about a group they belong to and begins to apply those beliefs to themselves or others in the same group.

In simple terms:

“The negative message I have heard about people like me becomes a belief I hold about myself.”

How it develops

Internalized oppression may develop when a person is repeatedly exposed to messages through family, culture, institutions, media, peers, or discrimination, that their group is inferior, defective, undesirable, or less worthy.

Over time, those messages may become part of the person’s own self-concept.

Examples

  • Internalized sexism: A woman believes women are naturally less capable of leadership.
  • Internalized racism: A person adopts negative stereotypes about their own racial or ethnic group.
  • Internalized ageism: An older person begins believing, “I’m too old to learn new things.”
  • Internalized homophobia: A person experiences shame or self-rejection because of negative societal messages about homosexuality.
  • Internalized classism: Someone from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background believes, “People like me aren’t meant to succeed.”

Psychological effects

Internalized oppression may contribute to:

  • Self-rejection
  • Self-loathing
  • Low self-esteem
  • Shame and guilt
  • Negative self-talk
  • Body dissatisfaction
  • Depressive or anxious feelings
  • Imposter syndrome
  • Perfectionism
  • Rejecting or distancing oneself from members of one’s own group
  • Feeling that one’s identity must be hidden or changed to be acceptable

Internalized oppression vs. self-loathing

They overlap, but they aren’t identical.

Self-loathing: “I dislike or hate myself.”

Internalized oppression: “I have absorbed a negative belief about my group, and I now apply that belief to myself.”

For example:

“People from my background aren’t intelligent, so there must be something wrong with me because I’m from that background.”

That illustrates how social prejudice may become personal self-rejection.

An important distinction

Internalized oppression may not be simply having low self-esteem. It specifically involves socially or culturally transmitted devaluation becoming internalized.

A useful psychological sequence is:

External prejudice, repeated exposure, internalization, negative self-belief,

self-rejection/shame:

Possible behavioral consequences

It may also be understood as one pathway through which social oppression becomes psychologically embedded within an individual’s self-concept.

Shervan K Shahhian

Psychological Defenses (PD), or Defense Mechanisms, Are Largely Automatic Mental Processes:

Psychological Defenses (PD), or defense mechanisms could be largely automatic mental processes that help a person manage anxiety, emotional pain, inner conflict, shame, or threatening thoughts and feelings.

They may not be necessarily pathological. Everyone uses them. The important question is how often?, how rigidly?, and how effectively they are used?

Possible psychological defenses

  • Denial: refusing to accept a painful or threatening reality.
  • Projection: attributing one’s own unacceptable feelings or impulses to someone else.
  • Rationalization: creating a seemingly logical explanation for behavior that has another underlying motivation.
  • Repression: keeping distressing thoughts or feelings outside conscious awareness.
  • Displacement: redirecting an emotion from its original target to a safer target.
  • Reaction formation: expressing the opposite of an unacceptable feeling or impulse.
  • Intellectualization: focusing on facts and analysis to distance oneself from difficult emotions.
  • Dissociation: experiencing a sense of detachment from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories, identity, or surroundings.
  • Regression: reverting to earlier patterns of behavior when overwhelmed.
  • Acting out: expressing emotional distress through behavior rather than words.
  • Splitting: seeing people or situations in extremes, such as entirely good or entirely bad.
  • Compensation: emphasizing strengths in one area to offset perceived weaknesses in another.

Healthy vs. less adaptive defenses

Defenses exist on a continuum.

Some may be relatively mature and adaptive:

Mature: Humor • Sublimation • Altruism • Suppression • Anticipation

Less adaptive: Rationalization • Projection • Displacement • Intellectualization

More potentially problematic when persistent:

Denial • Splitting • Acting out • Severe dissociation

For example: sublimation may transform an uncomfortable impulse into something constructive, while chronic denial may prevent someone from recognizing a serious problem.

An important distinction

A psychological defense is not necessarily conscious deception. A person may genuinely experience their interpretation as true because the defense is helping protect them from something emotionally threatening.

In clinical psychology, it may be useful to ask:

“What emotion, conflict, or vulnerability might this defense be protecting the person from?”

That question may provide more insight than simply labeling the defense.

Shervan K Shahhian

Internalized Ableism may be when a disabled person unconsciously absorbs society’s negative beliefs,…

Internalized Ableism may be when a disabled person unconsciously absorbs society’s negative beliefs, stereotypes, or prejudices about disability and begins applying them to themselves.

Instead of recognizing that many challenges come from inaccessible environments or social attitudes, a person may come to believe things like:

“I’m a burden.”

“I should be able to do everything without help.”

“If I need accommodations, I’m weak.”

“My disability makes me less valuable than other people.”

“I have to overwork myself to prove I’m capable.”

These beliefs may develop because of repeated exposure to ableist messages from family, school, work, healthcare, media, or broader culture, not because they are true.

Common signs

Internalized ableism may show up as:

Feeling guilty for asking for accommodations.

Hiding or minimizing a disability.

Comparing yourself to nondisabled standards and feeling like a failure.

Pushing yourself beyond your limits to “keep up.”

Judging yourself (or sometimes other disabled people) for needing support.

Believing independence is always better than interdependence.

Examples

Someone with chronic pain forces themselves to attend every social event because they think canceling would make them “lazy.”

A person who needs a mobility aid avoids using it in public because they’re embarrassed about how others might perceive them.

An autistic person suppresses natural behaviors (sometimes called masking) even when it causes significant exhaustion, because they feel they must appear “normal.”

Moving away from internalized ableism

Changing these beliefs may involve:

Noticing self-critical thoughts and asking where they came from.

Learning about disability from disability led perspectives.

Viewing accommodations as tools for equity rather than special treatment.

Practicing self-compassion and recognizing that needing support is a normal part of being human.

Connecting with disabled communities where disability is accepted rather than stigmatized.

Internalized ableism may not be a personal failing, it could be a response to living in a society where ableist attitudes are common. Becoming aware of it may be the first step toward developing a more accepting and realistic view of yourself and your needs.

Shervan K Shahhian