It’s the time of year where many think about making changes, renewing efforts to improve our lives and resolving to feel better this year.  It’s also a time of reflection.  Reflecting on the past year, where we’ve been, what obstacles we’ve overcome and which we still struggle with.

As I considered the past year, I looked back over posts I had written and found 5 that captured some of the struggles and strategies people identified with and found helpful.

In Can What You Eat Impact How You Feel? I discuss a review of over 160 studies that suggested that diet and nutrition impact mental health. These studies found that principles of eating, such as eating a wide variety of colorful vegetables, can have a positive impact on your mental well-being. They also found that deficiencies in our diets, such as a deficiency in vitamin D (a widespread problem in the US) can impact mental health.

The focus of Why Can’t I Get Off the Couch?  Is our continual struggle to incorporate exercise into our lives.  Although most of us know we should exercise regularly,  we often still don’t make it a habit. In this post I offer 4 tips to help you begin and stick to an exercise routine.

Have you ever wanted to avoid thinking about a particular experience or topic only to find that it continually intrudes into your thoughts and activities?  In How You Can Overcome Intrusive Thoughts I review techniques identified by social psychologist Daniel Wegner in this month’s edition of Monitor on Psychology to suppress intrusive thinking.

Extreme Emotion, Problem Behaviors and BPD discusses the Biosocial Theory and how the interaction between an invalidating environment and a biological vulnerability to extreme emotions can result in the impulsive and risky behaviors characteristic of people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Our body’s response is an important component of an emotional reaction to any event. In Exposed:  What Does Your Body Language Communicate, I review common examples of body language and the emotion that is often connected with a particular stance.

What are you continuing to struggle with?  What do you need strategies to handle?  In this new year, what would help you to feel better and improve your life?

Woman eating salad photo available from Shutterstock.

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From Psych Central's World of Psychology:
Best of Our Blogs: January 10, 2012 | World of Psychology (January 10, 2012)

    Last reviewed: 6 Jan 2012