Kate McCann, LMHC

07/27/2025

07/02/2025

https://www.katemccannlmhc.com/post/how-to-have-better-friendships-and-feel-less-lonely

Terrific Vox article on seven ways to improve your "social biome." Our physical and mental health is very dependent on connections (if you want to really nerd out on the role of the vagus nerve in regulating our sense of safety in connections, check out this Cleveland Clinic explainer, or hardcore n...

06/05/2025

Dive in!!

The Universe is giving us a BIG creativity boost this week! I feel lucky to have caught these two sources. First, the New York Times Well section is doing a week-long Creativity Challenge: ...being creative comes with big health benefits. It can energize you, sharpen your ideas and problem-solving s...

05/24/2025

Journaling is so helpful that I made up a tag line: journal it to learn it! Writing in a journal can help you process events and feelings, set goals and make plans, and it's really great at helping you remember things: The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writin...

04/12/2025

This very funny post serves as a brilliant example of different ways gaslighting shows up by denying your reality or your feelings (check out the whole post for more examples and comments) . But the humor does not take away from the fact that gaslighting is a debilitating experience to live in. A fa...

03/29/2025

Wonderful check-in at the New York Times to "help you take stock of your emotional well-being — and learn how to make changes." Consider important questions on mood, self-talk, physical health, connections, meaning, and more. Take a quiet moment to read the descriptions of why those are important....

02/28/2025

Very grateful to the Massachussetts Association for Mental Health for this excellent collection of resources: February is Black History Month, a time to acknowledge the role African Americans and Black people have played in the United States throughout history and to recognize and celebrate their ac...

11/27/2024

How to get through the post-election holidays:

Three pieces of advice as we roll into this post-election Thanksgiving:1) if you are being bullied by a family member about election results, say to them very calmly, If the situation was reversed, I would never treat you this way because I love and care about you.2) for family members that you want...

10/01/2024

Self-help groups are one of the most effective ways to help yourself with an issue because of great ideas from folks who have been there. They also provide the very important comfort of being in the company of people who understand you. Memoirs are a quiet form of this, so thank you to the the Times...

05/10/2024

https://www.katemccannlmhc.com/post/how-to-communicate-effectively

This is my favorite thing to work with! Express what you need while feeling assured you will be heard with assertive communication:Follow the three steps of • FACT • FEELING • FIXFirst, filter out unhelpful things (name calling, generalizing, vagueness) with the specific, observable FACTS of t...

03/09/2024

How to form a habit:

Building a habit takes reps: you've got the old neural pathways which hold the automated old habit (this is what makes it so easy to get to the grocery store, you barely have to think about it because you have laid down the track of that repeated route in your brain cells), which you need to overrid...

02/03/2024

Simple: check out Mindful.org's weekly 12-Minute Meditation podcast. These are terrific meditations, with a wide range of teachers and topics. How to make it a practice? Take a week to pay attention to when you have a little pocket of time. I fit mine in on Saturday mornings after the first dog walk...