3…2…1… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Or… is it?

For many people, a new year is a time of excitement and joy, reflecting on the previous year and getting ready for a new one. But for others, a new year can be riddled with stress and the pressure of returning to work, trying to do better, and starting anew. It can be overwhelming to see everyone around you working toward their own goals and self-improvement, and feeling the pressure to do so yourself.

The holidays can be full of contradictions: Time off leaves us exhausted, fun and social gatherings feel lonely or isolating, and small talk turns into big debates with politics, religion, or world affairs. If we acknowledge that contradictions do and will abound whether we want them to or not - like heaping portions or inflatable lawn decorations - we can start to practice acceptance to shrink the discomfort of contradictory environments.

Have you ever walked away from the holidays feeling empty? Have you forgotten about your holiday memories immediately after returning to work? Or have you looked around the table and been frustrated at how separated everyone seemed? If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you might be struggling to be present during the holidays.

The holiday season is such a joyous time of the year, but it can also bring a lot of stress, and you aren’t alone in this. The American Psychological Association reported that about 9 out of 10 Americans feel stressed during the holidays because of finances, missing loved ones, and family conflict. When we are stressed out, it is important that we have healthy coping strategies ready in our back pocket. Here are seven way to make this season less stressful and more joyous.

Stress and anxiety are universal experiences, but many people still struggle to understand and manage them in healthy ways. At LifeSpring Counseling Services, our therapists help clients navigate these challenges every day by offering practical tools for coping and deeper insight into their emotions. I asked our clinicians what coping strategies they recommend to someone struggling with stress, and what some common misconceptions they wish people understood better.

Everyone struggles with the rollercoaster of life. Whether it be finding a job, coping with medical problems, or trying to understand a complex relationship, life can come with so many ups and downs that it feels almost impossible to cope with them. The 2017 movie The Big Sick tackles these different themes by looking at the way anxiety trickles through each one.

The holidays can be a time of renewed connection with family and friends, traditions celebrated, good food shared, and a new year begun. However, the holidays can also leave us more than a little drained and sometimes frazzled. When the string lights turn on, those of us that are close to loss of a loved one, divorce, or career upset might feel daunted or even overwhelmed. “Have a happy holiday!” starts to feel like a demand rather than well-wishing.

This might be a surprise to some, but therapists also feel stressed out and need a breather sometimes. To learn more about how our team at LifeSpring takes care of their own mental health, I asked them to share their favorite ways to unwind and small daily rituals that help them reset after a long day. Here is what some of them had to say!

Baltimore is a rich and vibrant city, but it’s also one of the most stressed. According to Wallethub (2025), Baltimore is ranked the third most stressed city in America, with work stress being the biggest reason why. The long commutes on I-695 and I-95, safety concerns, rising housing costs, and demanding work schedules all add to this pressure.

When thinking about Maryland, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Maybe you think of crabs, the Inner Harbor, or the Chesapeake Bay. But what about stress and anxiety? Did you know that Baltimore was ranked the third most stressed city in America in 2025 and that many Marylanders are searching for relief from stress and anxiety?

In 1965, Julie Andrews graced the silver screen, announcing that the hills were alive with the sound of music. In 1975, the Doobie Brothers encouraged us to listen to music all the time. And in 2007, Rihanna made one simple request: please, don't stop the music. No matter the period of time, music remains a universal panacea for many of us. But what makes music so powerful, and how can we utilize music to improve our mental health?

If you’re thinking of starting therapy for the first time, you might know how to get started or what to expect.  At LifeSpring Counseling Services, we understand these concerns and have created the Starting Therapy podcast series to provide clarity and support. While we have lots of content on our website, we also wanted to make our content available in audio form.  Here’s a summary of this private, mini podcast series and the content you can expect to find.

News headlines can be stressful in general. Having said that, the non-stop alerts about lay offs, fiscal cuts, human rights violations, and the next group of people being targeted with harmful legislative changes that we’ve been seeing lately are sure to create feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and overwhelm.

When it comes to therapy, many people conclude that using insurance is the way to go or that all mental health providers accept health insurance. But did you know that many individuals–right here in Baltimore and across Maryland—choose to invest in private pay therapy instead? While insurance can be a helpful tool for accessing mental health care, it also comes with limitations that don’t work for everyone.

With the current anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation from our current administration, LGBTQ+ people are being faced with a slew of issues, such as barriers to obtaining gender-affirming IDs, free speech bans, healthcare restrictions, and the dismantling of Civil Rights Laws. This is why we build resilience: so we can bounce back from these challenges and stand stronger than before. Here are some ways to build up resilience and seek out hope in the face of despair.

The concept of “double consciousness” was first introduced by W.E.B Dubois in the early 1900s. It proposes the idea that Black men were (and still are) at war with the idea of being American while also being Black. This question arises of how can you stay true to who you are as a Black individual while doing what is necessary to conform to white culture for the sake of survival?

There are a number of different forms that anxiety can take. Maybe it's generalized anxiety, where you just have excessive worry. You're just constantly worrying throughout the day. And then more specific anxiety where it can result in a very specific fear, maybe something happened that has created a fear of driving. And then there's also panic disorder where you break out in a panic attack out of the blue.

At LifeSpring, we work with children and adolescents and adults at our office. And one of the things that we are going to be talking about is an issue that Caroline does see come up with children. And that is the issue of specific fears that come up for children and specific fears that bring them into therapy. One of the things that Caroline specializes in at our office is anxiety.

The biggest myth around if you're struggling with procrastination is that you're just lazy. You're just not trying hard enough. You just need to buckle down and make it happen. It must not be that important to you if you're not getting it done. But this isn't true. Procrastination is an active process. It's the brain telling you, current me is not willing to experience this discomfort right now, so I'm going to pass it off to future me. But the problem is that we usually don't identify with that future version of ourselves. So when that future time comes, we just kind of get stuck in the cycle of passing that obligation off to our future selves, and this actually exacerbates that feeling of discomfort because the thing is still there. It's still moving over you. It's still hanging around. It's just being put off.

When an athlete steps out onto the competition stage and the rush of adrenaline kicks in, they aren’t usually thinking about playing cautiously or with hesitation for fear of injury. Imagine a goalkeeper thinking, “I’m only going to try to save the shots that I can reach,” or a gymnast saying, “I don’t want to attempt that skill, it’s a little too risky.” It is normal to have nerves on the field, but how do we manage those emotions if they show up in competition?