Well-being

April 7, 2022

Teen Suicide: Opening Our Hearts Without Judgment

As many of you know, I write the Sanity Savers newsletters with a hope of being helpful. Some of the articles are more personal than others and I appreciate the feedback you offer. It means a lot. I had written and was ready to post a different article last month, […]
March 4, 2022

The Terror of War: Echoes of History

As many of you know, I write the Sanity Savers newsletters with a hope of being helpful. Some of the articles are more personal than others and I appreciate the feedback you offer. It means a lot. I had written and was ready to post a different article this month. […]
January 30, 2022

Do the Actions and Opinions of Others Affect Your Self-Worth?

Our value is not determined by someone else’s opinion of us. Yet, when we are with people who are not present or engaged or, we feel, are judging us, we may interpret it as having something to do with us. Are we boring them? Do we not come up to […]
January 27, 2022

The New Normal: How We Continue to Cope

For many, these past two years have been defined by feelings of extreme stress and grief. The “Stress in America” survey conducted by the American Psychological Association showed that the stress people experience during the current crisis is so extreme, in fact, that 32% of adults struggle to make day-to-day […]
April 6, 2021

Renewal

T.S. Elliot wrote that April is the cruelest month. Many people may be inclined to agree with him, especially this year. What a year we’ve experienced individually and collectively. We’re exiting the 2nd winter of COVID-19, this one with vaccinations opening up to more and more people, yet, once again, […]
February 17, 2021

The Kindness Advantage is Out on Audio Book

In commemoration of Random Acts of Kindness Day, Amanda and I am proud to announce the release of our audio book on Audible. The Kindness Advantage: Cultivating Compassionate and Connected Children by Dr. Dale Atkins & Amanda Salzhauer, MSW, is a practical guide for parents to teach kids empathy, to […]
January 29, 2021

Minds Matter – Behavioral Health in Pandemics and Beyond

January, 2021 by Dr. Dale Atkins Isolation and loneliness are key issues in our post-pandemic world. The COVID-19 crisis has actually distracted us from this issue. We may believe loneliness will go away when the pandemic ends. Wrong! Loneliness will continue after the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. Isolation […]
January 19, 2021

Memory Jog

This is the time many of us make New Year’s resolutions which often result in feelings of guilt when we don’t follow through for whatever reason.  One popular resolution is “to exercise more this year.” Recently, someone sent me a photo of a trip we took together; it jogged my […]
December 5, 2020

How We Can Care for Our Aging Parents (During a Pandemic)

I had begun writing this piece before COVID. I recently unearthed it in my “unfinished — to be used at another time” file. Now, we are in the midst of holidays that look nothing like the holidays we envisioned when I first thought about this piece. I wanted to write […]
December 1, 2020

If Kindness Were a Drug, the FDA Would Approve It

Reprinted courtesy of The Journal of General Internal Medicine by Steven M. Asch MD, MPH, Dale V. Atkins PhD, Psychology, PC & Anne Walling MD, PhD “Ultimately, the secret of quality is love,” declared Avedis Donabedian, a pioneering systems thinker and the father of modern quality assurance. Few in health […]