by guest blogger Susan Albers, PsyD, author of But I Deserve This Chocolate

It's about time that we quit using the phrase "freshman fifteen." What's the harm? The term causes freshman a lot of anxiety. Also, talking about it can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Students may unconsciously (or consciously) eat more because they believe this is "normal." Worry about gaining weight can also trigger disordered eating habits such as restrictive dieting and binge eating.

Let's stop focusing on weight and start talking about eating healthy and more mindfully! The way students eat now can impact their health in years to come.

I don’t live in a big city. (In fact, the only noises I typically hear are birds chirping or cats in heat. Don’t ask.) But I’ve lived in NYC and have been visiting my family there several times a year for over a decade. So I have a fairly good grasp of what it’s like to be surrounded by a cacophony of car horns and ambulance sirens, a flurry of feet pounding the pavement, and hours (many hours) of traffic. Though it has many perks, city life is rarely peaceful or serene.

That’s why I really like the book Urban Mindfulness: Cultivating Peace, Presence & Purpose in the Middle of It All by Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and founder of UrbanMindfulness.org. In it, he addresses specific problems that plague city dwellers and gives readers a variety of strategies to feel more calm and fulfilled. (He lives in NYC, so I think he knows what he’s talking about.)

Read the rest of "4 Tips on Cultivating Mindfulness When You Live in a Busy, Bustling City" on Psych Central

Here is our latest editor's pick! Acquisitions Editor Jess O'Brien shares why he enjoyed A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook:

When we spend most of our time "doing" we don't get much time to just "be" and experience life in the moment. The MBSR program gives us a way to let go of some of that built up wear and tear. By learning how to apply mindfulness to your life, you will find that there are moments of joy and contentment to be found in the quiet spaces between the activities that you do each day. By taking these precious seconds to relax and be present to things as they are, your mind and nerves get a much needed break, taking off the pressure long enough to recharge for your next accomplishment.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Heather Hood, MA

Although exposure-based treatments can be highly effective for helping clients overcome problems with anxiety, you can enhance treatment outcomes by paying attention to the way that you conduct exposure therapy. Successful exposure therapy follows these guidelines:

by guest blogger Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, author of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder and Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life for Teens

Mindfulness is a way of living your life so that you are in the present moment more often, with awareness, and with acceptance. Acceptance in this context doesn't mean that you approve of your experience, but that you simply acknowledge your present experience without judging it.

So what does this have to do with self-esteem? Everything! Just stop for a moment and think about this: How often do you really think about what you're thinking about? Have you ever had someone ask you what you were thinking about, and you had no idea? We're often completely oblivious to what we're thinking and feeling; and when we are aware of these things, we're often judging these internal experiences. Self-talk has a big impact on how you feel, and when you judge yourself or beat yourself up, it triggers painful emotions like anger, anxiety, disappointment and sadness; and it lowers your self-esteem.

Consider these questions to help you think about how you talk to yourself:

Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Valerie Vorstenbosch, MA

There are many reasons why clients are often noncompliant with homework assignments in therapy. They may face competing demands for their time, believe the assignments to be overly challenging or irrelevant, assume that the assignment will not be helpful, misunderstand what is expected for the assignment, or simply have limited motivation for change. Strategies for improving compliance depend on the reasons for noncompliance, so a first step to investigate factors that may be getting in the way of homework completion.

Huffington Post has just launched their Weddings section and we’re right there with them! Read The Conscious Bride author Sheryl Paul’s first blog piece.

It's one of our culture's last taboos. We can discuss sex; we can talk about money; we can divulge the darkest secrets about our family history in blog posts and on forums. But when it comes to the fear, doubts, anxiety, and ambivalence that characterize thousands of women's engagement experience every year, we hush up.

So the challenge is, how do we deal with the cultural injunction against feeling anything less than pure joy from "yes" to "I do"?

by guest blogger Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Just One Thing

We spend so much of our time trying to get somewhere.

Part of this comes from our biological nature. To survive, animals - including us - have to be goal-directed, leaning into the future.

It's certainly healthy to pursue wholesome aims, like paying the rent on time, raising children well, healing old pain, or improving education.

But it's also important to see how this focus on the future - on endless striving, on getting the next task done, on climbing the next mountain - can get confused and stressful.

by guest blogger Randi Gunther, PhD, author of When Love Stumbles

You've made it past 50. You may have peaked in your career and are enjoying the fruits of those labors. Your kids have established their own lives, and your parents are still living their lives without your necessary support.

You can statistically expect about 30-plus more years to live. The time has come for you to reassess your options and decide where to put your energy. It's time to either just enjoy what you have already achieved, or think about using these last precious years to commit to a new journey.

If you're not planning to do the former, I'd like you to reconsider. Given the new research on aging, the happiest and healthiest older people choose the later. They treat the last third of their lives as a brand new challenge to remap their brains, open their hearts and embrace challenges they've never encountered before.

It may mean leaving unsolvable problems behind, letting go of situations that have no current rewards, and changing the way you live your life. It may also mean letting go of any barriers that could get in the way of your new purpose. Once your new dream unfolds, you will find countless ways to challenge those obstacles, and push beyond them.

Of course, as with any radical change, you will need to consider new resources as you choose your transformation. Though the following considerations are not meant to be a complete list, they offer a good beginning.