Shani Nisimov Elhiani, LMFT

03/28/2024

It was a pleasure contributing to this article!

While you may not notice it, this one word can make you sound more judgmental than you think, according to therapists.

12/31/2023

5 easy ways to improve your brain health in 2024.

We all want to keep our brains sharp. Here are the top five things we learned in 2023 from the Chasing Life podcast, which examined the brain in its many states.

10/03/2023

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/02/health/shouting-child-abuse-intl-scli-wellness/index.html

Adults—including parents, teachers and coaches—shouting at, denigrating or verbally threatening children can be as damaging to their development as sexual or physical abuse, a new study finds.

05/09/2023

“Maybe, telling a person that things will get better is not always what they need to hear.”

"There’d be no stopping Faith... if we could get her to adulthood alive."

05/04/2023

“Research from the past 10 or so years has shown that the more ultraprocessed foods a person eats, the higher the chances that they feel depressed and anxious. A few studies have suggested a link between eating UPFs and increased risk of cognitive decline.”

Roughly 60% of the calories in the average American diet come from highly processed foods. We’ve known for decades that eating such packaged products — like some breakfast cereals, snack bars, frozen meals and virtually all packaged sweets, among many other things — is linked to unwelcome heal...

07/02/2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-seek-urgent-mental-health-support-as-covid-19-crisis-ebbs-11624786203?fbclid=IwAR0IcWdfHdPr_f4W5Rchh9maMhfptwGEZ6Tk_aJqaPF3Kni0avlSIWT5HWw

As the U.S. emerges from the pandemic, mental-health providers say they are facing a wave of patients with urgent needs related to Covid-19.

03/05/2021

02/05/2021

https://apple.news/AdVTed4hXQOCRcvbKrPO8dw

Maintaining healthy boundaries is a way of taking care of your closest relationships, but setting those boundaries can be hard. The process starts with asking yourself what you need.

01/21/2021

“If there's a message I want to be clear about is that therapists (and all healthcare workers) can both hold space to help others AND have their own challenges. The important part is that they're addressed and cared for. The danger for all of us comes when the stigma is too high to ask for that help or take that time off.”

“It is time to start investing in fixing the mental health system and increasing the pipeline to help give therapists the support they truly need and clearly deserve.”

There is a growing need for mental health care in the U.S. and with more need comes more demand for services. Yet there has long been a shortage of mental health providers and the current therapists are burning out supporting everyone. We need listen to their stories, as they are, after all, human.

12/25/2020

The holidays can always be difficult when coping with grief, however this year can feel especially difficult considering the grief we have been experiencing on a macro level. Try to avoid “canceling” the holiday despite the temptation and allow some time for solitude, but also balance with some self care. Create a new tradition or ritual that accommodates your current situation. Most of all, allow yourself to feel the mixed emotions of joy, sadness, anger—allow yourself to grieve in whatever pattern that might look like for you.🙏 Wishing each of you a holiday filled with warmth, love, support, and hope. ☮️

10/11/2020

“This year’s World Mental Health Day, on October 10th comes at a time when our daily lives have changed considerably as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The past months have brought many challenges: for health-care workers, providing care in difficult circumstances, going to work fearful of bringing COVID-19 home with them; for students, adapting to taking classes from home, with little contact with teachers and friends, and anxious about their futures; for workers whose livelihoods are threatened; for the vast number of people caught in poverty or in fragile humanitarian settings with extremely limited protection from COVID-19; and for people with mental health conditions, many experiencing even greater social isolation than before. And this is to say nothing of managing the grief of losing a loved one, sometimes without being able to say goodbye.

The economic consequences of the pandemic are already being felt, as companies let staff go in an effort to save their businesses, or indeed shut down completely.

Given past experience of emergencies, it is expected that the need for mental health and psychosocial support will substantially increase in the coming months and years. Investment in mental health programs at the national and international levels, which have already suffered from years of chronic underfunding, is now more important than it has ever been.

This is why the goal of this year’s World Mental Health Day campaign is increased investment in mental health.” - World Health Organization