I’m A Morning Person, Don’t Hate Me

by Nichole Bacigalupa, MA, LPC, NCC, CCMHC | Sep 20, 2017 | Parenting, Wellness & Mindfulness

The alarm on your phone is going off (do people have alarm clocks anymore?) letting you know it’s time to RISE AND SHINE! If just reading this sentence makes you want to grab your blankets, roll over, and hit the snooze button repeatedly…you’re not...

Can You Actually Connect With Your Kids Through Video Games?

by Sanctuary | Aug 18, 2017 | Parenting

Sooooo your teens are probably playing a lot of video games. Do you feel like you don’t understand the appeal? Is your kid obsessed with some games and you don’t know how to connect? Kids find and share meaning through play, and those languages remain important even...

Let’s Talk About Dreams! Part Three

by Sanctuary | Aug 2, 2016 | Parenting, Wellness & Mindfulness

So my last blog post I talked about how slow wave sleep (the big dip at hours 1, 2, 4 and 6 in the graph) is responsible for consolidating memories of what happened during the day, and how REM sleep (the dark blue crests at the top of the sleep stages) are what are...

Brain Structure and the Developing Mind: Part II

by Sanctuary | Mar 24, 2016 | Depression & Anxiety, Parenting

Last time I talked about how emotion and reasoning skills differ on a developmental level between adolescents and adults. I’d like to revisit that because something recently changed in the legal landscape that takes those concepts into account. I’m talking about this...

Brain Structure and the Developing Mind: Part I

by Sanctuary | Mar 1, 2016 | Depression & Anxiety, Parenting

I like brains. Not on a zombie level but on a spiritual level. The brain is an organ that essentially supports a person, and those supports take time to develop and become secure. I’d like to talk about what that process means for people, because our culture has a...