Dr. Chloe Carmichael Blogs

The start of a brand-new year often inspires many of us to make resolutions. The sense of newness that a clean slate brings can be wonderfully energizing, and I'm all in favor of taking a boost anywhere we can find one.  

However, that same positive momentum can suddenly feel like it's working in the opposite direction as soon as the first setback occurs. That disappointment can trigger a spiral into self-criticism or just giving up altogether unless we know how to handle ourselves with both honesty and compassion.  

As a clinical psychologist and admittedly a lover of goals, I'm eager to share a few of my tips to help you find a healthy stride with your resolutions this year, if you choose to make them.  

Caveat: New Year's resolutions aren't for everyone. If you don't feel like making them, sometimes it's best to honor your intuition and take the year to just let things be–but if you're interested in making resolutions this year, you're in the right place!

For some of us, nothing compares to a good horror film. We know it's fake of course, and perhaps that's why it can feel so liberating: We get to expose ourselves to the darkest, scariest side of human nature, without any actual fear of harm or guilt. 

But still, why would we enjoy this? And what does it say about us if we love (or hate!) horror movies? 

Each person and situation is different of course, but as a clinical psychologist, I have a few thoughts on potential reasons why some of us love nothing more than getting spooked out of our minds by a scary movie:

They say there's nothing like losing something to make you realize how special it truly is to you. Many of us experienced something similar during a recent outage on Facebook and Instagram—those trusty little "friends" suddenly disappeared for a few hours, and many people quickly realized how integral social media is to our lives. 

They're back now, but what can we learn from that brief time when they went offline? I think we can actually glean quite a lot. 

Let me begin by saying that after a long time of personally resisting it, I've come to appreciate social media for its potential. I'm also a psychologist on a mission to help people channel distress into energy for self-care. So I've put together the three main categories of reactions I noticed people having in my personal and professional life amid the outage—along with a few tips on how to grow from the insights of each type of response: