Reading Roundup | August 6, 2021

Posted August 6, 2021

Postpartum anxiety, Misophonia, and performance anxiety in this week’s roundup.

• “Postpartum anxiety is invisible, but common and treatable” — Stephanie Collier, MD, MPH, Harvard Medical School (7/30/2021) [article]

  Last week, we looked at anxiety and parenthood, including an article focused on postpartum depression in fathers. This week we feature an article that looks at postpartum anxiety, which is common but not as often discussed as postpartum depression. Perhaps because new parents are often living in a state of excitement and worry, postpartum anxiety as a clinical designation is not always as easily recognizable as postpartum depression. This piece describes what postpartum anxiety looks like and offers treatment overviews as well as coping strategies.

• “CBT May Be an Effective Treatment for Misophonia” — Arash Emamzadeh, Psychology Today (7/24/2021) [article]

  Emamzadeh discusses a recent study showing that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) may be an effective treatment for Misophenia, a hatred of or aversion to sound, particularly certain sounds related to breathing and eating.

• “Performance Anxiety and Burnout in Student Athletes: Q&A with Allison Winik, PhD” —Columbia University Irving Medical Center (8/2/2021) [article]

  Mental health issues in sports are having a bit of a moment right now. Simone Biles taking a step back at the Olympics and Naomi Osaka withdrawing from the French Open have been key instances of young athletes being brave enough to not cow to pressure to perform (and risk further injury, both of a mental and physical nature) and instead draw a boundary line when it comes to self-care. In this article, Dr. Winik discusses the pressures faced by young athletes (not just the high profile ones, but children in recreational and school sports, as well) and ways to work through performance anxiety. As students start to think about heading back to school this fall, some perhaps for the first time in a physical sense in over a year, Dr. Winik's advice is important to keep in mind in order to support young athletes mentally, emotionally, and physically.