Healthy Minds & Bodies Archives

Puberty blockers may cause irreversible harm to young boys, Mayo Clinic study finds

April 11, 2024

When parents seek medical help for their gender-confused children, they are assured that puberty blockers are “reversible” treatment that pauses puberty, offering the “chance to explore gender identity.” But a Mayo Clinic study published in late March found that boys who take puberty blockers may suffer “irreversible”

Social Media, Tweens, and Teens: Data, Consequences, Solutions

February 5, 2024

Have you been in a classroom, restaurant or airport lately? Have you noticed how everyone’s faces are robotically glued to their glowing screens? Media conglomerates—Meta, X, Google, Snapchat, TikTok—have created a world for our youth where online connection is ground zero. Social media technology has

The Hostility of Illness and the Therapeutic Importance of Hospitality

February 2, 2024

The experience of illness can be isolating and alienating. Serious and chronic illness can make one feel unwelcome in one’s own body and out of place in a world of otherwise healthy people. The theme of illness as alienation is explored in Susan Sontag’s 1978

The Grace of My Bipolarity

October 26, 2023

In my world, it is common for people to tell stories of being saved or of having gone through terrible experiences and now being beyond them with the message that you too can get out of your troubles. I have often been asked to share

US Bishops Launch Mental Health Campaign With Special Novena, Discussions

October 10, 2023

The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) has announced the launch of a National Catholic Mental Health Campaign beginning Oct. 10, which is World Mental Health Day. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of mental health issues, help remove the stigma

The Saints on Healing Through Grief

June 5, 2023

If you’re grieving the loss of a loved one and you know that no one can take that person’s place, there are few words that can truly console you. Nevertheless, through God’s grace, the support of those who love you, and the passage of time,

How to Make Sorrow a Virtue

May 8, 2023

We are increasingly a sorrowful and lonely nation. There has been a decades-long rise in unhappiness and “deaths of despair” (suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis). Americans even report losing friends: according to one report, the proportion of those who claim

Suicide, Depression, and a ‘Crisis of Hope’: Offering Real Help to Our Youth in Despair

May 4, 2023

On Feb. 13, the Centers for Disease Control published its biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary and Trends Report for 2011-2021 and it showed the truly alarming, and rapidly worsening, situation of the mental and spiritual health of high school students in the United States. The

Utah’s bill protecting minors prompts porn site to block access to entire state

May 4, 2023

A Utah bill that is designed to prevent minors from accessing pornography online is set to go into effect on Wednesday, May 3, leading the website Pornhub to block access to its website in the entire state. The legislation, which Gov. Spencer Cox signed in

Can religion help treat America’s loneliness epidemic? Surgeon general says yes

May 3, 2023

Loneliness is a risk factor for many serious — even deadly — health conditions, and the antidote is social connection like that found in religious groups, the U.S. Surgeon General has said in a new report. “Loneliness is far more than just a bad