Divorce Can LITERALLY Break Your Heart, Says Science

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May 8, 2015

Protect yourself from increased cardiovascular risk with these stress-busting tips.

Everybody knows that divorce is stressful, but what nobody knew until now is that divorce actually increases a woman's risk of heart attack. A new report in the March 2015 issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes says that (after correcting for other risk factors) women divorced once have a 24 percent increased risk of heart attack. For women divorced two or more times, this jumps to a startling 77 percent increased risk.

Besides heart attack, divorce can also increase a woman's risk of Broken Heart Syndrome, which, in some cases, mimics a heart attack. According to Mayo Clinic, Broken Heart Syndrome results from "the heart's reaction to a surge of stress hormones."

Given these two bits of data from heart specialists, I believe the best way to prevent yourself from becoming another statistic is to effectively deal with your divorce stress. How do you do that?

Try my top five tips for de-stressing during your divorce:

1. Develop Soothing Routines

Nearly everything about your life changes when you get divorced—including the time you used to spend doing activities that calmed you. It's time to start doing them again. And if that's not possible, develop new soothing…

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There’s No Finish Line For Divorce Recovery

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February 20, 2015

The path to move on from divorce and divorce recovery isn’t straight and narrow.

I recently got a new computer. And if you've ever had to transfer files from one computer to another, you know that it can be kind of fun to take a peek at what has been hogging up space on your hard drive.

Well, on my expedition through all of my files, I found emails in my inbox that were more than ten years old! Some of these ancient notes even had details about the negotiations my ex and I went through to settle our divorce in 2002. Not really anything I need to have hanging around any more, right?

Believe it or not, I paused before hitting delete and trashing all of that ancient correspondence. I was flooded with a variety of thoughts and questions. "Those emails were part of my personal history," I thought to myself. They were part of what defined me — back then. "Would I be throwing away a piece of myself if I deleted those emails? Would I be disrespectful of that old relationship?"

Yes, ten whole years after my divorce was complete, seeing those emails brought up some of the turmoil that I went through when…

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Why “You Need to Make A Budget” Is Bad Divorce Advice

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April 24, 2015

Taking care of yourself has to do with more than how much you spend.

One piece of advice almost everyone going through divorce hears is “You’ve got to create a budget”. Although this is extremely practical advice, I think it sucks.

You’ve just ended your marriage. You might have just moved. You might not have your kids all the time. You might be looking for a job. And, oh yeah, you feel like CRAP! Yet now you’re supposed to figure out how to put more restrictions on yourself and create a budget?! Yeah, it just sucks as far as advice goes.

What you really need is a spending plan. A spending plan is all about you taking responsibility for how you choose to spend or not to spend your money.

OK, so you might think this is just a case of puh-tay-toh po-tah-toh, the word budget has a negative connotation for most people. And who needs more negativity as they’re putting their lives back on track after a divorce? No one I can think of.

Divorce is tough. You deserve to take care of yourself in every way possible. And, yes, this does include the words you use.

Words are incredibly powerful and can completely…

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5 Steps To Get Over Your Divorce

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December 19, 2014

Getting over your divorce can be much simpler than you’ve heard.

Divorce is a life-changing event, but it doesn’t have to stop you from living. Here are 5 straight-forward steps to help you quickly heal from your divorce.

1. Don’t let your divorce disable you.

Healing from divorce is a grieving process. Everyone’s grieving process is unique. Because of this uniqueness, people sometimes think that they are grieving when they are actually wallowing.

There’s a big difference between grieving and wallowing. The difference mostly has to do with what’s going on in your head.

If you want to get through your grief with minimal wallowing, you’ll want to think of your divorce as either a message to redirect your life or a growth challenge. Both of these ideas have the potential to give you hope and to keep you engaged in the future. That’s the key to prevent yourself from getting stuck; focus on the future and making your future better even if you don’t know exactly how to do that right now.

2. You are not a failure.

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing that because your marriage ended in divorce that you’re a failure. (I fell deeply into this trap…

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