The Self Esteem and Confidence Mindset Creating Calm: Navigate Anxiety and Life Transitions with Therapist MJ Murray Vachon
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Feb 20, 2026 
MJ Murray Vachon, a licensed clinical social worker with nearly 40 years helping people through anxiety, parenting, and life shifts. She discusses why anxiety has surged, how sleep and phone use reveal deeper issues, practical phone boundaries, tiny habits that build change, the power of solitude, and systems that beat willpower.
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How A Camp Became A Long-Term Program
- MJ describes creating a mental-wellness camp that expanded into 21 years of junior high programs teaching emotional skills.
- The program showed mental wellness skills work best when taught at junior-high age and informed her dual clinical/teaching career.
Lifestyle Issues Drive Many Mental Symptoms
- MJ argues we face a lifestyle crisis more than a mental-health crisis because daily habits drive wellbeing.
- Poor sleep, excessive phone use, and bad food produce symptoms mistaken for psychiatric illness.
Check Sleep And Phone Before Diagnoses
- Check sleep and phone use before diagnosing anxiety or depression because lifestyle factors mimic mental illness.
- Improve sleep to seven-plus hours and reduce phone use to under two hours to rapidly reduce symptoms.
