Valerie Holcomb, MS, LPC

For decades, the public picture of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has featured a classic stereotype: a hyperactive young boy disrupting a classroom, bouncing off walls, or acting out impulsively. Because medical and psychological criteria were largely built around these external, disruptive behaviors, millions of girls and women grew up flying completely under the radar.…

Burnout is not a simple state of exhaustion; it is a chronic physiological “stall” caused by a nervous system that has been stuck in high-intensity survival modes for too long. When you view burnout through this lens, it can be broken down into three distinct physiological phases: ### 1. Chronic Sympathetic “Redline” Before the total…

If you’ve ever sat in the driver’s seat of a rig overlooking a technical drop in the San Rafael Swell or navigated the slickrock near Blue Valley, you know the feeling of the “internal tilt.” Your heart rate climbs, your grip tightens on the wheel, and your field of vision narrows. In Utah’s backcountry, high…

Corrugations of the Mind: Resilience Lessons from Washboard Roads We often treat stress like a single, massive obstacle we have to climb over. In reality, the most significant damage usually comes from the “washboard” effect—the relentless, high-frequency micro-stressors that don’t seem like much individually but eventually rattle the system until something fails.If you don’t have…

We often treat our bodies like a collection of separate departments. Cardiology handles the pump; Neurology handles the computer. But your heart and your mind have been in a continuous, complex conversation your entire life. They communicate via the vagus nerve, sending a cascade of neurohormones back and forth. But they also communicate through narrative.…