Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships Podcast By MJ Murray Vachon LCSW cover art

Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

By: MJ Murray Vachon LCSW
Listen for free

Coping Skills for Midlife Stress and Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

Forget the midlife crisis—how about creating midlife calm? The anxiety and stress of this life stage can drain your energy, fuel overthinking, and make it hard to enjoy what should be the best years of your life. This podcast offers practical coping skills to help you reduce anxiety, manage stress, and rediscover a calmer, more confident version of yourself.

In Creating Midlife Calm, you’ll discover how to:

  • Be happier, more present, and more effective at home and work.
  • Transform stress and anxiety into powerful tools that boost your clarity, energy, and confidence.
  • Cultivate calm and joy through practical, affordable coping skills that help you handle life’s daily challenges.

Join MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, a seasoned therapist with over 50,000 hours of clinical experience and 32 years teaching mental wellness, as she guides you to reclaim your inner calm. Learn to stay grounded in the present, navigate midlife transitions with clarity, and build emotional resilience using proven coping tools.

Every Monday, MJ dives into real stories and science-backed insights to help you shift from anxious to centered—ending each episode with an “Inner Challenge” you can practice right away. Then, on Thursdays, she shares a brief follow-up episode that connects, deepens, or expands the week’s topic, helping you apply these skills in real life.

Let’s evolve from crisis to calm—and make midlife your most balanced and fulfilling chapter yet.
🎧 Start with listener favorite Ep. 138 to feel the difference calm can make.

© 2026 Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
Episodes
  • Ep. 249 How to Calm Anxiety and Stress in Midlife When Your Overthinking

    Ep. 249 How to Calm Anxiety and Stress in Midlife When Your Overthinking
    Mar 26 2026

    Why does anxiety in midlife make your mind spin even when thinking harder only increases the stress?
    There is a practical and hopeful way to calm anxiety and stress that doesn’t require figuring everything out first.
    In this episode, you’ll discover:
    1. Why anxiety and stress in midlife pulls your attention into overthinking.
    2. How practicing body awareness during ordinary moments prepares you to handle anxiety when stress bombs hit.
    3. Three simple coping skills that help you return to your body so anxiety and stress in midlife can naturally settle
    Take 12 minutes to learn how to calm anxiety and stress in midlife when you can’t stop thinking—you’re worth it.

    Send us Fan Mail




    ****

    About the Host:
    MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

    Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

    Show more Show less
    12 mins
  • Ep. 248 Why Trying To Get Clarity When You're Anxious Makes You Feel WORSE & Increases Stress During Midlife

    Ep. 248 Why Trying To Get Clarity When You're Anxious Makes You Feel WORSE & Increases Stress During Midlife
    Mar 23 2026

    Why does anxiety make you search for answers when the real problem may be the intensity moving through your nervous system?

    There is a powerful shift that can help anxiety and stress settle without trying to think your way out of them.
    In this episode, you’ll discover:

    1. Why anxiety and stress in midlife push your brain to search for clarity.
    2. How emotional intensity temporarily shuts down your thinking brain and fuels rumination and overanalysis.
    3. Why learning to hold emotional intensity becomes one of the most powerful coping skills for managing anxiety and stress in midlife.

    Take 10 minutes to understand why clarity isn’t the coping skill your anxiety and stress actually need—you’re worth it.





    Send us Fan Mail




    ****

    About the Host:
    MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

    Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

    Show more Show less
    11 mins
  • Ep. 247 Why Cutting Back on Your Phone in Midlife Might Be the Wrong Coping Skill for Anxiety and Stress

    Ep. 247 Why Cutting Back on Your Phone in Midlife Might Be the Wrong Coping Skill for Anxiety and Stress
    Mar 19 2026

    Have you noticed that fighting your phone often leaves you feeling more anxious, tense, or deprived instead of calmer?
    You deserve a more fulfilling way forward.
    In this episode, you’ll discover:

    1. Why trying to restrict phone use can backfire and increase anxiety and stress in midlife
    2. How your phone quietly meets ancient human needs for connection, consuming, and creating—and how those needs are met matters to your nervous system
    3. How small, more fulfilling real-world shifts can bring back enjoyment, meaning, and calm while keeping your phone in your life

    Take 9 minutes to notice how you meet your needs for connection, consuming, and creating—your nervous system will thank you.

    Send us Fan Mail




    ****

    About the Host:
    MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

    Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

    Show more Show less
    10 mins
No reviews yet