Bipolar or Unipolar Depression?

If you have an episode of depression, how can you tell if it is bipolar or unipolar depression? The simple answer is, you have bipolar depression if you have ever experienced an energized (not necessarily pleasant) state that qualified as a hypomanic or manic episode. And if you only have had depressed episodes, you are considered to have unipolar depression. …

Oxytocin: Hormone of Love… and of Mistrust?

Oxytocin is a neurohormone that is produced in the human brain and helps us form loving connections: mother-child bonds as well as the connections between romantic partners.  When we are with a person who stimulates our oxytocin-producing neurological system, we feel warmed, supported, in a word: loved.  However, making us feel loved doesn’t seem to be exactly the function of …

Mental Health Awareness 2021

For now over 70 years, Americans have delegated the month of May as “Mental Health Awareness Month” (since 1949). And with medical experts and researchers across the planet sharing their observation that the Covid-19 pandemic is going to continue to have an array of mental health impacts into the foreseeable future, mental health awareness needs to remain in the forefront …

Tripolar Disorder

Mixed mania is a type of depression, but it’s very hard to explain it to people I work with.  In the view of mental health professionals, it makes a lot of sense to talk about a “mixed” state, which is a state of depression that generates lots of energy and agitation. The lethargy and slow speech of “typical” depression looks …

Fall Back? Mood and the Time Change

For those of our readers who live in the northern hemisphere this is the time when many people experience symptoms of seasonal depression. It is the time when the length of the day is shrinking most rapidly. And this weekend in the United States we will switch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time with the result that many of …

Medication Effect on Creativity

How does medication for bipolar affect creativity? The effect of medication on personal creativity and artistic productivity is often a concern for people beginning to manage their bipolar.  A widespread belief is that mania produces creative power that artists and writers can transform into works of art; and conversely, that the medication which dampens manic episodes also reduces the ability …

Black Lives Matter

It seems appropriate today to notice the fact that the largest civil rights movement ever is responding to the shame of ongoing racism not only in the United States, but in communities around the world. On June 19, 1865 the Emancipation Proclamation was read out publicly in Texas, the last state to surrender in the American Civil War. The states …

Sleep Apps

Sleep Apps

Getting better sleep – longer, deeper, more restful – is an important part of managing mental illness and healthy lifestyle.  Lack of sleep, and interrupted sleep, is one of the most common problems mentioned by our clients, and helping people get better sleep is one of our first goals for management of moods and especially major depression. Sleep technology is, …

News Sources

Coronavirus News Sources

Moodsurfing has often commented on the importance of limiting reading and watching sensationalist stories during a time of crisis. But a question that seems to be coming up these days is where one can turn for reliable information that is not sensationalist. I have created this blog post as a place to store some recommendations for keeping up with the …

what happens when new information contradicts expectations and you are depressed?

Depression and Altered Learning

Depression, particularly recurrent depression, has pretty significant effects on how we perceive the world and how well we make plans for the future. In an article published in Biological Psychiatry in March 2020, Tobias Kube and co-authors develop a model of how depression affects critical cognitive processes that expands and extends the traditional model of cognitive changes associated with depression …

How much sleep is enough

Sleep – How Much is Enough

How much sleep is enough? The question might seem simple. Most of us heard that we were supposed to get about 8 hours of sleep a night. But with the increasingly hectic pace of modern life, many of us don’t get that much sleep. What are the consequences of this? A recent study in a cardiology journal answers the question …

Change Talk

Change Talk versus “Should” Talk or Loss Talk

For many years I thought that if I berated myself enough for not making some positive change in my life it would motivate me to make the change. A colleague with an interest in motivating people to make big changes got me thinking about this strategy… He would often ask people “how did that work for you?” and after years …

Sleep deprivation and weight gain

Lack of Sleep and Weight Gain

Lack of sleep is associated with weight gain, but why is this? Is it just because sleep deprivation makes us grumpy and we “self-medicate” with food? People who get poor quality sleep, or not enough sleep, start craving high carbohydrate and high fat foods that are more likely to cause weight gain. And sleep deprivation makes us less likely to …