Every Day is Suicide Prevention Day

September 10 has been designated as Suicide Prevention Day in the United States, and each year that day provides everyone a chance to stop and reflect.  Suicide causes more deaths annually than violent crime, accidents, and smoking.  In every age group, beginning from age 10, suicide is one of the major causes of death.  We don’t seem to be doing …

Suicide Prevention

10 USEFUL* things you can do for suicide prevention *Spoiler: none of these things are about “fixing” a suicidal person. I’d like to apologize for missing the actual National Suicide Prevention Day, which was September 10, but, really, any day is a good day to talk about suicide prevention.  Suicide prevention is not a matter of telling your distressed friend …

CBT for Insomnia Reduces Suicidal Thoughts

CBT for insomnia (CBTi) is clearly preferable to taking sleeping medications for most people. Studies show that cognitive behavioral therapy is associated with greater improvements in sleep quality than sleeping medications, and that those improvements are more durable, and, particularly in the elderly, sleeping medications are associated with significant adverse effects, including an increase in mortality. But it can be a hard …