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As I write this article about pets and mental health, I sit next to my 4 year old dog, Rufus. I am regularly reminded in my daily life of the valuable role pets can play in our lives. Pets can play a huge role in providing support and have been shown to have both physical and psychological benefits in the …
I’ve been working with a very successful attorney who has been struggling to find a way to stay in his marriage for a couple of years. The heart of the matter is that his wife had a serious health problem, which is now resolved. Through the process of dealing with this health problem she probably became depressed and certainly became …
A young man in the tech industry who worked with me for nearly a decade got me started thinking about the key to successful job hunting. The tech industry is notorious for its high turnover and this young man enjoyed working in startups, where the turnover is even greater. As a result, he found himself looking for work every year …
What is the most effective way of motivating healthy behavior changes? And how does medical practice best take advantage of information about what motivates people to make positive changes? It should be obvious that just telling someone that a certain behavior is healthy is often not enough to motivate change. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal …
Sometimes I wish that my depressed patients had more impatience. Eagerness for change when you have been depressed for a long time can be a good thing. But if you have bipolar depression, impatience is not always a useful emotion. This past week, several people began expressing impatience with their progress. A couple of them expressed the view that I …
A study in 2017 finds that the composition of food in one meal can significantly affect behavior in the following hours, higher carbohydrate meals increase punishment behavior. How does this work and what does it mean in terms of understanding how diet affects mood? In the study, a high carbohydrate breakfast boosted tryptophan and lowered tyrosine. Tryptophan is the key …
Mindful speech seems to be in short supply these days. A pervasive sense of urgency about communication propels us into comments that we later regret. Rick Hanson reminds us of the words of Buddha, wise speech always has five characteristics. It is: Well-intended – Born of goodwill, seeks to support and strengthen rather than belittle and criticize. True – Not overstated, taken out …
The UCSF bipolar psychoeducational group starts on August 7, 2017. It runs for 8 weekly sessions, Mondays 12pm to 130pm. Most commercial insurance accepted. I often describe this group as “an advanced class about bipolar disorder for people who have bipolar disorder.” I have attached a flyer and a draft schedule. Please feel free to give/show either to your patients. There is also …
Ride the Tiger is a wonderful PBS documentary that covers a lot of important information about bipolar in an entertaining and informative one hour program. One of my patients strongly recommended it. Treatment Stories about treatment, the good, the bad and the ugly. Self Care The importance of self care. A brief introduction to some useful ideas. The Genetics of …
Why would you want to examine your fears? Remember that part in the scary movie when the hero suggests going down into the basement to take a look around and you cringe in your seat and mentally say “don’t do it”? Tim Ferriss, who has bipolar himself, says that engaging with and examining your fears is how to stay mentally …
I was inspired to write this post on exercise solutions by a wonderful article in BP Hope that not only talks about reasons for making sure that you are exercising but also tries to overcome some of the barriers to making this change. You already know why Exercise is critical for brain health Exercise and physical activity is the most …
Sitting with Emotions I regularly work with clients who are trying to avoid and push away feelings of sadness, anger, loneliness — so-called “negative” emotions. On the one hand, I can entirely relate with this draw and have experienced it myself. However, the more I’ve learned to sit with these emotions, and witnessed others sit with them, the more important …
Support and Connecting I think about the value of human connection a great deal in my work, especially when working with those with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. I am continuously reminded of the value that support plays in the lives of individuals in recovery both in relationship to addiction and mood disorders. There is a great deal …
In my previous post I outlined the idea of “stages of change,” here I want to focus on some of the tools for change. In the picture below you will they the stages of change lined up with appropriate tools for change. Some of the tools are appropriate in more than one stage and, in general, the activities that support …
Getting Ready for Change The process of getting ready for change has been the focus of the research of James Prochaska for the last 40 years. James O. Prochaska and Carlo Di Clemente, developed the Transtheoretical Model for change (TTM), which is the most widely accepted framework for understanding change in the mental health and substance use treatment communities. They found …
Nature and Wellbeing Many patients I work with speak of the value that nature plays in their lives and I can say that I also strongly relate to the value it plays in my own. Through personal experience and repeated accounts from others, I have seen how nature can improve moods, increase feelings of connectedness, and impact thought patterns. More …
Travel and mood are very much related. Often a trip is associated with a significant change in mood. This can be…
Mindfulness for children may be a hard concept to envisage if your family life is something other than the ideal home of tranquility and good feeling. But it is an idea worth exploring, for a couple of reasons. Habits acquired early in life can have a profound impact on future development. With all of the interest in mindfulness as a …
Mindfulness is one of those practices that seems to, quite perversely, be most important to practice at times when it is most difficult to do. A successful interior designer with bipolar disorder who has been on a mild run of hypomania for a month or so told me, in a roundabout way, about how people around her were getting a bit exhausted …
Treatment controversies abound in psychiatry. An earlier post about a conversation I had with a patient’s therapist in which it seemed that both therapist and patient agreed that being encouraged to come in for an early appointment was a kind of punishment, sparked an interesting dialog with one of this blog’s many dedicated readers. The reader wrote – As one who has experienced that …
