What is the relationship between bipolar and success? This excerpt from the American Psychiatric Association’s book Understanding Mental Disorders, suggests one kind of relationship… “The symptoms of bipolar disorder can damage relationships, cause problems with work or school, and even lead to suicide. People with the disorder may feel out of control or ruled by their extreme moods and behaviors. Although there may …
Social Media and Mood
Research looking at the relationship between the use of social media and mood continues to offer tantalizing hints about this new aspect of human experience. Are the effects positive or negative? There seems to be no doubt about the impact of television watching on mood. Heavy television watching is associated with depression and impaired cognitive function, even when controlling for other risk factors …
Interpersonal Effectiveness and DEAR MAN
For many people with depression, it can be hard to find an assertive, but not hostile, way of dealing with conflict. Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) addresses many practical problems such as this with straightforward answers. This comes from the “Interpersonal Effectiveness” module of DBT. The acronym to remember is DEAR MAN: Describe Describe the situation in as objective …
Dangers of Mania
A cheerful young woman comes in for a consultation and soon we come to a topic that can be remarkably frustrating for all: trying to explain the dangers of mania. She is only mildly manic. It’s true she often gets into arguments that don’t really make much sense and she has been smoking more marijuana and hooking up with an …
Frequent Lying and Biology
Frequent lying and its biology is the subject of a fascinating article in Nature Neuroscience. Scientists have shown that the brain’s fear and alarm circuitry (the amygdala) is usually triggered when one lies (even lies of omission or “white” lies). They’ve also shown that reducing this response by giving someone medications that affect the amygdala increases the likelihood that a …
Darkness Treats Mania?
Bright light is one of the most rapidly effective treatments for depression and may be helpful for depression even in people without a clear seasonal pattern (winter depression). A recent study suggests that it may also be true that darkness treats mania. The portion of the light spectrum that affects circadian rhythms the most strongly is blue light, which is …
Facebook Friends May Save Your Life
Facebook friends may help you live longer. This is the surprising result of a recent study that received a lot of attention, and which some of you may have thought was a marketing ploy. However, the study was published in the prestigious journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here is a summary of the study and the findings …
Chronotherapy and Getting Up Early
Getting up early is one of the best ways of counteracting depression. And having a strong circadian rhythm is especially important for people with bipolar depression because their internal “clock” may be less powerful. But it can be a challenge making a change in your sleep cycle, especially if you have always been a late riser. …
Why Do I Have To Have a Regular Schedule?
“Why do I have to have a regular schedule” was the lurking question that hung over my conversation with Ann. She didn’t actually ask me that question but I could see that there was a rebellious child hiding in the corner of the room who was making the conversation we were having about getting regular sleep much less productive than …
Starting the New Year Right
Starting Off the New Year Right: 5 Areas of Your Life to Implement Self-Care As we start off the new year it’s important to remember the value of taking care of ourselves and engaging in regular self-care. Our mood, anxiety, substance use and relationships can be greatly impacted by stress levels and self-care is an important way of supporting ourselves …
Coping with the Holidays – Gina
Coping with the Holidays: Having a Plan The holiday season can be a time of increased stress. It is often said to be the “happiest time of year” when in fact, for many of us, it can be one of the most challenging times of year. Know, you are not alone if this is the case for you. Whether it is …
Depression and Reward Insensitivity
Why do some people get depressed and what can be done about it? Studies of brain response to rewards suggests that there is a strong link between depression and reward insensitivity. People who are at risk of depression literally don’t react to rewards in same way as other people. A large study of adolescent girls without any history of depression found …
More Happiness
We all need to be reminded about ways that we can bring more happiness into our lives. Rick Hansen has devoted his professional life to understanding the neuroscience of happiness and has created a set of tools that can help. His course “The Foundations of Wellbeing” has helped many people I know to experience more pleasure and joy in daily life, to have …
Technology and Bipolar
Colin Depp recently gave a presentation on technology and bipolar as part of the excellent International Society for Bipolar Disorders monthly (free) video lecture series. You can find out information about these video lectures on the ISBD website. I encourage you to sign up to get updates. Back to Dr. Depp’s lecture. He discussed a number of topics of interest to people …
Hamster Brain
A young woman who has been making good progress tackling the problem of severe depressive episodes suddenly is having trouble managing the opposite end of the mood spectrum. She gets energized and is consumed with getting stuff done. She is unable to stop until she is exhausted and she crashes. I call this state of mind “hamster mind” because it is like the …
Avoiding Heartbreak in a Relationship
An attractive, intelligent young woman asked me, “Why can’t he show me any love, what is wrong with me?” The two of them have been having a difficult time recently and she was feeling sad about how their relationship had changed in the last several months. She told me that she was in the shower crying about this when her partner …
Coping with Political Uncertainty
Many of the people that I work with on a regular basis have been experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety related to the recent election results. Unfortunately, mental health professionals are no better as news analysts than the so-called professionals. I have been struggling a little bit trying to figure out what to say to these people. Coping with Political …
Psychotic Experiences in Normal People
Worldwide Study Finds some People without Mental Illness Report “Psychotic” Experiences Psychiatrists tend to assume that certain experiences are a clear sign of mental illness. These experiences include psychotic experiences such as hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing visions) and delusions (beliefs that are contrary to “consensual reality” for example the belief that one is being plotted against, or that thoughts are being …
Anxiety and Bipolar
For many people with bipolar anxiety is a bigger problem than mood swings. It is not that unusual for someone with bipolar to report that their first “symptom” of a psychiatric nature was the onset of anxiety early in childhood. Let’s take a look at this information again… 90% of people with bipolar have an anxiety disorder diagnosis. 2/3rds have had …
4 Ways You Can Help a Loved One Cope with Addiction and Mental Illness
Mental illness and addiction co-occur more than some people may think. People with a mental illness are more likely to abuse substances while those with addictions are likely to either develop the symptoms of a mental illness or a full-blown mental illness. If there is someone in your life struggling with these two problems here are a few ways you …