Spring is in full bloom here in Northern California. Great, sunny, warm days followed by spring storms with clean crisp air and the vibrant greens of new grass and leaves.Perhaps because it is Spring, this has been a wonderful time of growth for the website. We have a record number of visitors. We recently moved the site to a much better server that should be …
Denial: I’m not Bipolar, Doctor
You’re wrong, Doctor ! I’m not bipolar! How can you say that to me? You just met me – how can you possibly know??!! I’m just depressed and I get agitated and anxious and hyper – sometimes but everyone gets moody ! It s normal to have moods. You re pathologizing me! No other doctor has ever told me I have bipolar, …
L-Methylfolate for Depression
Methylfolate is the active form of folic acid – which is an essential B vitamin. Methylfolate is essential for the brain to make the neurotransmitters that prevent depression (norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine). In other words, a low level of depression can cause or worsen depression because it leads to lower levels of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. Most of us are able to get plenty …
Managing Tasks without Pain
A young woman who is attending architecture school mentioned a sudden dip in mood that happened the previous evening. She told me that this had to do with a day of working very hard to try to get tasks accomplished, and the anger and frustration at the end of the day when she hadn’t done as much as she wanted to, …
Update: We’re Back!
Phew, it has been a busy week… I have spent more quality time with tech support for HostGator (the new hosting company) and GoDaddy (the old hosting company) than I have spent with my family… sigh. However, the good news is that (cross fingers) it looks as though we finally have made the transfer and gotten everything working again. Now …
Exercise for Sexual Dysfunction
Among the greatest problems that come from antidepressant treatment (and a leading cause of medication discontinuation) are sexual side effects. Early in the course of treatment with serotonin antidepressants, many people experience less interest in sex and difficulty reaching orgasm. Numerous prescribed and over-the-counter medications have been proposed as antidotes. The fact that there are so many proposed antidotes suggests …
Ten Times More People With Serious Mental Illness in Jails Than Hospitals
Quoted in its entirety from American Psychiatric Press’s News Updates – Ten times more individuals with serious mental illness are residing in state prisons and county jails +today than in the nation’s state psychiatric hospitals, according to a new study released +today by the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC). “The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails: A State Survey” found …
Supplement Update
We got this update from Consumer Labs which reminded us why we think it is a great resource for anyone serious about taking supplements. New Review: Fish & Marine Oils High Quality Fish Oil Supplements Found, But Pitfalls Exist: We recently completed tests of fish, krill, algal, calamari and green-lipped muscle oil supplements. Although we identified many high-quality supplements (some costing just pennies per day), several others …
Zinc Might Prevent Depression
In several animal studies, zinc deficiency can cause behavior that looks like depression. In other animal studies, giving zinc can have antidepressant-like activity if the animals are zinc-deficient. And there is some clinical evidence that zinc might boost the effectiveness of antidepressants in humans. Now a large meta-analysis of studies that looked at zinc blood levels in people with depression (Swardfager, et …
Mindfulness Based Substance Abuse Treatment Works
Relapse is common after substance abuse treatment, indicating that there is a clear need for effective followup options. A new study has found that cognitive-behavioral relapse prevention (RP) and mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) are both effective aftercare interventions for substance abuse treatment, but that the latter may have an especially enduring effect as far as reducing drug-use days and heavy …
“Hitting Bottom” and Substance Abuse Recovery
I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the idea that sometimes, an alcohol or substance abuser needs to “hit bottom” before they can get well. For one thing, there aren’t that many people in our practice who have decided to stop drinking or using drugs as a result of a classic “hitting bottom” experience. For another thing, the whole idea …
Quitting Smoking Improves Mood
A study published in the British Medical Journal reports that quitting smoking had a simillar positive effect on mood as an antidepressant. The researchers did an analysis of 26 studies using a technique called a “meta-analysis” and looked at changes in mental health (anxiety, depression, mixed anxiety and depression, quality of life, positive affect, and stress) at ≥6 weeks’ post–smoking cessation …
Internet Therapies Generate Interest
There is increasing interest in “apps” that can support mental health (one of our most enthusiastic readers recently posted a query on this topic on the forum). Apps are rarely intended to deliver “therapy” – they are usually not written by mental health professionals (although mental health professionals may be consulted along the way). Their goal is to be appealing …
How Light Affects the Brain
Two recent articles that I reviewed highlight the accumulating evidence that something as simple as sunlight has profound impacts on brain biology. When I suggest to people that they pay attention to daily light exposure and, particularly, to getting bright light for 45 minutes every morning, I am often looked at with skepticism. “Sure doc,” I hear the other person …
Golden Gate Barrier Debate Highlights Misconceptions about Depression
Several of the readers of this blog sent me a link to an article that appeared in The New York Times this past week that indicated that it was possible or even likely that at the end of May the Golden Gate Bridge district would approve installing a barrier to prevent suicides. In case you don’t live near here, the …
Evolutionary Psychology and Understanding Depression
We are glad to finally have a summary of a fascinating conversation with Dr. Julio Ozores up on this site in our “Conversations” series. Dr. Ozores challenges us to think about depression in a new way. Although many of us struggle with the negative effects of depression in our lives, are (or were) there benefits to depression that have led …
Social Media Makes Moods Go Viral
Previously we reviewed evidence that the people we live with (family, neighbors, even the larger community of people in a metropolitan area) have an effect on our mood, so it is not surprising to learn of a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Yale, and Facebook that found that moods can go viral, just like ideas and …
Yoga for Mood and Health
Many of our patients with chronic mood disorders report that beginning yoga and doing it consistently has been associated with periods of remarkable stability. There are studies supporting yoga as an evidence based approach to the treatment of depression. But it is hard to figure out where to begin. At the end of this page are some additional resources. One …
Smoking Cessation Is an Antidepressant
Smoking Cessation Linked With Multiple Mental Health Benefits, Study Finds This article is reposted from the American Psychiatric Association News by permission Stopping smoking is associated with significant improvements in anxiety, depression, stress, positive affect, and psychological quality of life. And the strength of the association appears to be similar for both the general population and clinical populations, including those …
Family Therapy Effective for Bipolar Teenagers
Family Therapy– Family-focused treatments have been shown to be effective adjunctive therapy to mood stabilizing medicine in adults with bipolar disorder (especially young, female adults), but whether this approach holds true in adolescents, has been unclear. Researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) assessed 145 adolescents with bipolar disorder to see if adding 9 months of family …