Geneen Roth talks about how infatuated she was with her imperfections while growing up. She was constantly thinking of how much better looking she would be if she didn’t have certain features. If only she could cut out all the flaws, so just her best features would remain she could be happy. Roth tried to reach self improvement through shaming …
An Interview You Don’t Want to Miss!
Dr. Forster recently interviewed with Matt Tierney, a Nurse Practitioner who holds a Master of Science degree in Nursing from UCSF. Matt goes into great detail about the benefits of the 12 step program and what the program is all about. He tells us how the 12 step program can be different for each individual and how each step can …
The U Pattern of Depression
Over time researchers have observed that depression follows a U pattern. First depression symptoms are high in young adulthood. Like the dip of a U, depression symptoms decrease in midlife, and the rounding back up of the U signifies the return of greater depressive symptoms in later years. The results of some long-term longitudinal studies that investigated the peak in …
Sleep Deprivation and Increased Hunger
Often, after a late night with little sleep, we wake up the next day and are starving! This phenomenon is no coincidence. A study was conducted with healthy non-obese adults to see the effects of sleep deprivation on appetite levels. The results revealed that students that had four-and-a-half hours of sleep compared to students who had eight-and-a-half hours of sleep …
The No Motivation Blues
Today, I met with a couple of women whose central concern was the fact that they felt a complete loss of motivation. One of these women is finishing graduate school. Only a few weeks away from graduating, she has found that she is not completing the assignments that she needs to in order to graduate. She knows that she can do …
Odd Couple’s Therapy
I met today with two interesting people: they’re both attorneys. They have a remarkably different style and presentation. One of them is usually animated, energetic, and optimistic. However, he also has bipolar mood cycles. Sometimes his energized vibe may get a bit intense, while at other times he will be in a depressed state that makes it hard for him …
A Spoonful of Courage
In a previous post, I shared Linda Graham’s views on resilience from an excerpt from her article Bouncing Back :Rewiring the Brian for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being. After further reading, Graham also discusses the importance of having courage when creating a more positive outlook on life. We have the ability to experience great personal growth when engaging in new things. …
Chronic Depression: What You See Depends on Where You Look
It can be hard to sit with someone with depression, especially chronic depression. For me it is the fact that I am trained to try to enter a person’s world, and understand that world… but the visit to the world of someone who is depressed can be depressing. One of the reasons for this is that they describe lives where …
The Pressure of Perfectionism
In today’s society, many people struggle with the desire to be perfect. Perfectionism is the view that anything done in a less than perfect fashion is unacceptable. In a PowerPoint presentation found at this website, Jennifer Marten explains how striving for perfection can take away from personal happiness and success. Perfectionists can be identified by a series of habits. …
Strategies for Bipolar Disorder
Living with Bipolar Disorder is not an easy feat. On the bright side, there are different strategies for coping with and managing the various symptoms. By making healthy choices and pairing medication and therapy, individuals with Bipolar Disorder can gain more control of their lives. Some factors that are necessary for maintaining a healthy lifestyle with bipolar disorder include hope, …
Losing Control: A Tale about Binge-Eating Disorder
Individuals facing stress, anxiety, or depression will sometimes fall prey to eating disorders. While anorexia and bulimia have received a lot of attention, one of the most prevalent eating disorders is binge-eating disorder. Binge-eating disorder can be detrimental to both a healthy mental and physical state. A man who suffered from binge-eating disorder shared his story with the New York …
Sleep Strategies
One of the most frequent causes of insomnia is anxiety. Insomnia of this kind is caused by increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system at night. The body releases norepinephrine (the flight or fight hormone) at night when that system should be inactive. You wake up and you feel “wide awake.” A current patient of Dr. Forster’s is having difficulty sleeping …
Destructive Duo: Diabetes and Depression
According to Dr. Coleman M.D., it is common for individuals to experience comorbid Diabetes Mellitus and Depression. Diabetes Mellitus is also known as Type 2 diabetes. On its own, each diesase acts as a risk factor for the other disease. For those with diabetes, the chances of also experiencing depression is 15-30%. In addition, individuals with depression have twice the …
Food for Thought
Studies have shown that what you eat affects the way you feel. However, there are so many diet plans out there that it is hard to know which diets promote the best physical and mental health. The Paleo diet is rumored to help with weight loss and mood improvement, so I decided to investigate. The goal of the Paleo diet …
The Value of Mood Charting
When it comes to understanding the factors that cause us to feel a certain way, mood charting can be extremely useful. Recently, Dr. Forster met with a patient named David that claimed he was “doing better than he should.” He felt that his overall mood was pretty good, but he was also experiencing difficulty with his memory and concentration. David …
Gambling: Sucked into the Slots
Dr. Howard Forman interviewed Dr. David Forest about the reasons behind the great appeal of slot machines. Gambling is a phenomenon that has been sweeping the nation. People are simply captivated by the machines. Dr. Forest attributes the allure of the slots to both players and professionals to the bio-psycho-social attractiveness of the machines. The machines attract so many players …
Sit Back, and Relax
Yoga and mindfulness meditation have been rumored to increase resilience by inducing the relaxation response. The body exhibits the relaxation response by producing antidepressant, antianxiety, and anti-stress effects. Dr. Roy-Byrne, MD set up an experiment to see whether the relaxation response would not only reduce physiological stress but also actually change gene expression. The gene expression of peripheral blood cells …
There’s an App for that
The I-phone has come out with some new, user friendly mood charting apps that have the potential to change the way you live your life. Just when you thought the I-phone couldn’t get any better! Two of these affordable apps are Senti and Moodkit. The Senti app keeps an emotional history of every day life by asking questions about the …
Depression: Bouncing Back
One of the factors that correlate with depression is a lack of resilience. With little resilience, we respond negatively when exposed to stress or trauma. This response then becomes a habit and is encoded in the brain. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain has the ability to rewire and make new connections. According to Linda Graham, MFT in her article Bouncing …
Abused and Misused: Opiods
The most overprescribed drugs that have have captured public interest are opioids. What a lot of people don’t know is that a 29% increase in pharmaceutical overdose deaths was caused by misuse of benzodiazepines, which have sedative properties. Dr. Steven King, MD, believes benzodiazepines are overprescribed, especially for patients with chronic pain. Benzodiazepines are often overlooked by the public, who …