The topic of weight loss is one that is charged with emotional significance for many individuals. Perhaps in keeping with that fact, and certainly due to a lack of clear research in this area, there is an incredible amount of misinformation available on this topic. We have recently completed an exhaustive review of the available clinical research relevant to this …
Mindfulness and Helpful Resources
Mindfulness: it is the “in” thing in mental health. The practice of mindfulness really does work to help create more satisfying lives. But what is it and how do you get started practicing mindfulness? Jon Kabat-Zinn is the man who popularized mindfulness approaches to improving health in this country. He has written a great number of books and produced audio …
Cynical Hostility: Chill Out, Live Longer
Cynical hostility is a personality style of cynicism and mistrust in social relationships. In a recent study, researchers from France and University College London looked at data from a long-term study of 3,399 British civil servants. Those in the top 25% of cynical hostility levels were over four-and-a-half times more likely to be become depressed 20 years later in the …
Supplements for Mood
There are lots of supplements that are supposed to help with mood and energy and overall health. We try to keep things simple. First, we don’t recommend a supplement unless it has been shown to work in at least one well designed study (randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial). Second, before we recommend a supplement we encourage people to go to …
The Morning Ritual: Starting Your Day Off Right
The Morning Ritual– For people who are trying to live creatively with moods, it is often extremely important how the day starts. The time of getting out of bed in the morning needs to be roughly the same every morning, and it needs to include enough time so that on weekdays, there is at least a half an hour for …
Anxiety
Anxiety often goes hand in hand with mood cycles. In fact, for some people anxiety is a bigger problem than depression. But the types of treatment that can help with anxiety are often different than the types that help with extreme moods. For one thing, psychotherapy is generally more effective for anxiety than medications. And some medications that can help …
Books on Depression That We Recommend
This is a short list of the books that we most often recommend when people are dealing with issues related to depression. Please let us know what you think in the comments below. Feel free to recommend any other books or readings that you or anyone you know has found helpful and would be a good resource for people with …
Books on Bipolar Disorder
One of the things that we want to do on this site is share resources that have been helpful to others. Below is a very brief list highlighting the books that we have most often recommended to others. Please let us know what you think in the comments below. Feel free to recommend any other books or readings that you …
MoodSurfing ™ 101 : Depression – Video Included
Part of the preparation for this site has been a lot of thinking about “what works” to help people live better lives with their moods. The most common problem people ask for help about is depression. We spent a few days looking through the clinical literature to identify non-medication options to improve depression. Then we put that into a YouTube …
Day One: Welcome to Our New Website, Moodsurfing!
Welcome to Moodsurfing! This is the first post on this new website. We have been thinking about doing this for at least five years so it is good to be starting. But it is a bit daunting as well… what will we say? For now we will get started by collecting all of the ideas that have been popping up …