Happy New Year to Moodsurfing readers. Nothing needs to be said about 2020 that hasn’t already been said. While acknowledging how hard things are for many people right now, Moodsurfing is looking ahead with confidence to the future. 2021 has to be a better year. Regular readers will probably remember that we like Rick Hanson and his educational programs, newsletters …
Seasonal Affective Disorder and Winter Mindset
What’s your seasonal mindset? Does Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) increase as latitude increases up into the far polar regions where winter nights are longest? A recent study from Norway found the opposite: people who live at higher latitudes have stronger coping skills and there is less change in subjective well-being over the course of a year. Kari Leibowitz, a researcher …
Subjective Well Being and Coronavirus
How good is your life? Psychologists look at factors like “subjective well-being”, “overall life satisfaction” and “positive affect” (good feelings) to measure the effects of particular events and situations on how well or badly people feel like they are functioning in the world. The coronavirus pandemic has had a notable and obvious effect on people’s sense of well-being, bringing about …
Alexi Pappas
How do you recognize the symptoms of depression? Isn’t that something everyone should know? We’ve all learned how to recognize the symptoms of Covid 19, right? And other diseases have organizations that do public education about them, like cancer, heart disease, etc. Alexi Pappas, writing in the New York Times, says that everyone should be taught to recognize the symptoms …
How to Increase Motivation
How can I make myself do better? How can I get motivated to fulfill my resolutions and good intentions? Motivation is something we all hope to get more of, but motivation to get out there and do the work is often elusive. It’s easy to find people to give good advice, even MoodSurfing is full of good advice, but when …
Holiday Celebrations
Holiday stress is a big topic every year, but 2020 is the champion year of stressfulness! And now the holiday season on top of it all. Take a few minutes to reflect on what’s ahead for the next few weeks. First of all, like everyone else, we implore you to stay safe and stay home. Sure, nobody wants to stay …
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a way of learning to live with chronic illness that teaches the patient to be present in the moment and get in touch with reality, instead of the scripts that may be running in their brain. Learning to live in the present moment can take a lifetime, but it also allows one to step …
Books! Books! Books!
The advent of the internet and online information technology has made reading and writing more popular and widespread than ever before. And while some lament the short attention span and failed fact checking that it seems to have brought, the fact is, more books are being published now than at any time in history. So whether you prefer to read …
Staying Active in a Covid Winter
I was reminded this past week about the importance of staying active during the winter, as well as some of the challenges people face during this COVID-19 winter Why is this Hard? Our brains are somewhat poorly adapted to modern life. Our distant ancestors would go into hibernation mode during the winter. Food was not as plentiful, and going outdoors …
Seasonal Affective Disorder – Pandemic
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is more than just the “blues”. Affecting up to 5% of adults in the United States, it can last as much as 40 percent of the year. SAD can cause significant impairment of normal daily activity, and can lead to deeper complications if left unaddressed. For many of us, 2020 has been a year of “affective …
Starry Starry Night
International Bipolar Foundation hosts virtual event The IBPF, a worldwide alliance of people with bipolar and those who love them will be hosting their annual Starry, Starry Night event virtually this year. IBPF also has an extensive website and blog roll, see our “outside blogs” column to the right of the screen. They write: Please join us on November 8th …
Fall Back? Mood and the Time Change
For those of our readers who live in the northern hemisphere this is the time when many people experience symptoms of seasonal depression. It is the time when the length of the day is shrinking most rapidly. And this weekend in the United States we will switch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time with the result that many of …
Doomscrolling
Media Use and the Pandemic We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: media use is not always good for you. Now we have the pandemic-related phenomenon of “doomscrolling”, going obsessively through your feeds again and again, reading the bad news and skipping the good. Why do that? Well, 2020 has put a lot of stress on everyone. From …
Plan Your Mood Surfing
A daily plan, a five-year plan, a crisis plan. Is it all too much to even contemplate? How can I think about a life plan when I can barely keep my head above water just getting through the day? If you’re “surfing” your moods on a regular basis, planning is essential. Bipolar is a roller coaster and it’s a lot …
Social Rhythms Therapy
Circadian rhythms are an important component of mental health. Humans have naturally evolved to live in the 24-hour light-dark cycle that our planet creates for us, and we run into difficulties when this pattern is disrupted. Depression and bipolar are conditions that may create circadian disruptions, or they may stem from an ongoing breakage in the circadian pattern. In either …
Depression Strength
How do you address stigma about depression? Depression is an illness, and it’s an illness that’s not easy to cope with. But in addition to the illness itself and how awful it makes you feel some days, you also have to deal with people – from the closest family to the most casual stranger – judging you for not being …
Reward Processing Impairment
How do you make decisions? Major depression can have profound effects on decision making, causing apparently irrational decisions, for example, not choosing to change behavior in ways that will likely lead to rewards, and choosing instead a course of action that is likely to be unrewarding. Traditional psychological theories of depression have focused on the notion that the problem is …
Stress, Pregnancy and the Infant
Women who are pregnant, especially if it is a first child, are usually extremely protective of the child, so much so that it can sometimes be hard to convince the mother-to-be that taking care of her need for emotional stability is as important as protecting the child from risk. This makes it hard to explain the potential value of continuing …
World Suicide Prevention Day
Suicide is a growing phenomenon in the USA and around the world. Especially in this difficult time of pandemics, natural disasters and divisive politics, suicide prevention is for everyone. World Suicide Prevention Day is September 10 each year, and it’s a time for all of us to stop and look around. People in our own social networks are struggling in …
Is Depression Prevention Possible?
Heredity and childhood trauma are two known risk factors for depression, but these can’t be modified in adults. Are there specific actions that could be taken by at-risk individuals that would make depression prevention possible? Much of the research available so far does not search for a wide variety of possible factors, instead focusing on a hypothesized intervention, e.g. exercise …