Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Depression”
How does a depressed brain work differently from a healthy brain? Can depression be cured? These are complex questions and, as with all science, there is still much to be discovered and understood. But research in recent decades has come a long way in describing what’s going on in the depressed brain and what treatments help patients to recover. Originating …
This is a regular theme among our clients in January. “I was getting tired of too much partying, visiting and travel, but now that it’s over, I’m slipping into depression!” Through discussions and patient feedback, we’ve developed techniques that people can use before, during, and after a vacation or trip to get integrated back home without any glitches. One patient …
Should you stop mourning during a religious holiday? Is mourning something odd, and distinct from regular life? Should people in mourning hide it because it’s a “downer” for others? No, no, and no. Psychologists, counselors and pastors often remind us that “some people find the holidays difficult for personal reasons” as if those people should be some kind of a …
A new study was published in JAMA earlier this month, looking at the ketogenic diet and its effect on mental illness, specifically depression and anxiety. The study authors looked at 50 recently completed studies, including randomized control trials and “quasi-experimental” studies. These studies had covered a total of 41,718 participants. Meta-analysis showed that ketogenic diets were associated with modest improvements …
Seasonal Affective Disorder is familiar to many of our readers; as the planet turns, days get shorter and nights get longer. In California, cloudy and rainy weather takes over from the sunshine that we’re used to, and many people get the “blues”. Others encounter more serious dysfunction, and may require medical intervention to cope. Seasonal changes affect our circadian rhythms, …
Is it helpful or hurtful? Is it easy or hard? Do I give more or get more? Can it change my life? Can it change the world? Empathy is a much-maligned skill set that mostly just makes life a little bit easier. It doesn’t mean becoming a doormat, or completely subsuming your own feelings for those of others. Only someone …
There is no such thing as an illness that is “all in your head”. Just because the current level of medical science can’t understand what’s happening in the brain-body connection doesn’t mean your symptoms don’t exist. Research is beginning to find more and more ways that “mental” illnesses are caused by “physical” stimuli, and vice versa. This insight leads to …
What is catastrophism? Even if it’s realistic to know that there are forces able to wipe out your home, job, possessions, and community in a single stroke, worrying about the catastrophe maybe coming today or tomorrow can harm your health without improving your chances of escape. Anybody going in for medical checks and tests knows the feeling, but now, if …
Tips for managing holiday stress How’s your holiday spirit? Dreading that time of year again, with all its mental health challenges? Have you already started planning how you will handle possible mood swings, holiday anxiety, or seasonal affective depression? For many, if not most people, the holidays can be bittersweet. My own parents died many years ago, but it’s at …
Here comes the end of Daylight Savings again, the signal of darker mornings and longer nights to come. Even in “sunny California” the winter months are darker and people can struggle. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real phenomenon, and it shouldn’t be brushed off. Increased hours of darkness can lead to episodes of depression, sleeplessness, and even thoughts of suicide. …
Bipolar disorder is a chronic disease that can present lifelong challenges. However, remission rates and even complete recovery can and have been seen. Finding the factors associated with recovery from bipolar disorder can give us all hope, and also provide health care workers with specific strategies to enhance the possibilities of recovery. A recent Canadian study using data from the …
Fish oil supplementation for major depression continues to garner positive reviews from scientists and clinicians. A recent review of the past few years of data shows significant positive effects without negative side effects for a variety of patients with differing diagnoses. Some recent findings: Systemic inflammation is increasingly recognized as an associated factor in many mental illnesses. MoodSurfing has investigated …
A newly released documentary Faye, about the actress Faye Dunaway has been screened at the recent Cannes Film Festival. According to a review published on the website Deadline, the film “gets to it right away” with questions early on about why she was such a “difficult” person to work with on a movie set. Dunaway herself believes that her bipolar …
Exercise is widely recommended as a first-line treatment for depression of all types. Many people have personal experience of feeling better and healthier when they integrate an exercise routine into their lives, and there are many studies showing measurable effects of exercise on clinical depression. However, most of these studies are small, and there are few solid conclusions that can …
Divorce is almost always a wrenching and emotionally challenging life experience. When one of the spouses has a disability, such as a diagnosis of major depression or bipolar, the questions to be addressed can be complex and difficult to settle. We are not attorneys and this post should not be understood as legal advice, but we do want to suggest …
We use the image of “surfing” your moods to describe the experience of bipolar’s ups and downs, but we don’t mean this to imply that the mood waves of bipolar are chaotic and completely unpredictable. On the contrary, people who keep a careful log of their moods over time find clear patterns to their ups and downs. However, these patterns …
Doing nothing? Daydreaming? Your brain is still working away Neuroscientists have discovered that brain activity occurs in “networks”: a coherent interaction of different brain regions. The networks are activated harmoniously or cooperatively, depending on what you are doing. One network, connecting several different brain regions, becomes activated when we are at rest, doing “nothing” or just daydreaming. This has been …
Invest your energy for greater returns and more energy Depression can feel like a deep hole that you just can’t get a foothold to climb out of. But some people have found that even from deep inside the hole, there is a way to get at least a toehold, which can lead to another fingerhold, and so on, until you …
Patients in recovery from major depressive episodes may need help learning to process positive information and stimuli. Researchers found that people with a history of major depressive disorder spend more time processing negative information than healthy controls, and they may have less control over which information they process. This negative bias suggests that people recovering from depression may need to …
Suicide continues to be a leading cause of death for Americans, especially younger people, where homicide and accidents lag far behind suicide in fatality rates. Budgets for suicide research and suicide prevention are woefully small, and stigma is still a barrier to seeking help, both for suicidal people and for their family members and supporters. However, amidst all the bad …
