My attention was captured when I read an article that suggested that there was a common human experience that many people in our busy worlds find so disturbing that they voluntarily give themselves electric shocks in order to distract themselves from feeling it. No Time to Think. Nowadays, people can keep negative thoughts at bay with a frenzy of activity. …
Skill Building for Psychosis
One of the very hard things about many psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is that they often begin at a time that is critical to the development of many skills and abilities needed for successful adult life. Many years ago we visited a wonderful program in Atlanta developed for young people with schizophrenia called STARS. The program was …
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 …
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 …
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 …
ADHD Increases Traffic Accidents
Psychiatry News Alert, a service of the American Psychiatric Association that is the source of a number of these posts, reports that a large study finds that people with adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have an increased risk of serious traffic accidents—those leading to injury or death. The study was recently published in JAMA Psychiatry, and was led by Zheng Chang, Ph.D., …
The Evils of the Snooze Button – Why Sleeping In Makes You Feel Tired
Winter is the time of year that the snooze button on your alarm clock can wreck havoc with your mood. Just as waking up early and getting light and exercise is the fastest way to improve depression, trying to sleep in, or lying in bed thinking about why you don’t want to get up, is the best way to make …
Mood and Menopause
What is the relationship between the hormone changes that take place around the time of menopause and depression. It seems as though there are many women who report that their depression gets worse in the peri-menopausal period, but is this a pattern? And if so what does that mean in terms of the interaction between mood and hormones? A recent …
Shame and Self-Disclosure
There is a lively discussion in our forum about self-disclosure. A couple of forum members are pushing the boundaries by talking honestly about their bipolar when the topic comes up in conversation. So far their experiences are largely positive. The interchange on the forum reminded me of a book I bought for my son when he was being teased. The …
Using a Therapy Light
Christmas vacation is ending, It has been wonderful to spend some relaxing time with family, getting up later in the day, lounging around and playing games, reading, or watching TV… and eating too much good food. Now the challenge is getting back to a more productive schedule. For many of us, our bodies are in a “hibernating” mode that makes …
Long Term Antipsychotics – Adverse Effects on Brain?
This post is a bit off topic. I have tried to not focus on medication issues in this blog on the grounds that there are many, many websites that talk about medications and very little else. However one of the blog’s most loyal readers sent in an email about long term antipsychotic medications and potential adverse effects on brain function …
Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) May Prevent Alzheimer’s
Higher blood levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) appear to protect against Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other types of dementia, that is the result of a study is published in JAMA Neurology this past month by Sudha Seshadri, M.D., a professor of neurology at Boston University and his colleagues. BDNF is “growth hormone” for the brain. It enhances the creation of connections between …
Do Maternal Antidepressants (SRI’s) Cause Autism in Their Children?
Maternal Antidepressants. Two studies have suggested a link between prenatal exposure to antidepressant medication and autism spectrum disorders. We are pleased to learn: that does not appear to be the case! Not surprisingly, the studies mentioned above received a lot of attention and created a lot of concern for women taking antidepressant medications, and their partners, who planned to have …
The Irony of Suicide: Book and Other Resources
One of our favorite readers sent us a link to an article entitled “The Irony of Suicide” that recently appeared in the New York Times. We liked the article and thought it might we worth reposting it here. Especially since, irony of ironies, this holiday season is for many people a time when thoughts of suicide can become very difficult …
PTSD Psychotherapy Affects Gene Activity
Mind-body dualism seems alive and well in the land of mental health. I am still surprised how often someone will say, “well that’s not a biological depression.” Meaning that it is the kind of depression that can be understood as a result of events in that person’s life, or that it can be treated effectively with therapy, or that …
Changing Hormone Levels and Mood
I was on the phone yesterday having an urgent consultation with a woman we have worked for 15 years. She has had a pretty straight forward history of depression and anxiety that we’ve treated primarily with antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy. She’s had a good response to this treatment approach. The two things about her depression that are a little …
Depression in Pregnancy Affects the Child
A new study reported in the latest issue of JAMA Psychiatry, suggests that a child “born to a woman who suffers depression during pregnancy stands a higher likelihood of becoming a depressed adolescent ….” The report used information from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which has collected data from nearly 9,000 women and more than 4,500 adolescent children in …
Oxytocin and Maternal Depression
There is lots of interest these days in how maternal depression affects kids, and also in how to prevent those effects. Recent research has suggested that the hormone oxytocin may play an important role in what happens. A nice review of this literature appeared in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. The authors note that the …
Depression and Inflammation
Recently there has been increasing interest in the relationship between depression and chronic overactivity of the body’s biological defense system – inflammation. When we have an infection, or an injury, or almost any other kind of illness, the body activates a series of processes designed to respond to the threat. Unfortunately, the inflammation system, especially if it is turned on …
Hormones and Food
In an earlier post we talked about some of the research on appetite. We reviewed some of the peptide hormones that regulate appetite and how the entire system that controls appetite is really designed to cope better with a time of scarcity than a time of plenty. Here I want to talk more specifically about the interplay between other hormone …