Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Self Help”
Time to build in more joy Anxiety, stress, loneliness, grief, and a welter of other emotions are becoming familiar to many of us during this pandemic. Lockdowns and quarantines, being unable to visit or hug loved ones, worrying about employment, children’s schooling, and how to pay the bills – it’s no wonder it’s getting us down! The idea of increasing …
Dietary interventions for bipolar and major depression A modified diet including high omega-3 and low omega-6 fatty acids has shown “exciting” findings in a small study looking at adjunct treatments to control mood swings in bipolar patients. Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine randomized 41 patients, some to receive a high omega-3, low omega-6 diet, and some to receive …
How to develop resilience to face difficult times Resilience is a process that people can learn and activate to help recover from personal or community disaster, trauma or loss. While it has sometimes been described as a trait that some people have and others don’t, it is better understood as a skill, or series of skills, that we can all …
Since getting in to see a doctor these days can be very difficult (for example, we are not going to be seeing patients in person until 2021), now seems like a good time to get a home monitoring kit. For around 200$ you can purchase a set of devices that will measure your blood pressure, heart rate, weight, temperature and …
MoodSurfing advocates identifying strategies for managing moods without medications, not because we think medications are bad, but because they do have potential adverse effects. We think that some of these strategies are very helpful, but the psychiatric establishment has not always agreed. A recent study1 provides evidence that choosing activities to stabilize mood can have a big impact on mental …
A woman who is an HR manager complained that working from home has made her more physically inactive than ever. This seems to be a common complaint. Because of the risk of social isolation, she encouraged her team to use the chat application to check in with teammates more often. But what began as an effort to make people feel …
Pleasure! We all want it. Not only is it fun, but it enables our bodies to release oxytocin, which helps strengthen the immune system, heal wounds faster, and generally increase health and happiness. Problem is, often when we feel bad, tired, or bored, we can’t even imagine doing something fun. To help with that, Moodsurfing has posted lists before of …
Having a dog, cat or other companion animal in the home can be a boost for mental health, even if it is not a trained service animal. Pets lift our moods, give us a reason to get out of bed, and offer unconditional love and companionship. A growing body of research backs up what most Americans already believe: pets are …
Tips for surviving a quarantine with the family. Quarantines and lockdowns have become a common feature of our lives, and while we may be grateful for not being exposed to dangerous viruses, we are also suffering in a real sense from too much closeness to the people we live with. Weeks of stay-at-home orders may still be ahead of us, …
Moodsurfing readers have been sharing their thoughts and findings about “what works” in navigating these difficult times, and we’ve collected a series of coping strategies that everyone can use while homebound and social distancing. Keep Active. Some people report that they are walking up and down the stairs at home, some have unearthed old exercise equipment that they had lying …
Anxious Times, Anxious Thoughts Anxiety is a common companion for mood disorders, in fact, anxiety is, for many people, the first mood-related symptom they remember from childhood, before other symptoms began to develop. Studies show that as many as 90% of people with bipolar also have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety often takes the form of constantly repeated worry about worst-case …
What is my purpose in life? Having a sense of the purpose of one’s life, or a feeling that there’s a job to do or potential to be fulfilled is known to be an important determinant of both length of life and freedom from illness. A sense of purpose is the belief that one has a direction in life, or …
In this time of heightened fear and anxiety, all of us need to work on strategies for managing fear. The usual way most people try to manage fear is by repression or distraction, but we all know that those “strategies” just let the fears fester and come sneaking back later. How can we manage our fears in a constructive way …
Stop. Breathe. Think. How to deal with stress when you’re stuck at home and the TV keeps sending in more and more scary images? Stop. Breathe. Think. Our brains are hardwired to deal with threats by the primitive fight or flight response. Adrenaline flows, higher thinking goes offline, emotional and bodily responses take over, blood pressure goes up and you …
Moodsurfing is a blog about creative and healthy ways of managing moods and mood shifts. We’ve been talking about lifestyle change for a long time, so we are ready with lots of healthy actions you can take right now, in spite of social isolation, quarantine, or any other challenge the world can throw at us! Distance doesn’t have to mean …
Connections between mental health and the natural world Urbanization is a reality of modern life, and many people feel that their connection to nature – green growing things, animals, trees, the stars, the wind, the ocean and the mountains – has been disrupted, or has simply vanished. Mental illness is another reality of modern life that shows some correlation to …
Are you contemplating a significant lifestyle change this year? Quitting smoking for good, or really getting fit, not just losing a few pounds and gaining them back later? Research shows that making real changes in life is not just a matter of motivation, commitment, or not being “lazy”. Change requires skills and knowledge that can be learned and applied for …
For many years I thought that if I berated myself enough for not making some positive change in my life it would motivate me to make the change. A colleague with an interest in motivating people to make big changes got me thinking about this strategy… He would often ask people “how did that work for you?” and after years …
A recent study on the use of cannabis extracts to treat mental illness got us started thinking again about the whole field of herbal and “natural” medicine. Cannabis is currently experiencing an explosion of interest and some robust research is being done. However the interest is running far ahead of the available data about real uses and effects of various …
Can a change in diet cure psychological illnesses? What dietary changes or interventions may be effective in treatment or management of mental or mood disorders? Diet is more than weight loss, and has been invoked, modified and studied for a wide variety of physical and mental ills and conditions. Yet there is surprisingly little hard data available to tell us …
