Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Self Help”
As I write this article about pets and mental health, I sit next to my 4 year old dog, Rufus. I am regularly reminded in my daily life of the valuable role pets can play in our lives. Pets can play a huge role in providing support and have been shown to have both physical and psychological benefits in the …
A young man in the tech industry who worked with me for nearly a decade got me started thinking about the key to successful job hunting. The tech industry is notorious for its high turnover and this young man enjoyed working in startups, where the turnover is even greater. As a result, he found himself looking for work every year …
The UCSF bipolar psychoeducational group starts on August 7, 2017. It runs for 8 weekly sessions, Mondays 12pm to 130pm. Most commercial insurance accepted. I often describe this group as “an advanced class about bipolar disorder for people who have bipolar disorder.” I have attached a flyer and a draft schedule. Please feel free to give/show either to your patients. There is also …
Ride the Tiger is a wonderful PBS documentary that covers a lot of important information about bipolar in an entertaining and informative one hour program. One of my patients strongly recommended it. Treatment Stories about treatment, the good, the bad and the ugly. Self Care The importance of self care. A brief introduction to some useful ideas. The Genetics of …
Why would you want to examine your fears? Remember that part in the scary movie when the hero suggests going down into the basement to take a look around and you cringe in your seat and mentally say “don’t do it”? Tim Ferriss, who has bipolar himself, says that engaging with and examining your fears is how to stay mentally …
I was inspired to write this post on exercise solutions by a wonderful article in BP Hope that not only talks about reasons for making sure that you are exercising but also tries to overcome some of the barriers to making this change. You already know why Exercise is critical for brain health Exercise and physical activity is the most …
In my previous post I outlined the idea of “stages of change,” here I want to focus on some of the tools for change. In the picture below you will they the stages of change lined up with appropriate tools for change. Some of the tools are appropriate in more than one stage and, in general, the activities that support …
Getting Ready for Change The process of getting ready for change has been the focus of the research of James Prochaska for the last 40 years. James O. Prochaska and Carlo Di Clemente, developed the Transtheoretical Model for change (TTM), which is the most widely accepted framework for understanding change in the mental health and substance use treatment communities. They found …
Nature and Wellbeing Many patients I work with speak of the value that nature plays in their lives and I can say that I also strongly relate to the value it plays in my own. Through personal experience and repeated accounts from others, I have seen how nature can improve moods, increase feelings of connectedness, and impact thought patterns. More …
What is radical acceptance? Radical acceptance is an approach named by Marsha Linehan, PhD who created Dialectical Behavior Therapy that is about completely and totally accepting something, stopping the fight against reality, and ultimately, suffering less. Things will regularly happen in our lives that are outside of our control, such as having a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or experiencing a …
There are a few people in my experience who are as impressive in maturity and integrity as those people we have worked with who have been the most involved in 12 Step Programs. I didn’t come to this observation from any pre-conceived bias in favor of 12 Step Program. If anything, my involvement with 12 Step early on was pretty negative. It …
Addressing Shame and Guilt After a Manic Episode I have witnessed the immense pain caused by the shame and guilt experienced by people with bipolar disorder following a manic episode. After a manic episode, most have engaged in behaviors that they regret. The resulting shame and guilt can contribute greatly to symptoms of depression that follow an episode. Understanding techniques …
“How can I get my creativity back?” One of my patients, who has been wrestling with depression for quite a while, asked me if I could think of anything that might help give her creativity a boost. My quick, off the cuff, reply was “go running again” (she was an avid runner before she got depressed), in part because of …
Mood trends are useful to track in order to prevent a full blown episode of depression, hypomania or mania. I think of them as equivalent to the idea of a falling or rising barometer. Before satellites and modern weather forecasting, whether the barometer was rising or falling was the best predictor of the weather. If the barometer was rising it …
Many of the people I see complain of poor quality sleep, and a number of them have tired using various sleep apps and wearable devices to try to get figure out why they are sleeping poorly and what they can do about it. One of my techie colleagues says she thinks that this is a good thing and praises one app, …
Early intervention can prevent episodes of depression or hypomania or mania. This is not always the case but most of the people that we work with find that it is helpful to go through a process of systematically identifying possible early warning signs of an episode and working with a friend or partner to come up with a plan for …
I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to pace yourself so that you can capture some of the energy and creativity associated with being mildly energized while not getting so involved that you burn out or edge into full-fledged mania. There’s nothing quite so exciting as entering a time of increased energy and ideas after a long …
Believing you can create change in your life is the foundation for successfully making the change. Self efficacy is the sense that you can make change and thus hope and self-efficacy are intimately connected. Often people with bipolar or depression are overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness. They feel stuck and unable to manage their moods. And yet a great deal of research shows …
Many of the people I see feel that it’s very hard to get support for their depression. They may find it hard to talk about the subject altogether or they may have had some experiences that suggests that “people just don’t want to know.” This morning I saw several people with depression and bipolar and what struck me was that …
We had a wonderful conversation (see the conversations tab on this site) with two smart young UC Berkeley graduate students in psychology (Janelle Capnegro and Erica Lee) who have developed an intervention designed to help people with bipolar regulate and develop positive emotions. It started us thinking about emotions in terms not only of how positive or negative the emotions …
