Sleeping can become a major preoccupation at times of stress, or when one is depressed, or when the seasons change, as they are doing now. We tend to think about sleep as being something that is good for you. The more sleep and the better the quality of that sleep the better off you are. Elsewhere in this blog I’ve …
Fatigue and Depression or Bipolar
Fatigue is a common symptom in people with recurrent depression or bipolar. And in fact a common symptom in the general population. It is estimated that up to 10% of otherwise healthy people suffer from fatigue. And it is a more common symptom in women than in men. Sometimes fatigue may persist well beyond other symptoms of depression. First, it …
Natural Supplements and Insomnia
There are two herbs or supplements that have the best data supporting their effectiveness. Both appear to be safe but have modest effectiveness. Melatonin Valerian (Alone or Combined with Hops or Melissa) Melatonin: Rapid Effect on Sleep The body uses melatonin as part of the way it regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Levels of melatonin increase as light decreases (at …
Spring into Summer: Light and Sleep Changes
Many people have been noticing the very long days of late Spring and early Summer. There is more energy to get things done, although that energy can end up being challenged into anxiety and irritability if you aren’t careful and don’t get at least a few hours of sleep every night… I often think about my trips to Alaska a …
Sleep and the Lunar Cycle
One of our readers wondered if bipolar people are more sensitive to lunar cycles. I could not find any evidence for that, but I did run across a recent research report suggesting that everyone (bipolar or not) may have a sleep cycle that corresponds to the phase of the moon. Researchers at the University of Basel studied 33 people and …
How Light Affects the Brain
Two recent articles that I reviewed highlight the accumulating evidence that something as simple as sunlight has profound impacts on brain biology. When I suggest to people that they pay attention to daily light exposure and, particularly, to getting bright light for 45 minutes every morning, I am often looked at with skepticism. “Sure doc,” I hear the other person …
Smart Phones May Disrupt Sleep
There is no “off” switch for our brains. Going to sleep, for most people, involves a process of “coming down” from our hectic and sometimes stressful lives. In the past, when there was no electricity, the sun went down and we went through a natural process of getting tired and then falling asleep. But now we can keep the lights …
Sleep Deep Cleans Your Brain
Beep, beep, beep, beep! Snooze……Beep, beep, beep, beep! You open your eyes, roll out of bed and start wondering why you stayed up so late to watch another episode of your favorite TV series, play another video or computer game, or catch up with your friends, etc. We have busy and full lives, which results in less and more disrupted …
Sleep Therapy and Depression
What would you do if you could double the effectiveness of your antidepressants? Let’s say that this new treatment also had no known side effects, and was completely safe. That is what four studies have suggested could happen if people who were started on antidepressants received cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi). However, this treatment is not widely available. We …
Late Night TV Blues
Studies have tended to find that watching more TV is correlated with higher levels of depression, but is that just because TV is so boring? A recent review published in the New England Journal’s Journal Watch for Psychiatry suggests that the link might in part involve the fact that watching TV at night exposes you to blue and white light, …
“Normal” Sleep
One of the justifiable criticisms of psychiatry is that it has a tendency to define a relatively narrow range of behavior as normal. We often tell the psychiatry residents to watch out for this tendency, and try to avoid it. Certainly sleep medicine is at least as prone to this tendency as psychiatry, as we are reminded by a fascinating …
Mood and the Brain’s Clock
As we slowly move from summer to fall, it may be timely that the issue of Biological Psychiatry that arrived in the mail today is devoted to how the brain’s clock affects mood. It points to growing evidence that part of what drives mood cycles are disruptions in the brain’s daily (circadian) rhythms. It appears that people who are vulnerable …
Treatment for Insomnia when Bipolar
Many people with bipolar disorder also experience symptoms of insomnia and sleep disturbance. Researchers have been investigating treatments for this condition that do not involve medications. After numerous clinical trials, there has been significant success with CBT-I treatment. CBT-I is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and it involves sleep restriction and stimulus control. The purpose of the first treatment is …
Yoga Nidra as a Strategy to Cope with Insomnia
Many adults struggle with insomnia several nights a week. To maximize good health, it is important to get at least 7-9 hours of sleep a night. More sleep can help decrease the risk of getting heart disease, stroke, or breast cancer. Insomnia can be extremely frustrating to deal with, for it can be exhausting to try all the recommended sleep …
SHUTi: Work towards a better night’s sleep
Having trouble sleeping? We think the website SHUTi may be helpful to you. Sleep is a crucial component for the happiness and well being of an individual. An appropriate amount of sleep can lower anxiety levels, help prevent overeating, and improve memory. On the moodsurfing website, we recommend SHUTi as a resource to individuals struggling with insomnia. SHUTi provides an …
Sleep Deprivation and Increased Hunger
Often, after a late night with little sleep, we wake up the next day and are starving! This phenomenon is no coincidence. A study was conducted with healthy non-obese adults to see the effects of sleep deprivation on appetite levels. The results revealed that students that had four-and-a-half hours of sleep compared to students who had eight-and-a-half hours of sleep …
Sleep Strategies
One of the most frequent causes of insomnia is anxiety. Insomnia of this kind is caused by increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system at night. The body releases norepinephrine (the flight or fight hormone) at night when that system should be inactive. You wake up and you feel “wide awake.” A current patient of Dr. Forster’s is having difficulty sleeping …
The Value of Mood Charting
When it comes to understanding the factors that cause us to feel a certain way, mood charting can be extremely useful. Recently, Dr. Forster met with a patient named David that claimed he was “doing better than he should.” He felt that his overall mood was pretty good, but he was also experiencing difficulty with his memory and concentration. David …
Keeping a Healthy Brain
Aging is an inevitable part of life. We cannot control the fact that we age or prevent the process of getting older. However, we can control our attitude about aging. Many people view aging as the gradual decrease of cognitive abilities, but Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a Professor in the department of psychiatry at UCLA, provides a more optimistic view of …
Nature’s Cycles
It should be raining. It is March in the San Francisco Bay area, and we have had hardly any rain for the past three months. It’s a funny thing, but even though I have been taking advantage of the good weather to go out bicycle riding and hiking, there’s a part of me that doesn’t feel quite right about this …