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 dubbed the “default mode network.” Another, called the “salience network,” detects when something in the environment requires our attention. Then it comes “online,” which causes the default network to back off temporarily. Later, when nothing important is going on, the salience network steps back, and the brain goes back into default mode. Scientists have begun to identify other networks in ...
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Another interesting entry in the Sleep App market! Sleepwave promises a completely different approach to insomnia: focusing on the wakeup time instead of bedtime. This aligns with what we have said about changing when you sleep – focus on setting an appropriate wakeup time rather than trying to go to sleep earlier. According to the company, a regular alarm, whether a clock or cell phone, goes off at a set time, which may not be the best time for your body. Throughout the night, we move naturally from deeper to lighter sleep. You may have had the experience of waking from a deep sleep because of an insistent alarm. When that happens, it can affect how you feel for many ...
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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 begin to see the light of day again. What’s the secret? Reinvestment. If you own shares in a mutual fund, you’re encouraged to reinvest (buy more shares) each time you get an interest or dividend payment. Even though those payments may be small, each reinvestment makes your share capital that much bigger, and your financial goals that much closer. Using ...
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Here, we share material from the World Bipolar Day website. We encourage everyone to visit the website and get involved in education, research and advocacy for the 60 million people worldwide who are affected by bipolar disorder. WORLD BIPOLAR DAY 2024 The vision of World Bipolar Day (WBD) is to bring world awareness to bipolar disorders and to eliminate social stigma and discrimination. Through international collaboration, the goal of WBD is to bring diverse populations around the world information about bipolar disorders that will educate and improve sensitivity towards the illness, including access to the latest research and the best treatments. Since inception, WBD has officially been recognized on March 30th, the birthday of famous Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, ...
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It’s that time of the year again, when we have to figure out what to do with the clocks – and indeed, how many time-keeping devices we have around the house nowadays. Some of them change themselves and others don’t. Then on top of that, there’s all the people arguing about whether changing the clocks twice a year is a good thing or a bad thing. Everybody has an opinion and it turns out that there is not much hard data to back up any of those opinions. What we do know is that here at Gateway Psychiatric we see an uptick in complaints of sleeping problems whenever there’s a time change. Over the years, we’ve gathered a few tips ...
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Apps for mental health of all kinds are a rapidly growing phenomenon, you can hardly look at an online store without getting a list of all the new apps for meditation, online therapy, diet helps, insomnia, mood charting and many others. Now, researchers are taking a deeper look into the data that these apps collect on users, and how well or poorly the data is protected. There is a spectrum of providers running the gamut from rigorous protection of users’ privacy to those who exploit loopholes and gray areas in existing regulation to harvest and monetize the data of even the most vulnerable of users. Last year, in a landmark ruling, the Federal Trade Commission banned online counseling service Better ...
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Welcome to MoodSurfing.com, the site that highlights strategies for living creatively with moods and coping with depression. This site is for people with bipolar, depression, cyclothymia, and others who experience powerful moods and want to figure out how to integrate these experiences into successful lives.
Although most of us are mental health clinicians of one kind or another, this site is not about providing people with medical or clinical advice (see below). We hope that we can help you cope with depression, maybe even allow you to live well with moods.
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We have done a series of interviews with people who have interesting things to say about different aspects of living creatively with moods. You can find those under the heading “Conversations.”
DISCLAIMER
This site is not designed to and does not provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, treatment or services to you or to any other individual. Through this site and linkages to other sites, Moodsurfing provides general information for educational purposes only. The information provided in this site, or through linkages to other sites, is not a substitute for medical or professional care, and you should not use the information in place of a visit, call consultation or the advice of your physician or other healthcare provider. Moodsurfing is not liable or responsible for any advice, course of treatment, diagnosis or any other information, services or product you obtain through this site.
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