Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “anxiety”
What is rumination and how can it be overcome? Rumination, or repetitive negative thinking, can be a symptom, and possibly even a cause of depression. But where does it come from, does it have any upsides, and what can you do about it if you feel stuck in an endless loop of regret, recrimination and overthinking the past? Psychologists distinguish …
Insomnia has often been related to anxiety and worry at bedtime, but recent research has linked daytime worry and rumination to nighttime insomnia. People often realize that their thinking patterns at night are keeping them awake, but may not consider the impact of worrying that they did earlier in the day to their sleep patterns at night. Anxious, repetitive thinking …
Women who are pregnant, especially if it is a first child, are usually extremely protective of the child, so much so that it can sometimes be hard to convince the mother-to-be that taking care of her need for emotional stability is as important as protecting the child from risk. This makes it hard to explain the potential value of continuing …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Anxiety is a reality of our times. Sometimes it comes as a vicious attack with no clear cause, and sometimes it’s raised by the news on TV or the news from neighbors, friends and our own kids, parents, and partners. Whatever brings it on, battling anxiety can be a lonely struggle, often with no end in sight. In an anxiety-ridden …
The human brain is still a mystery in many ways, with much of our brain function difficult or impossible to study under most conditions. What causes worsening moods and why do some people struggle with anxiety and depression while others do not? A recent study at UC San Francisco took advantage of work being done for patients with epilepsy who …
Biofeedback is a stress management technique that uses devices that give you information about your body’s physiologic response to stress. The idea is to provide you with information that would ordinarily be outside of your conscious awareness, such as your body temperature, blood pressure, or heart rate. Generally, there are three stages of biofeedback: Developing increased awareness of the body …
Anxiety and panic attacks are some of the “comorbidities” (concurrently occurring disorders) that folks with bipolar have to contend with. Another concern is the complicated relationship between bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorder. Social anxiety is often found in conjunction with bipolar. Although many people think bipolar is characterized by the extraverted and friendly attitude often experienced during hypomanic episodes, the …
An interesting opinion piece in the New York Times this past week highlights unintended consequences of the ways in which we talk about mental illness and the strategies we use to reduce stigma around it. Dr. Lisa Pryor, a mental health care practitioner in Australia comments that increasing discussion, publicity and stigma reduction around “moderate” mental illnesses like anxiety and …
Moodsurfing has often focused on improving the quality of intimate relationships, in a therapy session today I explored with a young woman the difference between checking up on her partner and building a more intimate and connected relationship. Early in a relationship it is pretty common to have anxiety about the other person. Are they really committed to the relationship, …
Avoidance behavior, or avoidance coping, is a way of trying to stay calm by trying not to pay attention to disturbing thoughts or feelings. Avoidance may work in the short run, but it also tends to take a short term problem and make it a long term one. James Edgar Skye, a bipolar blogger we follow, has a blog post …
Raising healthy children is always challenging, a source of joy but also a source of anxiety. And having depression can add to the challenge. And yet many, many women that we have worked with have had successful pregnancies and raised wonderful, healthy, happy children. One key to success is paying attention to how mood can influence not only ourselves but …
Progressive Muscle Relaxation is the relaxation technique that I have had the most success with, (and I have tried many of them!) – by that we mean a technique to help in the moment with stress and anxiety, as opposed to something like mindfulness meditation or another meditation technique, which works best as a regular practice that over time reduces anxiety. …
It seems appropriate to write about an aspect of recovering from disaster. We have been through an extraordinary period of natural and human caused disasters these past few months. And while every experience is different, one thing that successful recovery requires, is the capacity to reengage with the world as it is, and with a sense of the possibility of …
This is a quote from one of my patients which illustrates how profoundly a regular meditation practice can affect mood and anxiety. The woman who shared this experience with me is a genuine skeptic about all things “new age” and that made her words even more meaningful in my mind… “The most important thing to know is that for the …
Types of Anxiety and Mood One of the most complicated questions we face working with people who have experienced depression or mood swings has to do with the relationship between mood and anxiety. One way of trying to bring a little bit of clarity to this discussion is by considering the different types of anxiety. In this post we will …
How to respond to the fear of catastrophe? Many people are having trouble getting to sleep these days. Fear of catastrophe has reemerged as we contemplate the craziness of nuclear war. This seems like a good time to review what we know about situations where there is the potential for something really bad to happen but the magnitude and nature of that …
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 …
