Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “mood”
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 …
Sweet Moods? Sugar and mood, a constant dietary struggle. The body learns that reaching for a sweet treat brings energy, alertness and low anxiety. Somehow it doesn’t learn that the crash will inevitably follow. There is now a small literature that supports the common sense observation that simple carbohydrates, like sugar and white flour, have effects that are somewhat akin …
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 …
Self care is an essential aspect of a stable mood. Perhaps that statement seems obvious. You might be surprised, though, by how often people try to ignore that fact. It is common in my practice to be asked, directly or indirectly, to make a person feel good about themselves even though they are not taking care of their most basic …
A well designed study of adolescents suggests that there are contagious moods. This study follows on earlier research suggesting that surrounding yourself with more “contented” or “discontented” people affects how likely you are to feel contented. The new research involved groups of junior-high and high-school students who took part in depression screenings and answered questions about their best friends, many of whom were …
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 …
Psychologist Dan Kalb recently posted a link to a wonderful resource for people who are interested in understanding and exploring emotions. In his post, Dan explains a little bit about the background for this site… The Dalai Lama commissioned psychologist Paul Eckman to create a secular interactive map of human emotions. Eckman, in turn, surveyed some 150 researchers with expertise …
I am a woman diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and I suspect that I am also hormonally vulnerable. I wrote this blog because I wanted to share some of my newly gained understanding of women and hormones, and the influence of hormones on mood. Hormones are produced in the endocrine glands and released into the blood stream. They have many …
Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that your brain cells (neurons) use to transmit information, without them we cannot think or act. It is no wonder that too much or too little of any one particular neurotransmitter can have substantial effects on how our body and brain functions. For example, people with mood disorders tend to have low levels of the four major …
