American fashion designer Kenneth Cole recently posted a billboard prominently displayed over Manhattan’s West Side Highway that reads: “Over 40M Americans suffer from mental illness. Some can access care … All can access guns” with hashtags #gunreform and #areyouputtinguson. Once again, an uninformed celebrity type has used his influence to further stigmatize those with mental...
Even with its gorgeous foliage and festivities, autumn triggers anxiety and depression for many people. The shorter days and lack of sunlight affect our circadian rhythms; we feel the stress of upcoming holidays; and the claustrophobia of winter is lurking around the corner. I’m not a dietitian, but I’ve learned a lot from experts about food and mood, and I’ve...
“You translate everything, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, into muscular tension,” said Australian actor F.M. Alexander. Our nervous system can record our reaction to certain life events, and our muscles can continue to tell that story over and over, and over again. We respond to life events with physical tension. With repetition, reaction to stress,...
“How much should you push yourself with depression?” a woman asked me the other day. “How do you know what your limits should be?” She wanted to know whether or not she should scale back to part-time work or continue to slog through her full-time job. I hear this question a lot in the depression...
I haven’t read many paragraphs that articulate depression as accurately as this one, in Martha Rhodes’s riveting memoir, 3000 Pulses Later: At that moment, my pain felt equal to—if not even more than—what I imagined any physical illness could pose. The constant anxiety, sadness, fear, and despair strangled me. I felt inexorably alone and as...