“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...

I used to call the night we turn back the clocks for Daylight Savings Time my “Armegeddon” because it felt as though the darkness of winter descended on that very day—the depressing feeling when you pick up your kids from sports practice in the afternoon or leave your office and it’s already dark. I realize...

When I was six months pregnant, I attended a birthing preparation class with my husband and about twelve other expectant parents. During the fifth session, the instructor asked the mothers whether or not they were going to use medication to get through the pain of childbirth labor. “Everyone who wants to try for a natural...