A new study from the University of Oxford finds that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is just as effective as antidepressants for preventing a relapse of depression. In MBCT, a person learns to pay closer attention to the present moment and to let go of the negative thoughts and ruminations that can trigger depression. They also...
This blog post is painful for me to write because I have been an avid swimmer since the age of 5, when I took the water wings off and made it to the other side of the pool on my own. As I wrote in my post 10 Things I Do to Beat Depression Every...
Do you remember the old Zoloft (Sertraline) ad where the sad egg no longer chases the birdy, and whenever he moves, the thick cloud above follows him? Pfizer did a masterful job of taking a very complex phenomenon and simplifying it down to a concept that two-year-olds can understand. In fact, the visual props made such...
“Were you frightened to have children with your history of suicidal depression?” a young woman asked me the other day. “Did you have to stop medication while you were pregnant?” In the last ten years writing about mental health issues, these two questions keep surfacing, especially among young women who dream of pushing a baby...
We humans have a second brain. Come to think of it, men have three. The second one, called our enteric nervous system, consists of some 100 million neurons that are embedded in the walls of the long tube of our gut, which starts at the esophagus and end at the anus. It measures approximately nine...
