The days are short and so is your ability to tackle the problems du jour. Everything, including the snow and the ice, seem heavy and drab, and the color of your mood ring turns a scary blackish blue. Although the number of suicides peaks in the spring, the winter months—especially for those huddled under a...

Knowing when to commit yourself or a loved one to the hospital to be treated for severe depression can be a very gray matter. I wish there was a set of directions much like those when you are in labor: if contractions come within five minutes of each other and last a minute long, pack...

According to Dr. Cliff Arnalls, a British psychologist with Cardiff University, a number of factors coincide to make January 24th the most depressing day of the year: It’s dark. Not as dark as December 21st, the shortest day of the year, but dark enough to make our heads and bodies crave sunlight. Christmas bills come...

The Paradoxical Commandments were written by Kent Keith in 1968 as part of a booklet for student leaders. Since then they have made their way to lot of refrigerator doors, speeches, and articles. Mother Teresa hung them on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta. Here are a few: People are unreasonable, illogical, and...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive procedure that stimulates nerve cells in the brain with short magnetic pulses. A large electromagnetic coil is placed against the scalp which generates focused pulses that pass through the skull and stimulate the cerebral cortex of the brain, a region that regulates mood. The procedure was approved by...