T.S. Eliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” I remembered those words yesterday, as I strolled around the Holistic Health Fair in Annapolis. Presented by the Maryland University of Integrative Health, it […]
“Holding on to anger,” said the Buddha, “is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” I don’t know about you, but I feel the venom coursing through my veins when I’m ticked off, tightening all my muscles, activating the sympathetic nervous system to prepare for the gorilla that is not about to […]
I’ve heard a thousand variations of this problem: “My brother is depressed, but he also drinks a lot, which is probably causing the depression. So what do you treat first? The alcoholism or the depression?” The two conditions are so intertwined that it can be impossible to separate them. Just last week I met with […]
I have a theory: Many people who suffer from chronic severe depression and anxiety are allergic to sugar and foods like white flour that the human body processes like sugar. Like most of my theories, I have tested this one on my 13-year-old son, because his brain is most like mine in our family (poor […]
Last year, I was seeing four different doctors: a psychiatrist for my mood disorder; an endocrinologist for my pituitary tumor and thyroid issues; a cardiologist for my aortic valve regurgitation; and a primary care physician for some digestive problems and fungus growth. I suspected that all of my health problems were connected but most of […]
A year ago this month my husband and I started a new diet. It had nothing to do with a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. For about nine months, he had been suffering from bad hives all over his body. It was bizarre. One day he’d wake up and they’d be all over his […]
Do these questions sound familiar? Are you tired or fatigued? Do you have trouble falling asleep? Do you have little interest in doing things you once enjoyed? Do you feel sad, depressed, or hopeless? They are typical questions asked by a doctor (psychiatrist, general practitioner, gynecologist) or provided in a questionnaire to screen for depression. […]
In her young twenties, writer and activist Eileen Flanagan spent two years teaching English in the country of Botswana, neighboring South Africa and Zimbabwe. She ate, lived, and slept in a 180 square-foot mud hut and was quite content. Then life got a tad more complicated … she married, had kids, and eventually found herself […]
“Holding on to anger,” said the Buddha, “is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” I don’t know about you, but I feel the venom coursing through my veins when I’m ticked off, tightening all my muscles, activating the sympathetic nervous system to prepare for the gorilla that is not about to […]
I have a theory: Many people who suffer from chronic severe depression and anxiety are allergic to sugar and foods like white flour that the human body processes like sugar. Like most of my theories, I have tested this one on my 13-year-old son, because his brain is most like mine in our family (poor […]
I’m not sure why more psychiatrists don’t first test for nutritional deficiencies before dispensing Zoloft or Prozac, and especially antipsychotics like Seroquel and Zyprexa. The good ones will send you to get lab work done before upping your meds or adjusting anything. Sometimes we do need antidepressants. But other times we need spinach—think of Popeye. […]
I hereby confess that it takes me a half hour each week to fill up my mammoth-sized pill container with the supplements and vitamins I take each week to give my brain every lift I can. It’s expensive, it’s time-consuming, it’s a pain in my arse, but I would rather spend my time organizing fish […]
From the moment my eyes open in the morning until the second that I pull my sleep mask over my face as I go to sleep, I am engaged in battle: I must protect myself with armor against ongoing negative intrusive thoughts that flood into my brain, while sending my prefrontal cortex–the home of logical […]
You’ve probably heard your share of stories like the following told by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN, on the site “Women to Women”: A patient came in to see me describing constant heavy bleeding menorrhagia. We tried dietary changes, supplements and other purely physical approaches, with only minimal improvement. I began to probe for the emotional basis […]
Scientist and meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn includes in his pages of “Full Catastrophe Living” a horrifying story that speaks powerfully about the mind and body connection. When renowned cardiologist Bernard Lown was in training to become a physician, he had in his clinic a patient, “Mrs. S.,” who had a narrowing of one of the valves […]
Renown psychiatrist Peter Kramer once said that the opposite of depression isn’t happiness. It’s resilience, the ability to bounce back from tragedy, to regain a healthy sense of perspective after traumatic or stressful experiences. In my recovery from depression and anxiety, it is calm— more than excitement or joy or contentment–that I seek. I want […]
A good friend of mine describes her depression as an elevator that takes her down to an unfurnished basement with toxic mold, the stench of cat urine, and no windows. When she is there, she has difficulty believing that there are any floors above her. What she sees and smells, she surmises, is the sum […]
Twelve us of us sit in a circle at the third session of the mindfulness-based stress reduction course (MBSR) offered at the hospital, the program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn 35 years ago at his Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to help persons with difficult and chronic illnesses better manage their […]
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass … it’s about learning to dance in the rain,” wrote Vivian Greene. Dancing in the rain is the modus operandi of folks living with chronic pain. They spend a lifetime figuring out how to dance gracefully–with little effort visible to the observer—and to resist the urge […]
Psychologists have touted for decades that exercise can go a long way in treating depression. Dr. James A. Blumenthal, a professor of medical psychology at Duke University, led a recent study in which he and his team discovered that, among the 202 depressed people randomly assigned to various treatments, three sessions of vigorous aerobic exercise […]
