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...

Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” A year ago this week I tested that theory. I’ve always been depressed. I must have emerged from my mother’s womb with an overactive amygdala and a deficient prefrontal cortex–creative brain wiring that generates panic and sadness. I was almost...

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...

Six years ago a fellow blogger, Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. of PsychCentral.com (“Mindfulness and Psychotherapy”) introduced me to the concept of mindfulness. A clinical psychologist and bestselling author, he familiarized me with the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program I participated in (at our local hospital, with a certified instructor). Elisha opened...