âMeditation Plus Running as a Treatment for Depressionâ
âMeditating before running could change the brain in ways that are more beneficial for mental health than practicing either of those activities alone,â Gretchen...
Difficult Decisions About Antidepressants
In this piece for Research with Plymouth University, Richard Byng discusses the difficulty that both doctors and patients experience in discerning the effectiveness of antidepressants in...
How do we Know if a Drug Actually Works?
From Scientific American: The effectiveness of a particular medical treatment is often highly subjective and dependent on each individual's definition of the term "effective." Many...
Stand Firm: Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze
From ABC: The self-help and self-improvement industry are more popular and widely accepted than ever. However, the moral imperative to constantly think positive and always...
Yoga and Meditation Can Change Your Genes, Study Says
From TIME: A new scientific review suggests that yoga, meditation, and other mindfulness activities can reverse stress-related changes in genes linked to health problems and...
Is Mindfulness Meditation Good for Kids?
From Vox: Mindfulness-based interventions are increasingly being introduced in schools and touted as helpful methods of reducing students' anxiety and attention problems. However, the research...
Dr. Andrew Weil Says We’re Taking Too Many Medicines
From The New York Times: According to Dr. Andrew Weil, who is best known for popularizing the concept of integrative medicine, the problem of overmedication...
What Meditation can do for us, and What it Can’t
In recent years, American scholars and thinkers have increasingly argued for the secularization and modernization of Buddhism, proposing meditation as a fully secular form...
Psychiatrist Who Revolutionized Family Therapy Dies at 96
From The Washington Post: Salvador Minuchin, the psychiatrist who played an instrumental role in pioneering family therapy, died on October 30th at age 96. Minuchin was...
âDoctors Say Exercise Can Relieve Depression Symptomsâ
âDoctors say one of the best anti-depressants isn't even a drug, it's exercise,â CNN reports. âExperts say many cases of depression can be treated effectively with, for example, a pair of running shoes.â
Webinar Discussion – Rethinking Madness
A free recording of last week's webinar anchored to Phil Borges' Crazywise, a documentary exploring alternative approaches to mental health, is now available. Over 4,000 people...
Sleep Deprivation is an Effective Anti-Depressant
From Science Blog: According to a new meta-analysis, sleep deprivation reduces symptoms in nearly half of depression patients. Partial sleep deprivation (sleep for three to...
âDoes Animal-Assisted Therapy Help Adolescents With Psychiatric Problems?â
The Pacific Standard covers a study out of Florence, finding that adolescents in mental health crisis who received animal-assisted therapy had better school attendance, higher global functioning, and spent less time in the hospital.
The Social Life of Opioids
From Scientific American: Increasing prescription rates of opioid painkillers are often blamed for America's current opioid crisis. However, a growing body of research suggests that...
Temperamentally Blessed
From Aeon: The finding that only one in five people avoid any kind of mental health problems or psychiatric diagnoses through their lives has prompted...
How to Cope With Social Anxiety Over Thanksgiving
In this piece for Medical News Today, Jasmin Collier describes five non drug-related ways to cope with social anxiety over the Thanksgiving holiday: preparing in...
Suffering From Nature Deficit Disorder? Try Forest Bathing
From NPR: People who live in urban areas may experience a poorer quality of life due to spending insufficient time outdoors. In a new book, Forest...
âMindfulness at Risk of Being ‘Turned into a Free Market Commodity’â
The Guardian reports growing concerns from the Buddhist Society conference: âJon Kabat-Zinn, who created the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts medical school, warned last week that some people feared a âsort of superficial âMcMindfulnessâ is taking over, which ignores the ethical foundations of the meditative practices and traditions from which mindfulness has emerged, and divorces it from its profoundly transformative potential.ââ
Eating Oily Fish While Pregnant Could Prevent Schizophrenia
From The Conversation: According to a recent study from Japan, pregnant mice that are deprived of an essential fatty acid, called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are...
Eating Vegetables, Fruit & Whole Grains May Combat Depression
From The Telegraph: A recent study found that participants who avoided red meat, saturated fats and sugar, and stuck to healthy vegetables, fruit and whole grains were...
Lack of Sleep May be a Cause of Mental Health Conditions
From Live Science: A new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry found that participants who completed an online cognitive behavioral therapy program specifically for insomnia experienced...
Tripping for Knowledge: The Psychedelic Epistemologist
In this interview for 3:AM Magazine, Chris Letheby argues that even though psychedelics may induce delusions or imaginary phenomena, their use can also lead to accurate...
Online Communities for Drug Withdrawal: What Can We Learn?
From Psychiatric Times: Patients are increasingly turning to the internet as a source of information and support for antidepressant and benzodiazepine withdrawal due to the psychiatric...
A Standing Meditation for Self-Care
In this piece for On Being, Sharon Salzberg discusses the importance of self-care and describes a meditation technique that can help increase self-love and self-compassion.
Expert Urges Doctors to Stop Prescribing Seroquel for Insomnia
From National Post: Many physicians are prescribing a low dose of Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic, to patients with insomnia. Experts warn that even a low...