Archive for mental health
Give yourself a break with meditation
Do you start the day with anxiety and end it by thinking about how the day’s good intentions went awry? You can rework this cycle through meditation. While meditation can’t hold back all the curve balls thrown into your life, it does offer a way to cope and adjust your perspective. We recently discussed how ... Read More
Empowering pediatricians to provide mental health care
By late adolescence, up to 20 percent of children will have experienced impairing levels of anxiety, depression, and/or ADHD, the most common and treatable mental health conditions. But child behavioral health specialists are in chronic short supply with long wait lists. Massachusetts, for example, has nearly 300,000 youths with at least one diagnosable psychiatric disorder ... Read More
Talking with your child about suicide
For three weeks in late spring of 2018, it seemed like suicide dominated the media. On May 18, the second season of the controversial series 13 Reasons Why began airing on Netflix. Eighteen days later, fashion designer Kate Spade died by suicide, followed three days later by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. Such news came on the heels ... Read More
How the antidepressant ketamine rapidly awakens the brain, and why its effects vary more in women
In small doses, the anesthetic ketamine is a mildly hallucinogenic party drug known as “Special K.” In even smaller doses, ketamine relieves depression — abruptly and sometimes dramatically, steering some people away from suicidal thoughts. Studies indicate that ketamine works in 60 to 70 percent of people not helped by slower-acting SSRIs, the usual drugs ... Read More