A handful or recent studies have implicated damage to the pineal gland and/or a reduction in melatonin
production with certain types of clinical depression and other mental health diagnoses.
I highly recommend the novel Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, both as a reader and as a
neuroscientist.
Capitalism is based on
the presumption that people will work harder, more creatively, or in ways that benefit society more
when they can personally enjoy the rewards of their efforts. But what if the rewards are not rewarding?
It’s comforting to parents to think mental illness is the fault of bad parenting, when reality is mental illnesses are just a matter of chance.
I could see from her eyes that my patient was in pain. You become a doctor because you want to help people, and seeing one of your patients suffering and not being able to do anything about it tugs at your conscience.
An Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), a neurologist, and a psychiatrist walk into a bar.
In this time when once again COVID-19 deaths are rising, the toll from yet another hurricane and wildfires are just being tallied, and the bodies of 13 American servicemen and women were just returned from Afghanistan, I would like to offer these words about grief: grief lies to you.
Words matter. The language that we use to describe people and event color and shape our perceptions of them. With the role of words in shaping perceptions in mind, I propose that there are at least 4 common phrases that deserve to be retired.
In the Marine Corp, David learned an important lesson about being a man that he had not learned from his father. He learned that bottling up his feeling and refusing to express emotions such as frustration, fear, or sadness, did not make a man strong. Carrying extra emotional baggage actually made a person weaker and less able to step up and do what needed to be done in difficult situations.
Just breathe. Most of you have heard this advice when you were out of breath with excitement or anxiety and trying unsuccessfully to tell someone what was happening. There is actually some very sound science behind this advice. When you experience strong feelings of fear, anger, or excitement, you do not just experience it in your head. You feel it in your body.
