Category: Mental Wellness

St. John’s Wort: A Nonaddictive Wonder ‘Antidepressant’ With Fewer Side Effects

St. John’s wort begins to bloom around St. John’s Day on June 24, St. John the Baptist’s birthday, until August—hence its name. There is a myth that St. John’s wort sprouted at the site of the beheading of John the Baptist. It was believed that the plant’s healing and protective properties were so profound that the devil perforated its…


New Study Reveals Antidepressants Linked to Rise in Superbugs

The term ‘superbug’ conjures images of bacteria with superpowers—able to evade the effects of the antibiotics given to destroy them. The prolific use of antibiotics is thought to be the cause, and bacteria, in a fight for their survival, have adapted—making an increasing number of antibiotics ineffective against a growing number of bacterial infections. A…


Reversing Chronic Trauma With a Nerve-Numbing Injection

For most of his life, Isaiah Heller has oscillated between panic and prescriptions, alcohol, and marijuana to numb difficult emotions and a mind that “moved at 100 miles a second.” The U.S. Army veteran tried to take his own life twice. He couldn’t keep a job, and his driver’s license was once revoked after he…


Brain Regeneration: Why It’s Real and How to Do It

Have you ever wished you could regenerate those brain cells you sacrificed in college? Do you fear that your aging brain is in a perpetual state of decline? Medical science is being rewritten to show that we can repair our brain and it’s something anyone can do. It’s a commonly held misconception that the brain is…


Doctor-Turned-Caregiver Shares About Health Care’s Blindspot

Caring for someone with a serious illness stretches people spiritually and emotionally, often beyond what they might have thought possible. Dr. Arthur Kleinman, a professor of psychiatry and anthropology at Harvard University, calls this “enduring the unendurable” in his recently published book, “The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor.”…


Love Only Lasts With a Growth Mindset

It won’t be a surprise to most of us that up to 50 percent of marriages in the United States fail. In his book “The All or Nothing Marriage,” psychology professor Eli Finkel describes the increasing expectations that strain marriages: “In contrast to our predecessors, who looked to their marriage to help them survive, we look to…


Alternative Treatments For Alzheimer’s Disease

According to the World Health Organization, around 50 million people worldwide suffer from dementia, with Alzheimer’s predominantly being the most common form. About 60 to 70 percent of all reported cases of dementia are diagnosed as Alzheimer’s. Current Alzheimer’s Treatments While there is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, there are various prescription drugs, such…


Depression Caused by Genetics? Most Likely Not

Since the discovery of DNA, the central dogma of genetic translation has lured us in with a simple path from genes to illness. With the completion of the Human Genome Project, however, we were forced to begin to explore the limitations of the mutation model of illness and our assumptions about the biology behind illness…


UK Autism Cases Rose 787 Percent From 1998 to 2018: Study

Autism diagnoses in a large sample from the UK rose by a startling 787 percent from 1998 to 2018, according to a recent paper. Published in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the paper adds to a growing body of research showing increases in the diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) throughout the world, including in the…


The Basic Anxiety of Life

Face it in small doses, just for a minute, just for a moment. Then let yourself run.