Depression & Anxiety

Confidence and Anxiety Are More Connected Than Most People Realize Confidence and anxiety are closely connected because anxiety is affected not only by how dangerous something appears, but also by how capable we believe we are of handling it. Two people can look at the same challenge and have very different emotional reactions. One person may think, “This is going to be difficult, but I can probably figure it out.” The other may think, “There is no way I can handle this.” The

How to Overcome Anxiety Starts With Understanding Avoidance Learning how to overcome anxiety often begins with understanding one of the most powerful traps anxiety creates: avoidance makes you feel better right now while often making anxiety stronger later. This is one of the reasons anxiety can become so confusing. The behavior that appears to help in the moment may be the same behavior teaching the brain that more things need to be feared in the future. Imagine that you bec

Depression and Anxiety Are Different, but They Often Travel Together Depression and anxiety are different experiences, but it is extremely common for the same person to struggle with both. Someone may begin by describing constant worry, panic, tension, or fear and then gradually become discouraged, withdrawn, exhausted, and depressed. Another person may begin with depression, low motivation, poor sleep, and reduced functioning, only to find that ordinary responsibilities beco

What Causes Anxiety Is Easier to Understand Than Most People Think What causes anxiety? Most people describe anxiety as fear, worry, racing thoughts, tension, panic, or the feeling that something bad is about to happen. Those descriptions are accurate, but they describe what anxiety feels like more than they explain why it is happening. To understand anxiety, it helps to start with a very simple idea: the brain is constantly watching for things that could potentially harm us

What Causes Depression Is a More Important Question Than It Sounds What causes depression? That question sounds simple, but it may be one of the most important questions we ask in mental health care because depression describes what a person is experiencing more than it tells us why they are experiencing it. Two people can meet the same criteria for depression and have completely different causes underneath the symptoms. One person may be struggling because their thyroid is n

Why Postpartum Depression Treatment Has to Look at the Whole Person Postpartum depression treatment is often misunderstood because people look for one simple explanation when the postpartum period is rarely simple. A mother may be told that her symptoms are just hormones, just lack of sleep, just stress, just breastfeeding, just anxiety, just the transition into motherhood, or just the normal difficulty of caring for a newborn. Each of those explanations may contain part of t

Why Testosterone Replacement Therapy Belongs in the Mental Health Conversation Testosterone replacement therapy is often discussed in the context of strength, libido, sexual performance, or athletic recovery, but for some men, the most painful symptoms of low testosterone show up first as changes in mood, motivation, mental clarity, weight, confidence, and overall enjoyment of life. This is one reason men’s health care should not separate the body from the mind too quickly. A

She Didn’t Need an Antidepressant. She Needed a Thyroid. The Story That Changed the Question There is a moment in psychiatry that happens more often than most people realize, where a patient sits down, looks exhausted, and says some version of, “I think I’m depressed.” On the surface, it usually makes sense, because the symptoms tend to line up in a way that feels familiar: low energy, weight gain, loss of motivation, emotional flatness, and a general sense that something is

TMS vs Antidepressants: Two Different Ways to Treat Depression TMS vs antidepressants is not really a question of which treatment is universally better. Both can be valuable treatments for depression, but they approach the problem in very different ways. Antidepressants use medication that circulates through the body and influences signaling within the brain. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS, uses targeted magnetic pulses from outside the head to stimulate neural cir