Anxiety
Show 1368: Why Overcoming Loneliness Is Crucial …
In this week’s interview, Dr. Robert Waldinger of Harvard University explains why overcoming loneliness is essential for our health. His research, summarized in The Good Life, shows that close relat…
Show 1406: How Hypnotherapy Helps People Heal fr…
This week, a nationally-renowned expert on hypnotherapy describes how this tool can be used to help people heal from stress or pain. Have you tried it? You could listen through your local public radio…
Long COVID Is Common and Scary!
The immediate threat from a COVID infection is readily understood now. Most people who catch COVID-19 recover within a few weeks. However, doctors are still struggling with a different problem patient…
Should You Stop Taking Your Sleeping Pills?
Older individuals who take a benzodiazepine are more likely to experience falls. Medications like alprazolam (Xanax), diazepam (Valium) or lorazepam (Ativan) are frequently used as sleeping pills or f…
Why Is Antidepressant Withdrawal So Hard?
A few years ago it was estimated that one out of eight Americans took an antidepressant medication (JAMA Internal Medicine, Feb. 2017) daily. According to my current calculations, 46 million people no…
Show 1374: Marvelous Medicinal Mushrooms (Archiv…
This week, we talk with 4th-generation herbalist, research scientist and mycologist, Dr. Christopher Hobbs. He extolls the benefits of mushrooms not only as nutritious foods, but also as important com…
Show 1354: How Hypnosis Can Help Your Health (Ar…
Would you be surprised to learn that hypnosis is a powerful tool for healing? If your primary exposure to this practice has been in books and movies, you may have a few misconceptions about how it wor…
Show 1315: Are We Medicating Normal Emotions? (A…
This week on our nationally syndicated radio show, we examine the consequences of prescriptions for anxiety or grief. All of us, at some point in our lives, will experience some of these emotions. If …
Show 1383: How to Calm Your Mind with Food
Plenty of issues in the public eye could well make anyone anxious. Some people suffer more than others, however. What we feed our gut microbes–and ourselves–can make a big difference. In this epis…
Show 1350: Why Psychotherapy Matters: Lessons fr…
If you tell your healthcare provider that you’re feeling anxious or depressed, chances are they will prescribe you a medication. Millions of people take anti-anxiety pills or antidepressants, and ma…
Do Doctors Know How to Help Patients Stop Medica…
Imagine for a moment that you are the CEO of a major drug company. What is the ideal product? Sadly, it’s all about money. In other words, what would be a highly profitable medication that doctors w…
Show 1367: How to Evaluate Prescription Drugs
In this week’s interview, Dr. Aaron Carroll of Indiana University discusses what we should take into account when we evaluate prescription drugs. How can we tell if the benefits would outweigh the r…
Do Conflicts of Interest Distort Antidepressant …
How reliable are studies of medicines used to treat psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, panic or depression? A quick count of popular antidepressants reveals that more than 40 million Americans fi…
The Love-Hate Relationship with Anti-Anxiety Ben…
Throughout recorded history, there have been huge challenges: famines, floods, fires, earthquakes, pandemics and wars. People have been complaining about anxiety and stress for hundreds, if not thousa…
Benzodiazepine Dependence | A Hard Habit to Kick
When most people hear the words “drug abuse” they think of opioids like oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl or heroin. Other contenders include stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine (“meth”…
Is There a Downside to Ashwagandha?
Have you been looking for natural ways to get some sleep? That is certainly understandable. When you are worrying about family members and friends, you may not be able to sleep well. Some herbs could …
Prednisone Can Cause Anxiety, Depression and Ins…
Corticosteroids are both a blessing and a curse. They can calm a serious allergic reaction and reduce inflammation. People with asthma may profit from a drug like prednisone during a flareup. Patients…
Vitamin D Supplements for Babies May Boost Kids&…
Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for both children and adults. Long ago, scientists dubbed it the "sunshine vitamin" because skin can synthesize it in the presence of sunlight. Doctors in northern c…
Are You “Addicted” to Your Prescription Medi…
Before you read another word, rethink the term addiction! It is loaded with emotional baggage and is a terrible description of drug dependence. It often implies character flaws or vulnerability and fr…
Coping with Anxiety During Really Stressful Time…
If you aren’t a wee bit anxious, you have either been living in a cave for the last few years or you pay zero attention to the news. An awful lot of your friends, neighbors and family members have b…
Show 1262: How to Manage Your Anxiety (Archive)
More than two years of living through a pandemic has really increased anxiety for a lot of people. If we define anxiety as worry or unease about an imminent event with an uncertain outcome, it’s eas…
Show 1303: The Mental Health Crisis Affecting Am…
This week on our nationally syndicated radio show, we talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Matt Richtel. His latest series for The New York Times takes a long look at the mental health crisis a…
Stopping Duloxetine (Cymbalta) Suddenly Flipped …
Antidepressants like desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), duloxetine (Cymbalta), sertraline (Zoloft) and venlafaxine (Effexor) have become extremely popular. Millions take such drugs regularly. We have even seen…
Show 1271: New Approaches to Managing Depression…
For many months now, people have been dealing with the pandemic, which has brought both grief for the lives lost and anxiety about the threat of infection. At the same time, fires and floods have made…
Can You Fight Depression by Eating the Mediterra…
Depression is challenging to treat during the best of times. During the pandemic it has been especially difficult, because therapists have been overwhelmed with cases. Zoom therapy is not always an id…
Show 1287: Managing Stress and Anxiety During CO…
The COVID-19 pandemic has been dragging on for longer than most people imagined possible. With each new variant, cases surge and people need to make complex risk calculations about school, work and so…
Can You Deal with Depression and Manage Anxiety?
For more than two years now, all of us have had to deal with major disruptions in our lives. Coronavirus changed the way we live almost overnight. What's more, every time we've thought it might be com…
How To Stop Duloxetine (Cymbalta) Without Withdr…
Based on what we hear from readers of our syndicated newspaper column and visitors to this website, most patients are not warned about how to stop duloxetine (Cymbalta). Perhaps the prescriber assumes…
Do Lonely Older People Take More and Riskier Dru…
Doctors write a lot of prescriptions for anti-anxiety agents, pain medicine, sleeping pills and antidepressants. The last time we checked, 22 million Americans were filling more than 100 million presc…
Show 1260: The Pros and Cons of Online Therapy D…
Last year, just when more people than ever needed the help of a therapist, stay-at-home restrictions made it difficult or impossible to get face-to-face counseling. Moreover, most therapists were comp…
Show 1248: How to Keep Moving and Feel Better Du…
COVID-19 restrictions have interfered with the way many of us exercise. Yet the benefits of moving, for both our physical and mental health, are more important than ever. How can we keep moving to fee…
Show 1238: How Is COVID-19 Affecting Mental Heal…
These are stressful times. Many people are grieving the death of a loved one, while others are struggling with working or studying from home. Being separated from loved ones can be emotionally drainin…
Show 1237: Improving Your Mood With Food
Working from home during the pandemic has wrought havoc with a lot of healthy eating habits. It’s harder to shop safely, and minimizing time in the grocery store may mean people have stocked up on s…
Zolpidem for Insomnia | COVID-Related Anxiety
Under the best of conditions, tens of millions of people have trouble getting a decent night’s sleep. These days, though, it’s harder than ever. News about the coronavirus is nonstop. People have …
COVID-19 Is Making People Anxious and Depressed
Not surprisingly, the pandemic that has many people trapped in their homes and others putting their lives on the line as they do essential work has affected mental health as well as physical health. C…
Show 1208: Keeping Kids Healthy in the Age of Co…
Schools are closed and kids are home so that they don’t catch COVID-19 and spread it to family members. Of course, parents don’t want their children to get sick, either. How are we keeping kids he…
Show 1204: How Brain Function Affects Mental Ill…
Mental health problems cause widespread disability in today’s world. Large numbers of people suffer with depression or severe anxiety. While these ailments are real, we may not be considering their …
How Can You Overcome a Fear of Public Speaking?
Some people are afraid of spiders, while others are terrified of heights. One of the most common phobias appears to be a fear of public speaking. Nonetheless, people often need to speak up in a gather…
Do Psychological Benefits from Psilocybin Last?
Eight years ago, scientists at New York University Langone Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University described an extraordinary pilot study. Both research groups reported that cancer patients could …
Clonazepam Withdrawal | Safe Sedative or Poison?
Klonopin (clonazepam) was first marketed by the Hoffman La Roche pharmaceutical company in 1975. Roche had already cleaned up with this benzodiazepine class of medications. Librium (chlordiazepoxide) …