Addiction and Suicide: What’s the Link?

By Peg Rosen (Medical Reviewer Stacia Alexander, PhD, LPC-S) Suicide and addiction. Too often, we hear these words in the same breath. At face value, the connection feels logical. Think of celebrities who die by suicide—often there’s the implication, if…

The Conflicting Science of Social Media and Mental Health

Austin Perlmutter M.D. As of 2023, the United States has almost 250 million social media users. That number climbs to nearly 5 billion people worldwide and is expected to reach 6 billion by 2027. The average person spends an astonishing two…

You Are Not Your Diagnosis

CooperRiis Healing Community By: Kimberly Nelson, MA with Courtney Kelly Receiving a diagnosis is a significant milestone on the road to recovery. It clarifies courses of treatment, supplies precedent, and gives rhyme and reason to symptoms that may otherwise be…

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Who Cares?

Sandra Parker Ph.D. Climate disasters, power-hungry narcissists, fake news, identity theft, rising food prices … Has a sense of overwhelm begun to permeate as you scroll through your feed? Do you feel a certain weariness around caring? If so, you are not alone; compassion…

“Back to School Blues” May Be Worse Than Just Blues

Peter Gray Ph.D. Schooling has a halo around it in society’s eyes, and halos tend to interfere with perception and judgment. Maybe that’s why nearly everyone, including journalists, whose job it should be to keep their eyes and minds open…

How to Balance Self-Care and Productivity

Alice Boyes Ph.D. You might’ve heard of the TikTok trend “bed rotting,” meaning to stay in bed all day relaxing. The trend promotes spending the whole day in bed for self-care, and to resist pressures to be productive. To avoid…

What We Know About Youth Mental Health Visits to the ER

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research It’s well-established that youth mental health has suffered in recent years—with wide-ranging factors contributing to the problem including the proliferation of social media among young people and the isolation created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year,…

How Gratitude May Mitigate Loneliness

Finding ways to overcome loneliness can improve health. Rita Watson MPH Researchers began reporting on the effects of loneliness even before the pandemic forced people into isolation and social distancing. Although the preponderance of the research focused on the elderly,…

To Reach Goals, Make a Plan

Marisa T. Cohen PhD, LMFT Although we may set goals such as learning a new language, finishing work projects on time, and organizing the closets, we don’t always complete them. While the difficulty of the goal and the motivation we…

How the Seasons Affect Our Psychology

Michael E. W. Varnum Ph.D. Do you find yourself getting the blues in the winter? If you do, you aren’t alone. According to the American Psychiatric Association, about 5 percent of Americans experience seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a form of depression that comes on…