Everyday Exercises for Mental Health
Spend 30 minutes every day to maintain your mental health. Here are some exercises you can try.
Ibogaine: A Promising (Future) Treatment For Addiction & PTSD
Ibogaine is a powerful psychedelic with the potential to treat mental health conditions including addiction and PTSD. Early research shows great promise, but further study is needed to make treatment as safe and effective as possible.
Think about mental health differently
Just like it takes regular exercise to maintain physical health, it requires a little bit of work every day to maintain your mental health.
Treat pain as a fire alarm
Sometimes you need to replace the batteries, and sometimes there is an actual fire. Emotional pain may be an indicator that there is a larger problem going on in your life that needs to be dealt with.
The power of progesterone for mental health
For those experiencing sleeplessness and anxiety, progesterone is an easy and often-overlooked medication that can be a great help during perimenopause and menopause.
The Mood Effects of GLP-1 Medications – An Update
New research on GLP-1 medications has found mood side effects of depression and suicidal ideation. This new data may influence the conversation of whether GLP-1 medications are right for you.
How to build healthy habits
It can be difficult to follow through with doing the activities we know would be good for us. To sustain a healthy habit, make it as easy to fall in to as possible.
Unpacking treatment-resistant depression
Treatment-Resistant Depression does not mean that your depression is inherently worse or more difficult to treat — just that you haven’t found the right medication yet.
Weight loss medication and mental health
Ozempic and other GLP-1 medications can be effective for managing diabetes and weight loss, but do they also have an impact on mood and mental health?
How to create distance from your thoughts
A simple linguistic trick can help you create distance between yourself and your thoughts, and make difficult thoughts a lot more bearable.
Confronting the End of the Year – Surviving the Holidays
The end of the year can bring with it existential feelings. This is a good time of year to lean into existentialism and explore those meanings, and uncover what is valuable to you.
Protecting Your Routines – Surviving the Holidays
The holidays bring with them disruptions to your schedule and routines. It is important to protect and maintain the healthy habits that are important for your physical and mental health.
Seasonal Affective Disorder – Surviving the Holidays
The winter holidays may also be accompanied by Seasonal Affective Disorder. These are strategies that can help with managing seasonal depression.
Facing Family Dynamics – Surviving the Holidays
Returning to families of origin during the holidays can trigger traumas and re-ground your nervous system into a past, traumatic state. You have a few options in how you choose to move forward with difficult relationships.
The Weight of Expectations and Comparisons – Surviving the Holidays
Comparing ourselves to an idea of what the holidays “should” look like can set us up for failure and disappointment. Take a step back to consider your values and what is actually important to you.
Handling the Challenges of the Holiday Season
The holidays can be difficult for anyone, even if you love the winter season. There are some common factors that can make this time of year especially difficult.
Reject the grindset mindset
Too much of the world is focused on efficiency. We encourage you to take a moment to slow down and focus — to experience the small, mundane moments of everyday life through aimlessness.
Tips for Seasonal Affective Disorder
The arrival of winter can sometimes bring with it Seasonal Affective Disorder. Techniques including vitamin D supplementation, light therapy, and a perspective shift around the winter season can help you get through the colder days.
Avoid undue suffering
It’s not possible to avoid pain in life completely. However, the way that we think about our pain can make a big difference in how we experience suffering.
2 reasons to game less
Playing video games can be a lot of fun, but the amount of time you spend doing it can have a negative impact on your mental health.
What if depression comes back?
The skills and resources you develop during treatment make you into a different person, with different ways of handling the challenges of mental health.
A quick look at stimulants and anxiety
One of the great things about stimulants is that they give us focus and attention — but if you’re having a lot of anxiety, you may end up with more focus and attention on the things you’re anxious about.
Reasons why treatment isn’t working
Whether you’re just starting treatment or have been going for a long time, there are some reasons why you may not be seeing the efficacy you expect from treatment.
Optimize your mental health with wearables
Sleep quality, heart rate variability, and blood sugar are important factors in mood and mental health. Tracking these metrics and optimizing them can help you stay on top of your mood.
When being positive is difficult, try neutral
It’s not easy to change your negative thoughts to positive ones, but it can be helpful to just bring things to neutral.
Sometimes, life just sucks
Challenging life circumstances can bring about emotions that echo the experience of depression. Understanding the differences can help you utilize the right tools for your circumstance.
What to do in difficult situations
When you’re struggling to navigate your response to a challenging circumstance, it can be helpful is to model your behavior after someone you trust.
What we can learn about grief
Grief is hard — and it often feels like there’s a push to hurry and ‘get over it’. Taking a look at how other cultures handle grief can help us understand how to better navigate it.
Leucovorin as a cure for autism
Vitamin B may be helpful in reducing symptoms of some mental health conditions, including autism, depression, and anxiety — but is it curative?
This Way Up: Online Therapy for Our Patients
This Way Up is well-researched, covers a range of useful areas, and is free to patients at Wells Medicine.
Take advantage of neuroplasticity
Your brain is remarkably flexible. Both ketamine treatments and TMS promote neuroplasticity — a state where the brain becomes more malleable and receptive to change. This creates a powerful window of opportunity to accelerate improvements in your mental health.
Dropping the rope – Visualization Exercise
A tug of war requires two parties. Evaluate the resistance you give to relationships or situations in your life and see if you might benefit from just dropping the rope.
How you think about treatment Matters
The way you think about treatment may influence the benefit that you see from it. The placebo effect is real, and can be strong, and affects all kinds of interventions. Positive expectations may help maximize your results.
10 reasons to not drink alcohol
Alcohol affects your physical and mental health. Even a drink or two can have an impact on your body and mood for days.
The connection between screen time and mental health
The amount of time we spend on screens can have a negative impact on our mood and well-being. Reducing screen time can support good mental health.
The downside of a diagnosis
Labels or diagnoses can be very helpful for understanding yourself, but they may make it difficult not to feel broken and may make it harder to distinguish what is ‘normal’ struggle.
Alcohol and mental health
Drinking alcohol impacts your mental and physical health. Even in small quantities, alcohol can influence your mood for days.
Finding the motivation to get things done
Finding motivation can be difficult — sometimes it can be extraordinarily difficult. One strategy that can help is to make small tasks non-negotiable.
Take the next step – visualization exercise
This mindfulness exercise helps with goal setting — with setting attainable goals and with how to avoid being overwhelmed by the steps it takes to accomplish those goals.
Walking as a herd – visualization exercise
This mindfulness exercise may help particularly when we feel alone in our struggles — reinforcing our connection to a larger community.
How we touch the lives around us – visualization exercise
This mindfulness exercise helps us understand our own importance and the influence that we have on those around us (and them on us), using the visualization of glow-in-the dark paint.
Why we use symptom questionnaires
Questionnaires we administer in the clinic — and the ones you take between visits on your own — can be helpful in tracking your progress and planning your treatments.
Stimulants and your sleep
Stimulants – including caffeine, nicotine, and stimulant medications – can decrease restful sleep and impact mood as a result.
Therapy for a crisis | What is dialectical behavior therapy?
A brief overview of DBT and resources to learn more.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
A very brief overview of ACT and resources to learn more.
Therapy: a fundamental tool for treating mental health
Therapy is an essential tool — on its own and alongside interventional mental health treatments like ketamine, TMS and stellate ganglion blocks.
Tools for treating PMS & PMDD
Dr Wells discusses treatment methods — including medicine, holistic care, and supplements — that can be helpful for treating PMS and PMDD.
Stimulants and anxiety
Stimulants have a big impact on us, and even a simple cup of coffee or an energy drink may be contributing to your feelings of anxiety.