Insomnia (or sleeplessness) is most often defined by an individual’s report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions: “Do you experience difficulty sleeping?” or “Do you have difficulty falling or...
Recently, I took my son and four of his friends fishing in the Bahamas. We had a fishing boat at our disposal, a beautiful beach and great weather, and I thought we’d all really enjoy our vacation in this exotic environment. But, two of the boys are addicted to video games. They brought the games with them and played them the entire time. They never left the hotel room on our five-day fishing...
Migraines, Part I This is a very personal topic for me, as I have had cluster headaches and migraines my entire life. While I was double checking a statistic for this blog, I came across a term that I’d never heard before: migraineur. Such a romantic sounding word to define a person with migraines. But when in Rome… As a migraineur, at times my headaches dictated my entire life, what I did and...
THIS JUST IN! 24/7 NEWS CAUSES ANXIETY! READ ALL ABOUT IT! I remember when I was a kid, my family used to eat dinner after the news. The news used to be thirty minutes. People tuned in and heard about the church bake sale, the plumbing problem being fixed at the elementary school, road closings, and the weather for the next day, and then they moved on with their lives. In this modern age, we...
The first step is identifying the illness. Depression is more that just feeling sad for a few days. Depression means weeks of being so sad, you start having trouble working or going to school. You start having problems in relationships. Problems develop in just taking care of you. People with depression have two types of symptoms. The first type is psychological. The second type is...
Electronics are awesome! Right? Home computers became available in the early to mid-80’s, but didn’t gain major popularity until about 1990. Home computers were mainly for word processing and games until the advent of the world wide web. Originally unleashed in 1989, the www was developed chiefly to facilitate the exchange of information among professionals on medical and scientific studies,...
Since it’s pretty clear you people really like reading about all things tangential to sex, I don’t mind indulging your secret freaky sides every once in a while. Hey, far be it from me to deny you! So in that spirit, this week’s topic is…. wait for it…. Sadomasochism. The Oxford Dictionary has this to say: [sey-doh-mas-uh-kiz-uhm] noun interaction, especially in sexual activity, in which a...
The Truth About Gender Dysphoria Gender dysphoria is basically a mismatch between a biological sexual assignment, i.e. the gender one is born into, and what gender they feel they are psychologically and desire to be physically. Until several years ago, it was termed “gender identity disorder,” but, for three reasons, I never liked that nomenclature: first, it was/ is not a disorder, second, the...
I’ve been a psychiatrist for a long time, and my patients say: “I don’t have a problem. I don’t use drugs (alcohol) every day.” Then they tell me some version of the “binge” story, and I’ve seen some pretty severe ones. They might start out by saying: “You know, every two weeks, I just have to go out and binge drink.” And then they say, “I’ll have 12 drinks.” Or. “I’ll have a bottle of wine.” ...
The first step is identifying the illness. Depression is more that just feeling sad for a few days. Depression means weeks of being so sad, you start having trouble working or going to school. You start having problems in relationships. Problems develop in just taking care of you. People with depression have two types of symptoms. The first type is psychological. The second type is...
