Lara Ray, professor of psychology at UCLA, has been studying alcohol use disorders since long before the COVID-19. In 2008, she established the UCLA Addictions Lab to research medications and other treatments for those who want to quit or reduce their drinking. But a spike in alcohol consumption during the pandemic has brought substance abuse … Read more
Grief is a natural response to losing a loved one that often causes intense yearning, longing and preoccupation with the person who died, along with sadness, anger, anxiety and loneliness. Over time, grief changes and usually subsides with support of family and friends. (Getty Images) While grief and mourning are common rituals after losing someone, … Read more
Stress Awareness Month in April reminds us to pay attention to our health. Experts have shown that stress can have a dramatic impact on us mentally and physically. A variety of factors can relate to stress, and we’re familiar with many of them: our jobs, our relationships, our finances. One that might not come to … Read more
For years, too, there’s been a stampede of self-help books by alcohol skeptics, most of them women, many of whom once had trouble drinking not the third bottle. These books have included My Unfurlingby Lisa May Bennett; Her Best-Kept Secretby Gabrielle Glaser; This Naked Mindby Annie Grace; The Unexpected Joy of Being Soberby Catherine Gray; … Read more
Let’s talk about ‘that chair’. Yes, hard surface, cold to touch, clinical smell and it reclines us to another world. A place which can be very different tor all of us. How do you feel when you think about ‘that dental chair’? For some this can be an extraordinary one hour experience of relaxation and … Read more
It’s mid-afternoon on a mild spring day at Artemisia Clinic in Taos. Dr. Clara Wetmore, a doctor of Oriental Medicine, is treating Amy Dondanville, who has difficulty sleeping. Soothing music plays and fragrant herbs in orderly rows surround the treatment table of the well-lit clinic. Wetmore consults with Dondanville and then checks her pulse at … Read more
DEAR ABBY: My husband passed away four months ago, after battling cancer for years. He declined in a month, and we chose hospice at home. (I did not find them particularly caring or helpful.) This was even more depressing because it happened during COVID. After my husband’s death, all the emotional support stopped — no … Read more
There has been a lot of research on the neuroscience of listening to music. It sometimes seems as if there is a new paper published every day. Recently, researchers in Denmark and the UK thought it was time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. In late March, they published an … Read more
April is Stress Awareness Month. I think that we can all agree that overall stress has increased significantly in most of our lives in the past couple of years. The National Institute for Health defines stress as the body’s response to physical, mental, or emotional pressure. Stress causes chemical changes in the body that can … Read more
Pete Doherty nearly lost his feet to drug addiction. The Libertines singer has been clean for more than two years but admitted he had a number of “close calls” over the years because of his consumption of heroin and other drugs. He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “I was really pushing the limits. There were … Read more