A new study found that cognitive behavioral talk therapy may treat sleep issues in people dealing with osteoarthritis and insomnia.
By Susan Jara
People with chronic pain from arthritis and other conditions may be at an increased risk of having suicidal thoughts and behavior. Learn more about this link and when and how to get help.
More research is needed to understand why mental health conditions are linked to low “medication persistence” — the amount of time from starting to stopping a medication.
When conditions like arthritis and chronic pain cause pain, disability, and other physical changes to your body, it’s natural for self-esteem to dip. Here’s what other patients report about their experience coping with changes to their identity and body image.
When treatment for inflammatory arthritis escalates, so does the risk of depression and anxiety — and there are many possible explanations for this link.
But it’s not entirely clear whether being unemployed, perhaps due to arthritis-related disability, leads to depression, or whether having depression and arthritis increases the risk of unemployment.
According to study authors, ‘psychological treatments that combine a focus on increasing valued activity with improving inflammatory arthritis patients’ mindfulness could be useful for reducing fatigue-related disability.’
By Tina Donvito
CBT is rooted in the idea that the way you perceive situations influences the way you feel, and that you have the ability to change your thought patterns to feel better.
By Dibs Baer
‘I’m no Perfect Pollyanna. But I just don’t want the experience of living with a chronic illness — I’ve had RA for more than a decade — to be negative 24/7.’
This advice from Laurie Ferguson, PhD, clinical psychologist and Director of Education Development at the Global Healthy Living Foundation, can help you process all of the emotions you’re feeling right now to help you fight anxiety and feel more in control.
Writing can help us admit to our feelings, accept our fear, manage our anxiety, and move through serious trauma.
This advice from Laurie Ferguson, PhD, clinical psychologist and Director of Education Development at the Global Healthy Living Foundation, can help reduce anxiety and stress.
By Dibs Baer
Several studies also show that depression and chronic illness feed off each other in the worst ways.
This advice from mental health experts and fellow patients could help prevent a bad day from become a bad week, month, or worse.
Geography, sex, and sexual orientation seemed to affect mental health too.
‘It soon became pretty clear that if I did not start listening to my sick body now, I would pay dearly for it later.’
Widespread inflammation could may be the connecting factor between depression and autoimmune conditions such as RA.
Overwhelming feelings of worry and dread are common among people with arthritis, but that doesn’t mean you have to live with them.
Stress and arthritis can be a vicious cycle. Any one of these tips can help you improve your stress management and coping strategies.
Eileen Davidson wasn’t prepared for the emotional and mental health roller coaster that followed her rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. Here’s what she learned along the way.
Depression is very common among people with AS. Here’s what patients and doctors need to know about it.
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