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Welcome to Brain Bites with Dr. B!

Brain Bites is all about broadening your reach with easy-to-digest psych knowledge! Join me for quick, interesting medication and brain science tidbits! Elevate your therapy practice with insight and data from your friendly online psychiatrist!

Dr B with the cure for boredom at work
Featured Post

a vaccine for WHAT??

I used to play the piano. I started lessons when I was like 4 and it became a “requirement” when my parents realized I was pretty good at it. It started off fun! And then it wasn’t. I hated practicing. I hated lessons. I only wanted to play when no one was home and I could just bang away with a thunderstorm or cry my messy high school breakup emotions away with a slow, sad Chopin. We have a beautiful piano from my husband’s childhood home that looks nice in our house but no one plays it....

Dr B excited about raising your HRV and for clients too!

I'm not a huge fan of math in general. Which is probably kind of a dumb thing to say. Like, "I'm not a fan of underwear." Which may be true for some (ew? or yeah!) but undies are pretty ubiquitous and make sense in lots of situations! But the kind of math I'm talking about today isn't the computational kind. It's neurofeedback!! I have recently purchased a sensor and app from HeartMath where I can practice working on my HRV or heart rate variability. Sounds super fun, right? not this kind of...

meds for ADHD, Dr. B pointing at meds and letting you know what you should tell clients about ADHD and medications

You have probably played 2 truths and a lie, and if not, you'll get the idea pretty quickly. (I actually haven't played this! But my friend and I were lounging by a pool on Saint Simons Island a few summers ago and a bunch of adorable, drunk college kids introduced us to it!) I'm going to tell you 3 things about myself but one of them isn't true. Can you guess which one is the lie? I was an art education major in college (and I was excellent at making coffee mugs!) I worked for years in a...

best laid plans... I was totally planning on recording your ADHD meds video yesterday and gladly shooting it off into the ether so it'd be waiting for you in your inbox when you needed a break today... but... Helene! For those who aren't in Florida or the southeast path of this lovely gift from mother nature, it was a Cat 4 hurricane that hit a little north of us last night. We're fine. Our house is fine. Our kids are thrilled (2 hurricane days next to a weekend!!). And just a little water in...

neurofeedback and it's benefits, Dr. B looking thoughtful

“If you want to sleep in a coffin tonight it would be alright” and then the undertaker closes the door leaving the girl alone with 4 corpses for the night. I giggled. (It sounds morbid but it was actually pretty funny in context) Damn. The movie shut off. Again. I’m looking at that blue bar on the left. Hmmm. How can I make it go up with out MAKING it go up? That’s right, soft intention. Down a little. Boo. Up a little. Yay? Up a lot! But not past the yellow line. Yet… My mind feels funny,...

Get prescribers to respond to your requests for patient infromation

”Okay can you please run that by me again Dr. Notsogoodwithconsciouspatients?” “I mean, I need you to come see my patient. She’s crying. I think she’s really sad. Maybe she’s depressed or something.” “Did you ask her?“ “Uh……” “What’s the clinical question here?” “Come on, dude! It’s 3am! Can’t you just come and talk to her??” I mean, yes, of course I could. And since I was a resident on psych consults, I did. Because I was already rudely awoken by someone on ortho who had a “scary” crying...

SSRIs and serotonin CEU course

After some watermelon and fire flies we were off to our B&B to snuggle down for the night. But when we arrived, the old Victorian mansion loomed unwelcomely. The house was completely dark inside and out. Ours was the only car pulled in the driveway and there was nothing around but spiderwebs and the chirping of crickets. After using the code to sneak through the back door I was completely unsettled. Where was everyone? Or anyone at all?? are you sure we have the right address? My husband and...

Ok, I'm being dramatic. This past Monday I just got one step closer to being 50! Which is not a bad thing at all! (and the options are not plentiful...) But it's time I finally face the facts. I need to see someone about my hormones. Yeah, yeah. I know. I talk to my patients "of a certain age"😝 about this all the time! And many of my closest friends. Over the past year I've tried to: Better balance my workouts. Better balance my work-life stuff. Eat less sugar and drink less beer. Sleep more!...

how's your handwriting? brain science of writing vs typing

Seriously, Reader, how do you feel about your handwriting? This has purpose, I promise. But let me back up a little. Lots of people hate journaling. it totally doesn't have to start off like this I’m not sure why, or what they’re doing that makes it so awful, but many of my patients are staunch haters of the journal. What about you? Do your clients like to journal? Do they get a lot out of the practice? This may seem a little weird but I want to talk about why journaling, specifically by...

adult ADHD differences from kids

it's that time of year again. New backpacks... Sharp crayons... Weird afternoon not-rush-hour traffic... The smell of freshly sharpened pencils... It's back to school time! (At least here in my steamy bit of Florida) too soon for detention! Which made me think this was the perfect time to talk about ADHD! In this week's video I'm specifically addressing ADULT ADHD and how that may look different than for kids. For adults, the time of year is not really as important (except maybe for grad...