I have already written a first post "Sleep apnea - what is it, how common is it and how does it affect mortality & physical health?" which highlights that sleep apnea is a common, regularly unrecognised disorder, occurring in approaching 1 in 5 adults and that, particularly as it becomes more severe - probably approximately 1 in 10 sufferers (Li et al, 2015) - sleep apnea is linked with a wide range of serious diseases and with significantly increased death rates.  In this second post, I'll look at the relevance of sleep apnea for psychiatric disorders.

I have just given a talk on "Recent research on non-drug treatments for bipolar disorder" to the Lothian branch of "Bipolar Scotland".  There is a description of the first part of the talk at "Non-drug treatments for bipolar disorder (1st post) - the value of psychotherapy" and you can download the full sequence of slides here.  Points touched on in the second part of the talk are illustrated below:

I wrote a post recently called "Truly excellent therapists have 'grace under interpersonal pressure - Fascinating new research".

I wrote yesterday of my three wishes for this ten day “retreat” in Hampshire … a “being/doing” shift, an exploration of awareness (& it seems also our sense of self), and a chance to get perspective on my life.  For the first week I focused especially on the first two of these hopes.  In this final three days of my stay, I’ve swung much more to looking at my life overall.  When I’m “sitting on the bank of the river” after spending such a quiet beautiful week here, it’s a lot easier to get perspective than when I’m caught up in the fast flow of my day to day life.