News & Research
The Siggy Blog
Expert articles on medications, conditions, and the future of mental healthcare, from the team building it.
Anxiety After Drinking: Why Hangxiety Happens
Anxiety after drinking has a real biological cause. Learn why hangxiety happens, who gets it worst, and the signs it's pointing to a pattern worth addressing.
Anxiety Stomach Pain Is Real, Not Something You're Imagining
Anxiety can cause real stomach pain through the gut-brain axis. Learn how it overlaps with IBS, which symptoms need testing, and what treatments help.
Dissociation Is a Built-In Brain Response, Not a Character Flaw
Dissociation ranges from zoning out to feeling detached from yourself. Learn what it feels like, why your brain does it, and when it needs care.
Everyone Has Intrusive Thoughts. Here's When They Need Treatment
Intrusive thoughts are nearly universal. Learn why some get stuck, how to tell them apart from OCD or trauma, and which treatments help when they take over.
The ADHD Tax: The Hidden Costs of Executive Dysfunction
The ADHD tax is the late fees, lost items, and missed deadlines that come with executive dysfunction. See what research shows and the systems that cut the cost.
Anxiety Headaches: Tension, Migraine, and the Stress Link
Anxiety headaches are usually tension-type or migraine. Learn how stress drives the pain, how to tell them apart, what helps, and red flags that need a doctor.
Derealization and Depersonalization: Why the World Feels Unreal
Derealization makes the world feel foggy, flat, or dreamlike. Learn why it happens with anxiety, panic, and trauma, why it isn't psychosis, and what helps.
Heart Palpitations From Anxiety: How to Tell and When to Worry
Anxiety can make your heart race, but some rhythm problems feel the same. Learn the red flags, which tests rule out your heart, and grounding steps that help.
Hypersomnia: Sleeping Too Much and What It Signals
Hypersomnia can signal depression, bipolar depression, a medication side effect, or a sleep disorder. Learn the clues that set them apart and when to get help.
Racing Thoughts: Telling Anxiety, ADHD, and Hypomania Apart
Racing thoughts can come from anxiety, ADHD, or hypomania. Learn the clues that set them apart, including timing, sleep, and mood, and when to get help fast.
Waking Up at 3 AM: Anxiety, Cortisol, and What Actually Helps
Waking up at 3 AM is common, and cortisol is only part of the story. Learn how sleep cycles, anxiety, and alcohol drive it, and why CBT-I is the first-line fix.
ADHD and Impulsivity in Adults: How It Shows Up Beyond Interrupting
ADHD impulsivity in adults goes beyond interrupting. See how it shows up in spending, conversations, driving, and big decisions, and which treatments help.
Emotional Dysregulation: A Pattern With Many Causes, Not a Character Flaw
Emotional dysregulation shows up in ADHD, trauma, BPD, and mood disorders. Learn how the patterns differ and which evidence-based skills help steady your reactions.
ADHD Overstimulation: Why Everything Feels Like Too Much
Why noise, clutter, and busy days can overwhelm an ADHD brain, how sensory, mental, and emotional load stack up, and practical supports that research backs.
Apathy: When Not Caring Is a Symptom, Not a Character Flaw
Apathy is a real symptom with real causes, from depression and SSRI side effects to ADHD and brain conditions. Learn how to tell them apart and what helps.
Doomscrolling: What It Does to Anxiety and How to Stop
Doomscrolling is linked to higher anxiety and poorer sleep. See what the research shows and how cutting back about an hour a day can help.
Emotional Numbness: Depression, Trauma, or Medication?
Emotional numbness can come from depression, trauma, or antidepressant blunting. Learn how to tell them apart, what helps, and why not to quit meds abruptly.
Why Do I Feel Empty? Clinical Causes and What Helps
Feeling empty can come from depression, grief, dissociation, or chronic emptiness. Learn how to tell the causes apart, when it's urgent, and what helps.
Hypervigilance: Why You Cannot Stop Scanning for Danger
Hypervigilance keeps your brain scanning for threats long after danger passes. Learn why it happens after trauma and anxiety, how to calm it, and what treats it.
People Pleasing: When It Is Anxiety and What Changes It
People pleasing often runs on fear of disapproval. Learn when it's anxiety, how it links to the fawn response, and what research shows helps you change it.
Sense of Impending Doom: Panic, Medical Causes, and When to Act
A sense of impending doom can come from a panic attack, but also from a heart attack or a severe allergic reaction. Learn the warning signs and when to call 911.
Signs of Autism in Adults: The Traits That Often Get Missed
Many autistic adults go undiagnosed for decades. Learn the adult signs of autism, how masking hides them, and why anxiety or depression often shows up first.
ADHD Hyperfixation vs. Hyperfocus: What It Is and What Helps
ADHD hyperfixation explained: why an interest takes over for weeks, how it differs from hyperfocus, autism, and OCD, and practical ways to work with it.
Brain Fog: The Mental Health Causes Doctors Look For First
Brain fog has causes a clinician can find. Learn how depression, anxiety, ADHD, sleep loss, and medications cloud thinking, and when to get checked.
Window of Tolerance: Hyperarousal, Hypoarousal, and What Helps
The window of tolerance explains why stress can send you into overdrive or shutdown. Learn the signs of each state and practical ways to get back.
ADHD and Anger: Why Emotional Flooding Happens and What Helps
ADHD anger often hits fast and fades fast. Learn why emotional dysregulation is a core part of ADHD, what triggers flooding, and which treatments actually help.
How to Stabilize Your Mood: What Works for Mood Instability
Learn how to stabilize your mood with sleep, a steady daily rhythm, and the right care, plus the signs that mood swings deserve a professional evaluation.
Analysis Paralysis: Why Decisions Freeze You and What Helps
Analysis paralysis can come from anxiety, ADHD, depression, or truly hard choices. Learn what research says about each pattern and which strategies help you decide.
The Fawn Response: People-Pleasing as a Trauma Reaction
The fawn response frames people-pleasing as a survival strategy. Learn where the 4F model came from, what research supports, and which treatments help.
Alexithymia: When You Cannot Name What You Feel, and What Helps
Alexithymia means trouble identifying and describing your feelings. Learn how common it is, how it links to autism, depression, and trauma, and what helps.
Catastrophizing: Why Your Mind Jumps to the Worst Case
Catastrophizing turns an ordinary worry into a disaster forecast. Learn the science behind the pattern and the CBT tools matched to each part of it.
Sunday Scaries: When Weekend Dread Signals Something More
Sunday scaries are anticipatory anxiety about the week ahead. Learn why they happen, how they differ from GAD, and a practical plan to ease them.
Night Terrors in Adults: Causes, Triggers, and Treatment
Night terrors in adults are often driven by stress, sleep debt, alcohol, or sleep apnea. See how they differ from nightmares and PTSD, and which treatments help.
ADHD Symptoms in Women: The Presentation Checklists Miss
ADHD in women often looks like disorganization and overwhelm, not hyperactivity. Here's why it gets missed, and what the research says.
The Anger Iceberg: The Emotions Hiding Beneath Anger
Anger is rarely the whole story. Here's what the research says about the emotions often hiding beneath it, and what actually helps.
Anhedonia: Why You Can't Feel Pleasure Anymore
Anhedonia is the loss of pleasure that shows up in depression, ADHD, and more. Learn what causes it, why SSRIs may not fix it, and what actually helps.
Anxiety Attack Symptoms: What's Actually Happening
A breakdown of anxiety attack and panic attack symptoms, what separates them clinically, and what actually helps in the moment.
10 Mental Health Red Flags You Shouldn't Ignore
Sudden mood shifts, sleep changes, and withdrawal can signal more than a rough week. Here are 10 mental health red flags and when to get evaluated.
Signs of Depression in Women: Beyond the Male-Pattern Checklist
Depression in women is nearly twice as common as in men and often looks different. Here's what the research says about recognizing it.
Anxiety and Insomnia: How to Break the Cycle
Anxiety and insomnia feed each other in a loop that won't break on its own. Here's the research on why, and the treatment that actually interrupts it.
Depression and Sleep: Why You Sleep Too Much or Too Little
Depression disrupts sleep in opposite directions, insomnia for some, hypersomnia for others. Here is why that happens and how treating sleep changes depression outcomes.
Am I Having a Nervous Breakdown? Signs and What to Do
'Nervous breakdown' isn't a medical diagnosis, but the crisis behind it is real. Here are the actual signs, and what to do next.
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and ADHD: Why It Hurts So Much
Rejection sensitive dysphoria isn't a formal diagnosis, but the intense emotional pain it describes is real and common in ADHD. Here's what drives it and what actually helps.
ADHD and Sleep: Why You Can't Fall Asleep or Wake Up
ADHD does not just disrupt attention during the day. It reshapes sleep timing itself, and generic sleep hygiene tips often miss why.
Masking in Autism and ADHD: What It Is and Why It's Harmful
Masking helps autistic and ADHD adults blend in, but research links it to exhaustion, delayed diagnosis, and higher rates of anxiety and depression.
Depression and Memory Loss: Why It Happens and How to Cope
Depression can cause real memory and concentration problems, not just low mood. Learn why it happens, how it differs from dementia, and how it gets better.
Executive Dysfunction and ADHD: What It Is and How to Manage It
Executive dysfunction is the planning, memory, and follow-through breakdown behind ADHD, not a lack of effort. Here is what causes it and what actually helps.
Fear vs. Anxiety: Why They Feel Alike but Work Differently
Fear and anxiety share one alarm system but run on different clocks. Learn how to tell them apart, when anxiety becomes a disorder, and what actually helps.
Neurodivergent Burnout: Signs, Causes, and Recovery
Neurodivergent burnout is a distinct pattern of exhaustion and lost function in autistic and ADHD adults, not garden-variety stress. Here is what causes it and what recovery actually requires.
PTSD Triggers: Why They Hit So Fast and How They Lose Power
PTSD triggers can set off fear before you know why. Learn the common types, why avoiding them backfires, what helps in the moment, and which treatments work.
Why Do I Overthink Everything? The Depression-Anxiety Link
Overthinking and depression share a neurobiological root. This guide explains how rumination bridges depression and anxiety, why willpower alone doesn't work, and what evidence-based treatment actually does.
Anxiety and Memory Loss: What's the Connection?
Anxiety doesn't just feel bad, it can impair how your brain encodes and retrieves memories. Here is what the research shows about the cortisol-hippocampus connection and what you can do about it.
Anxiety and Shortness of Breath: How to Tell What's Happening
Anxiety can make you feel like you can't breathe. Learn why it happens, how it differs from heart or lung trouble, when to call 911, and what actually helps.
Why Do I Cry So Much? When Crying Is a Mental Health Signal
Frequent crying can be completely normal or a clinical sign of depression, anxiety, or emotional dysregulation. Here is how to tell the difference and what to do about it.
ADHD Paralysis: Why You Can't Start Tasks and What Helps
ADHD paralysis isn't laziness. A licensed PA explains why the ADHD brain freezes on tasks, the three forms it takes, and what clinical evidence says actually helps.
Can Anxiety Cause Chest Pain? How to Tell and When to Call 911
Anxiety can cause real chest pain, but you can't rule out your heart by how it feels. Learn when to call 911, what normal tests mean, and what helps.
Anxiety Chills: Why Stress Can Leave You Cold and Shaky
Anxiety chills are real: stress pulls warmth from your hands and can set off shivering. Learn why it happens, how to tell it from illness, and what helps.
Can Anxiety Cause High Blood Pressure? Why One Nervous Reading Isn't the Whole Story
Anxiety can spike your blood pressure, but the long-term link is mixed. Learn what research shows, how to take accurate home readings, and when to call 911.
What Are the Signs of Depression in Adults?
Depression in adults doesn't always look like sadness. A licensed PA explains the 9 symptoms, what they actually feel like in adults, and when to get evaluated.
Stress vs. Anxiety: The Real Test Is Whether It Shuts Off When the Pressure Does
Stress usually eases when the pressure does. Anxiety keeps going. Learn the signs, a quick screening tool, and which treatments help each one, backed by research.
How to Manage Test Anxiety: Evidence-Based Techniques That Work
Test anxiety affects 10 to 35 percent of college students and reduces academic performance. A Psych PA explains the evidence-based techniques that actually reduce it.
Why Am I Depressed? When There's No Obvious Reason, There's Usually a Quiet One
Feeling depressed with no clear reason? Learn the hidden drivers, from genes and stress to thyroid problems, sleep, and medications, and what to get checked.
What Does Anxiety Feel Like? The Body Signals, Thought Loops, and When to Get Help
Anxiety can feel like a racing heart, tight chest, upset stomach, or nonstop worry. Learn why it happens, how it differs from stress, and when to get help.
What a Manic Episode Feels Like, and the Early Signs to Watch
Mania often starts out feeling like your best week. Learn how a manic episode builds, the earliest warning signs, and why it matters before an antidepressant.
Am I Depressed? How to Tell and What to Do Next
Not sure if it's depression or a rough patch? Learn the symptoms clinicians look for, the signs that don't look like sadness, and what to do next.
Do I Have ADHD? The Adult Signs That Get Missed, and What a Screener Can Actually Tell You
Wondering if you have ADHD? Learn the adult signs that get missed, how accurate the 6-question ASRS screener is, and what a real evaluation involves.
What Does Depression Feel Like? The Parts No One Mentions
Depression often feels like emptiness, exhaustion, fog, or irritability more than sadness. Learn how it shows up in mind and body, and when to get help.
How to Calm Anxiety by Working With Your Body Instead of Arguing With Your Thoughts
Learn how to calm anxiety with breathing, grounding, muscle relaxation, movement, and mindfulness, what the research shows for each, and when it's time to get help.
17 Symptoms of Complex PTSD: What's Official and What Isn't
There's no official list of 17 complex PTSD symptoms. See 17 signs mapped to the ICD-11 criteria, how diagnosis works, and which treatments actually help.
ADHD Symptoms in Adults: The Signs That Get Mistaken for Something Else
Adult ADHD rarely looks like a restless kid. Learn the symptoms adults actually notice, why they get mistaken for anxiety or depression, and how diagnosis works.