Armand DiMele opens with research on male biological clocks, aging eyesight, fertility cues, and Ambien sleep-eating before pivoting to a bigger question: what do you know for sure? Callers share overlooked personal skills, and Armand uses those skills as a mirror to surface deeper struggles like depression and lost direction.
Too little serotonin causes depression and PMS symptoms, but too much can kill you. Armand and Dr. Kent Robichaud, joined by Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, trace serotonin’s role in mood, the menstrual cycle, and the deadly drug combinations, including SSRIs, triptans, Demerol, and ecstasy, that can trigger serotonin syndrome.
Cold weather does far more than chill the body. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti trace how dropping temperatures raise blood pressure, suppress serotonin, trigger overeating, and historically fueled human violence and territoriality, while also arguing that cold is the unlikely cradle of creativity, intimacy, and art.
Chronic pain sufferers are blamed, disbelieved, and undertreated, and that abandonment can be as damaging as the pain itself. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace how physical pain acquires an emotional life, how opiates seductively treat both, and why escalating narcotic use often signals depression and loneliness as much as bodily suffering.
Crying is not the cause of being upset but the sign of having already been upset, a release of accumulated stress hormones and toxins. Armand DiMele walks through the biochemistry of emotional tears, the handicap syndrome in animals, why suppressing tears feeds depression, and how to actually be present with someone who is crying.
High energy, little sleep, relentless drive: Dr. Ronald Fieve, Psychiatrist and Author, argues that bipolar II is often a hidden asset rather than a pure liability. Armand DiMele and Fieve trace the spectrum from bipolar I to hypomania, exploring creativity, relationships, psychopathy, and why so many high achievers carry this diagnosis.
Love can be toxic rather than healing for people who are wired for solitude. Armand DiMele examines the schizoid personality type, those who experience love as an intrusion, tracing the diagnostic criteria, the private person’s hidden inner life, and how holidays expose the tension between compulsive sociality and deep withdrawal.
Helplessness and powerlessness are not the same thing, and the difference matters. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace how powerlessness drives anxiety, social phobia, OCD, and addiction, while helplessness underlies depression, then offer practical steps for reclaiming a sense of agency.
Chronic stress, hostility, and depression are stronger predictors of heart disease than most people realize, accounting for a significant share of cardiac risk. Dr. Austin Hayes, a clinical psychologist working with cardiac patients at Mount Sinai, explains how personality, social isolation, and loss of control drive heart disease and how optimism and support speed recovery.
Memory loss with age is largely a myth, argues Dr. Pierce Howard, author of “The Owner’s Manual for the Brain.” Armand DiMele and Howard dig into how adrenaline fixes memories, why depression distorts recall, the four types of amnesia, and whether dramatically improving memory might actually cost us something valuable.
