Latest news with #SimonSherry
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
If you're feeling summertime sadness, gloomy weather won't help
Winter and its effects on some people's mood are far behind us, but the same effects can occur in summer, despite the sunshine. With seasonal affective disorder, a depressive episode can coincide with change to a new season — any season. Simon Sherry, a clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University, has warned about the side-effects of summer. The change in season, which means a change in our exposure to sunlight, can cause insomnia, reduced appetite and weight loss. This is a mirror of the effects winter weather can have. "There are underlying changes that can happen in our brain," Sherry said. "Our body runs on a circadian rhythm, which is an internal 24-hour clock. And if that cycle, which has a lot to do with sleeping and waking, can get disrupted, then mood problems follow." He points to the daylight savings one-hour time change, which can affect mood. WATCH | How to tell if you're feeling summertime sadness: Michael Mak, a psychiatrist and sleep medicine specialist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, said the time when we're taking in sunlight changes by season, which causes the disruption. Taking in sunlight later in the day can make it tougher for people to sleep, which in turn affects mood. "What we want is less light exposure close to bedtime, more light when we wake up in the morning," said Mak, who is also the clinical vice-president of the Canadian Sleep Society. He said 10 to 15 per cent of Canadians can experience a mild form of seasonal affective disorder, and three to five per cent can have a "terribly disabling" degree of symptoms. Mak also said the weather can affect people in similar ways. Consistent rain, which New Brunswick saw over consecutive weekends this spring, can cause symptoms. New Brunswick hasn't seen a precipitation-free weekend since spring started. The capital, Fredericton, saw its first weekend of sun on June 14 and 15. "Having that on a consistent basis means that people are going to be exposed to less natural sunlight and bright light, which stabilizes our internal body clock, makes our sleep better and makes our mood better," said Mak. He said "more rainy days on average" means mood and sleep just get worse. "It just means that you're not able to enjoy the things you usually like. You don't have the opportunity to go out and exercise, which we know is good for mood and good for sleep." For people affected by the season, Mak suggests trying to exercise indoors and consider sunlight exposure therapy. LISTEN | Simons Sherry explains how to spot seasonal affective disorder: An easy exercise is turning on all the lights in your house. There are also special lights that are designed to treat seasonal affective disorder which are available in retail stores. Exposing yourself to light early in the morning can also help with seasonal affective disorder and depression. Sherry said to also consider cognitive behavioural therapy to help change behaviour.
CTV News
06-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
‘Inevitably going to implode': Here's what experts think about Trump and Musk's relationship as it unravels online
Psychologist Simon Sherry shares what he thinks may be behind public fallouts in the wake of Trump and Musk's online fight. It may be the most high-profile breakup between two of the most powerful and richest men in the world. Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who not too long ago was a strong ally and adviser to the U.S. president, captured the world's attention this week with their war of words on social media, including X, which Musk owns. What could be happening with the alliance between two of the world's most influential men, or what could similar feuds mean? reached out to a wide variety of experts, from a psychologist to Trump's biographer, asking what they think. Simon Sherry, a registered psychologist, said he couldn't speak directly about Trump or Musk since he has not assessed or diagnosed them. However, he said he could speak of individuals who may have certain personality traits and relationship styles that could lead to a similar public fallout. Sherry says people who exhibit narcissistic qualities generally 'don't play nicely' with each other. 'Speaking in general terms, when two narcissistic individuals interact, it often becomes a struggle for dominance,' Sherry, a professor from the department of psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said in a video interview with on Friday. 'So if you've got traits like grandiosity and entitlement, you have a great need for admiration.' 'So if you've traits like grandiosity and entitlement, you have a great need for admiration.' These types of individuals may also be 'low on empathy' and 'cold' during interactions, he adds. 'And if you have that cold and unempathetic style, it's more likely that you're going to escalate conflict, as opposed to move toward repairing a relationship or any sort of a reconciliation.' Bree McEwan, a communication professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga, told in a video interview Friday that the public unravelling between Trump and Musk raises questions. 'This is perhaps an unusual moment where we're having power players in the U.S. government air out all of their beef in online settings,' said McEwan, who specializes in social media's role in personal communication and public discourse. 'It does allow for a lot of conversation and chatter to occur around their discussion, but it also brings up the question of how much of this is a performance, who's that performance for, and how much of this is sort of serious business of these major players,' McEwan added. The high-profile feud also has significant consequences, she adds. 'From a responsibility perspective, when you are two major players whose every action has a huge influence on world markets, there's a point here where maybe you should be picking up the phone and talking to each other, maybe have a conversation in the Oval Office,' she said. Breakup was 'inevitable': Trump biographer Marc Fisher, co-author of the 2016 book 'Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power,' called the duo's breakup 'inevitable.' 'This is a case of two wealthy and narcissistic billionaires, who are very accustomed to having the spotlight entirely to themselves and find that, when someone challenges them, they tend to push back pretty hard,' Fisher said in a video interview with on Friday. He added that the fallout 'makes perfect sense,' with Musk moving on as a top White House adviser. 'He had endangered his own businesses by devoting himself entirely to his time in Washington, and so he's now abandoned Trump and Trump doesn't like that,' he said. 'He doesn't like when people separate from him or critique him in any way, and so we have this battle of the wits and battle of the wills going that very much reflects the personalities of both men.' Both Musk and Trump are prone to 'overreactions' and 'emotional reactions,' Fisher added. 'Both of them see this kind of dispute as something that ought to play out in public, because that gives them even more attention, and attention is really the currency by which they measure their own success,' he said. Fisher adds that the public fight positions Trump as standing up to a billionaire, while Musk may be trying to prove to his stockholders that he's paying attention to his business. 'Neither of them has much to lose here,' he said. 'A marriage of convenience' Fisher doesn't believe Trump and Musk had a genuine connection. 'It was a marriage of convenience, really more of an accident than anything else, doomed from the start,' Fisher said. 'It's the kind of relationship that was perhaps mutually beneficial for a short time but was inevitably going to implode.' For Trump, Musk provided 'extraordinary energy' to allow Trump and his officials to show they were 'really tearing the federal government apart,' Fisher said, noting Trump seems to have less energy now than during his first administration. 'For Musk, this was an opportunity to push forward his business interests, get in close with the president who had a significant sway over whether large government contracts, which are at the heart of Musk's operations, would come his way and stay with his companies,' Fisher said. 'And so this was really, something that seemed mutually beneficial for a time.' 'Kerosene being thrown on this fire' Jeffrey Dvorkin, a media observer and former director of the journalism program at University of Toronto, had some ideas on what may be happening with the insults between the two men online. He called social media the 'kerosene being thrown on this fire.' 'I think that what we're seeing is the acting out of these unresolved issues that stem from childhood, but now have a terrible impact on the rest of us,' the senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto said in a video interview with on Friday, referring to their 'very demanding' fathers. 'It is a destabilizing situation in the United States in the American government, which is never good for anybody.' Meanwhile, he said Musk is 'a disruptor.' 'He's throwing his toys around the room, hoping someone will pick up after him,' Dvorkin said. 'There may be some rationalization of what they're doing and why they're doing it, but I think deep down, we're dealing with two deeply flawed people, who have never really learned how to play well with others.' But Dvorkin sees one benefit in the feud. 'The only advantage I can see is that Canada now has a new prime minister who seems to be a grown up, the adult in the room, and he will now be able to exercise a level of control that maybe the previous prime minister was unable or unwilling to do,' he said.
