About Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, Psychiatrist, shrinkMD Founder, and Author

How I Got Here

I didn't plan on psychiatry. In college at the University of North Florida, I worked nights as a psychiatric tech. My job was simple on paper. Sit with people who were hurting.

Some nights it was a business owner who couldn't get out of bed. Other nights it was a man who'd lost almost everything he'd built. The lesson landed in me early and stayed. Mental health doesn't care about bank accounts or zip codes. It can show up in anyone, anywhere. What I saw in those rooms wasn't a character flaw. It was people caught inside systems and stories that told them they were the problem.

I went to St. George's University School of Medicine after that. Residency took me to the University of Hawaii and to John Peter Smith Hospital in Texas. I picked up certificates in Electroconvulsive Therapy and Obesity Medicine from Columbia along the way, and finished a Duke MBA because I wanted to understand how systems get built. Fifteen years later, I'm still answering the same question I started with. What actually helps when someone is suffering, and how do we build a more humane public conversation about it.

How I Think About the Mind

Three principles run through my editorial and educational work.

The body moves first. By the time most people notice they're anxious, their nervous system has already shifted. Heart up, breath high, muscles tight. Trying to think your way out of an activated body is like trying to talk yourself warm. The body needs a real input first. The thinking comes later.

A thought isn't the same as thinking. Thoughts arrive without permission. Thinking is what you do with them, the replaying, the rehearsing, the building of a story around a sentence your brain handed you in passing. Most suffering lives in the thinking, not the thought. The work isn't to control what arrives. It's to stop following every arrival into a six-hour spiral.

Most advice fails in the moment. "Just breathe." "Challenge your thoughts." "Reframe it." These aren't wrong. They're sequenced wrong. The cognitive tools work when the body is calm enough to use them. In the middle of a surge, the body needs regulation first. Skip that step and the tools backfire.

Topics I Write and Speak About

My areas of professional expertise span anxiety, overthinking, depression, obsessive-compulsive patterns, panic, trauma responses, bipolar patterns, and the high-functioning presentations most people quietly carry. I have specialized training in sports and performance psychiatry through the American Board of Sports and Performance Psychiatry, and my professional experience in sports and performance psychiatry includes affiliations involving the NFL Substance Abuse Program and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The patterns I write about most often are the high-functioning ones. The executive who can't slow down. The parent who can't sleep. The athlete whose body keeps performing while her mind runs a race that never ends. The student who's reading the books, doing the work, and still can't quiet the noise. None of them are failing. All of them are running a nervous system that learned a lesson too well.

shariqrefai.com is an educational author and media platform. It does not provide clinical care, treatment, diagnosis, or a physician-patient relationship.

Founder & Executive Focus

Dr. Refai is also the founder of the Shrink Network, an umbrella of independent editorial mental health publications including AnxietyResource.org, DepressionResource.org, AnxietyResearch.org, PsychiatryRx.org, Shrinkopedia, and Shrinktionary. He serves as the medical editor for each publication in the network.

I built shrinkMD because the access gap in psychiatry is real and most existing digital options weren't closing it in a way I'd recommend to my own family. shrinkMD is an independent multistate telepsychiatry company built around continuity of clinician, real follow-up, and multistate licensure. shrinkMD is a separate clinical entity from shariqrefai.com. Clinical care inquiries should be directed to shrinkmd.com.

Unstuck is the wellness side. It's a mental wellness app for reflection, journaling, reminders, and emotional awareness. It's not a medical device. It's not therapy. It's the daily practice tool that sits alongside care, not a substitute for it. The honest separation between wellness and clinical work is something I take seriously, and Unstuck reflects that.

shrinkMD Publishing is the imprint behind the books. Educational frameworks for the general public, written by a clinician, with the disclaimers and the science the topic actually deserves.

Upcoming Publications

Three books are on the way. Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t is the main one, a psychiatrist's guide to overthinking and anxiety written for the person who's already tried the apps. The companion workbook is a hands-on follow-along. The Havoc in Your Head is the in-the-moment response framework, what to do when your mind takes over.

Visit the Books page for descriptions, status, and pre-order updates.

Verified Profiles

Authoritative identifiers and profiles you can use to verify authorship and credentials:

• ORCID: 0009-0009-1090-4373
• Wikidata: Q139822307
• NPI: 1467680660
• LinkedIn
• Doximity
• Forbes Business Council

Featured In

Dr. Refai has been featured as an expert source in The Epoch Times, EatingWell, DomesticShelters.org, Top Doctor Magazine, and Duval County Medical Society.

Editorial Reviewer Role

Beyond my work at shariqrefai.com, I serve as the medical editor and clinical reviewer for four independent editorial publications:

• AnxietyResource.org, an independent editorial publication on anxiety with a 50-entry plain-language Glossary and complete state-by-state directories.
• DepressionResource.org, a long-form patient education site on depression including screening tools, safety plan templates, and crisis resources.
• AnxietyResearch.org, an editorial publication translating current anxiety research into plain-language summaries for general readers.
• PsychiatryRx.org, a plain-language reference site publishing psychiatrist-reviewed guides to psychiatric and sleep medications, sourced from FDA labeling and clinical guidelines.

Every article on all four sites carries my "Authored and editorially reviewed by" credit with a publish and last-reviewed date. My role on all four sites is editorial review for clinical accuracy. All four sites are editorially independent. None sells anything, runs ads, or takes affiliate commissions. See the Medical Review Board page for reviewer roles and standards.