Tips for Healing Sadness

by: continuum wellness - November 27th, 2011   Filed under: depression, wellness, women, women's health Add Comment

According to the American Psychiatric Association guidelines medication is the preferred form of treatment for depression (see below).  However this approach has drawbacks such as addiction, side-effects and possible withdraw symptoms.  Try these instead:

  • Check if you have any nutritional imbalances (i.e. B vitamins, vitamin D).
  • Are you addicted to sugar, caffeine, cigarettes or other substances?
  • How much time do you spend outdoors?  Fresh air, outdoor exercising such as walking is highly restorative.
  • How is your sleep?  Remove electronics such as tv’s from the bedroom, and don’t sleep with the tv on.
  • Change how you think.  There are numerous books on the topic.  Our thoughts shape our reality.  If your thoughts are terrorizing you, learn how to change them.
  • Explore homeopathic medicine; this natural approach is free from side-effects and helps to get at the core of the problem.
  • Explore flower essences.
  • Acupuncture can help too.
  • Watch funny movies.  Laugh.
  • Join a local Laughter Yoga chapter in your community.  Can’t find any?  Start one.  Which leads to the last solution on the list.
  • Find someone to help.  As you count your blessings and develop an attitude of gratitude you will become more peaceful.

Sadness in America

  • About one in 10 Americans aged 12 and over takes antidepressant medication.
  • About 14% of Americans taking antidepressant medication have done so for 10 years or longer.
  • Females are more likely than males to take antidepressant medication at every level of depression severity.
  • Non-Hispanic white persons are more likely to take antidepressant medication than persons of other races and ethnicities.
    • Fourteen percent of non-Hispanic white persons take antidepressant medications compared with 4% of non-Hispanic black and 3% of Mexican-American persons.
    • There is no difference by income in the prevalence of antidepressant usage.

Slightly over one-third of persons aged 12 and over with current severe depressive symptoms were taking antidepressants. According to American Psychiatric Association guidelines, medications are the preferred treatment for moderate to severe depressive symptomatology. The public health importance of increasing treatment rates for depression is reflected in Healthy People 2020, which includes national objectives to increase treatment for depression in adults and treatment for mental health problems in children.

References: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Let Exercise Make You Happy

by: continuum wellness - August 31st, 2010   Filed under: Anxiety, depression, exercise, wellness, women, women's health Add Comment

Mental health providers should prescribe exercise more often for depression and anxiety
Traditional treatments of cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy don’t reach everyone

Exercise is a magic drug for many people with depression and anxiety disorders, and it should be more widely prescribed by mental health care providers, according to researchers who analyzed the results of numerous published studies.

“Exercise has been shown to have tremendous benefits for mental health,” says Jasper Smits, director of the Anxiety Research and Treatment Program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “The more therapists who are trained in exercise therapy, the better off patients will be.”

Smits and Michael Otto, psychology professor at Boston University, based their finding on an analysis of dozens of population-based studies, clinical studies and meta-analytic reviews related to exercise and mental health, including the authors’ meta-analysis of exercise interventions for mental health and studies on reducing anxiety sensitivity with exercise. The researchers’ review demonstrated the efficacy of exercise programs in reducing depression and anxiety.

The traditional treatments of cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy don’t reach everyone who needs them, says Smits, an associate professor of psychology.

“Exercise can fill the gap for people who can’t receive traditional therapies because of cost or lack of access, or who don’t want to because of the perceived social stigma associated with these treatments,” he says. “Exercise also can supplement traditional treatments, helping patients become more focused and engaged.”

The researchers presented their findings March 6 in Baltimore at the annual conference of the Anxiety Disorder Association of America. Their workshop was based on their therapist guide “Exercise for Mood and Anxiety Disorders,” with accompanying patient workbook (Oxford University Press, September 2009). For links to more information see www.smuresearch.com.

“Individuals who exercise report fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression, and lower levels of stress and anger,” Smits says. “Exercise appears to affect, like an antidepressant, particular neurotransmitter systems in the brain, and it helps patients with depression re-establish positive behaviors. For patients with anxiety disorders, exercise reduces their fears of fear and related bodily sensations such as a racing heart and rapid breathing.”

After patients have passed a health assessment, Smits says, they should work up to the public health dose, which is 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity activity. At a time when 40 percent of Americans are sedentary, he says, mental health care providers can serve as their patients’ exercise guides and motivators.

“Rather than emphasize the long-term health benefits of an exercise program – which can be difficult to sustain – we urge providers to focus with their patients on the immediate benefits,” he says. “After just 25 minutes, your mood improves, you are less stressed, you have more energy – and you’ll be motivated to exercise again tomorrow. A bad mood is no longer a barrier to exercise; it is the very reason to exercise.”

Smits says health care providers who prescribe exercise also must give their patients the tools they need to succeed, such as the daily schedules, problem-solving strategies and goal-setting featured in his guide for therapists.

“Therapists can help their patients take specific, achievable steps,” he says. “This isn’t about working out five times a week for the next year. It’s about exercising for 20 or 30 minutes and feeling better today.”

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Children seriously affected when a parent suffers from depression

by: continuum wellness - March 9th, 2009   Filed under: adolescents, children, depression, family, healing, Health, healthy mind, men, mind and body, women, women's health Add Comment

The article below outlines some of the challenges that are thrust on a child when a parent is sad or depressed. Homeopathic care (with a qualified homeopath) can offer solutions to those seeking an alternative to allopathic care. Homeopathy is of help for the entire family and as the article below suggests, health services must help the whole family. Visit our site, continuumwellness.org and contact us for more information.

Children seriously affected when a parent suffers from depression

Life is hard for the children of a parent suffering from depression. Children take on an enormous amount of responsibility for the ill parent and for other family members. It is therefore important for the health services to be aware of this and have support functions in place for the whole family, and not just for the person who is ill. This is the conclusion of a thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Registered Nurse Britt Hedman Ahlström has examined the way in which family life is affected when a parent is suffering from depression. Nine families, including ten children and young adults between the ages of 5 and 26, and eleven parents were included in the study.

The results show how the family’s daily life changes and becomes more complicated when a parent is suffering from depression. Uncertainty about what is happening has an effect on the daily life of the entire family. Depression also means that the parent becomes tired and exhausted, which then affects and weighs heavily on the children’s daily life. Depression changes the relationship between a parent and his/her children, since they no longer communicate with each other as they used to. Family interplay and reciprocity decrease. The depressed parent withdraws from the family, and the children feel that they have been left to themselves.

Daily family life becomes unfamiliar to the children

The family members try their utmost, both as individuals and together, to cope with the situation, so that daily life can be restored to a more manageable level. The children take responsibility for both the depressed parent, siblings and themselves, when they notice that the parent cannot cope.

“The toughest burden of responsibility that children take on is ensuring that the depressed parent doesn’t commit suicide. So children take on an extremely heavy responsibility by monitoring and keeping an eye on the depressed parent,” says Britt Hedman Ahlström.

For children, the parent’s depression means both a sense of responsibility and a feeling of loneliness The feelings of responsibility and loneliness include a striving and yearning for reciprocity with the parent, and for things to return to a state of normality.

“Even if the depression goes away for a time, the family is never entirely free from anxiety over it coming back. This means that there is a prolonged period of suffering associated with depression,” says Britt Hedman Ahlström.

Health services must help the whole family

Involving the entire family when a parent becomes ill is important, both for the children and the parents. It is essential to have a well-defined level of guaranteed care on how, when and from whom the families will get support. Psychiatric healthcare personnel meet people suffering from depression at an early stage, and therefore have the opportunity to focus the care on the family, in order to together identify ways of helping the family get through the depression.

“We need a new approach within the health services, in which the focus is on the family’s own perspective when a parent is suffering from depression. It’s vital to be aware of the whole family’s needs in terms of help and support, and not just those of the person who is ill. It’s particularly important to be aware of the children’s situation. Research can therefore focus on how to develop various ways of providing families with care and support, and introduce them into the existing organisation, as well as evaluating the consequences for the whole family, the parents and the children,” says Britt Hedman Ahlström.

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Feeling Sad? Be Careful, You May Spend More

by: continuum wellness - March 2nd, 2009   Filed under: depression, self-care Add Comment

According to the research abstract below, feeling down may lead to an increase in spending.

Misery is not miserly: sad and self-focused individuals spend more.

Psychol Sci. 2008 Jun;19(6):525-30.

Misery is not miserly: Sadness increases the amount of money that decision makers give up to acquire a commodity. The present research investigated when and why the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs. Drawing on William James’s concept of the material self, we tested a model specifying relationships among sadness, self-focus, and the amount of money that decision makers spend. Consistent with our Jamesian hypothesis, results demonstrated that the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs only when self-focus is high. That is, self-focus moderates the effect of sadness on spending. Moreover, mediational analyses revealed that, at sufficiently high levels, self-focus mediates (explains) the relationship between sadness and spending. Because the study used real commodities and real money, the results hold implications for everyday decisions, as well as implications for the development of theory. For example, economic theories of spending may benefit from incorporating psychological theories — specifically, theories of emotion and the self — into their models.

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Antidrepressants May Lead to Bone Loss

by: continuum wellness - July 15th, 2008   Filed under: adolescents, adverse events, healing, seniors, side effects, symptoms, teens, Uncategorized Add Comment

As if it is not hard enough in itself going through a deep sadness, for those who take anti-depressant medication another risk is surfacing, brittle bones. This is a rather serious problem. In the model of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) the kidneys are the rulers of the bones. The kidneys are involved in water metabolism, relate to bone problems (knees, teeth, low back); urinary and sexual issues, growth, mental development and from an emotional perspective relate to fear and insecurity.

The makers of Prozac list osteoporosis as a rare event (1 in 10,000). Are those who have smaller, nagging symptoms ignored? Researchers are also concerned about growing teens that there later health may be affected by taking SSRI medication.

Antidepressant medication should not be stopped suddenly. Following are a few measures to build bone and fight the blues.

  1. Take a daily walk. If you just can’t find the motivation, find a friend, a relative, a neighbor or a coach to help you.
  2. Increase your vit D by spending time in the sun. Find 30 minutes to relax and sunbathe.
  3. Increase your green vegetable intake.
  4. Increase whole grains in your diet.
  5. Make a soup of sprouted barley and kale. Cook the sprouted barley for 10 minutes and add the kale towards the end.
  6. Practice T’ai Chi the gentle exercise strengthen the bones.
  7. Reduce meat intake. Meat in excess interferes with calcium absorption.


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Poor Sleep and Depression in Young Adults

by: continuum wellness - April 4th, 2008   Filed under: insomnia, sleep, Uncategorized 1 Comment

My suggestion for poor sleep is homeopathic care. Daily meditation and relaxation exercises are helpful too. Here’s the research study.

A new study confirms the persistent nature of insomnia and the increased risk of subsequent depression among individuals with insomnia. The study, conducted by Jules Angst, MD, of Zurich University Psychiatric Hospital in Switzerland, focused on 591 young adults, whose psychiatric, physical, and sleep symptoms were assessed with six interviews spanning 20 years. Four duration-based subtypes of insomnia were distinguished: one-month insomnia associated with significant distress, two-to-three-week insomnia, recurrent brief insomnia, and occasional brief insomnia.

According to the results, the annual prevalence of one-month insomnia increased gradually over time, with a cumulative prevalence rate of 20 percent and a greater than two-fold risk among women. In 40 percent of subjects, insomnia developed into more chronic forms over time. Insomnia either with or without comorbid depression was highly stable over time. Insomnia lasting two weeks or longer predicted major depressive episodes and major depressive disorder at subsequent interviews. here for rest of article

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