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Archive for the ‘Mental Health’ Category

When the soul is sad
This text is excerpted from the book “Illness as a way”. I think it greatly facilitates the understanding of a disease that seems to be sweeping the globe and often not given the importance it deserves.

If you feel depressed, seek answers and are willing to recognize that this is not your natural state, perhaps I can be of help.

“Depression is a composite concept by a panel of symptoms ranging from depression and inhibition to the so-called endogenous depression with total apathy. Depression is accompanied by the total stoppage, melancholy and a number of bodily symptoms as fatigue sleep disturbances, poor appetite, constipation, headache, tachycardia, back pain, menstrual disorders in women and lower body tone. The suffering depressive guilt and reproaches continually tries to be forgiven. It asks what actually depresses the depression. In response found three themes:

1. Aggressiveness. Earlier we said that the aggression is not conducted to the outside becomes bodily pain. This statement can be completed saying the repressed aggression in the psychic aspect leads to depression. The locked and not externalized aggression is directed inward and converts the sender to receiver. On account of repressed aggression are charged not only guilt but also the numerous somatic symptoms that accompany it, with widespread pain. Elsewhere only say that aggression is a special form of vital energy and activity. Therefore, the repressed fear that their aggressiveness, energy and also represses its activity. Psychiatry is depressed to induce the activity, but that the depression experienced as a threat. The depressed avoids everything which has no public recognition and tries to hide the aggressive and destructive impulses with a blameless life. The self-directed aggression finds its clearest expression in the suicide. In the desire for suicide should always ask who is it really the purpose.

2. Responsibility. Depression is, apart from the suicide-the ultimate form of escape responsibility. The depressed vegetation but does not act, more dead than alive. But despite his refusal to actively deal with life, depression, through the back door of the feelings of guilt, still face the issue of “responsibility”. The fear of taking responsibility is first of all depressions that occur precisely when the patient has to enter another phase of life, for example, clearly in postpartum depression.

3. Resignation, loneliness, aging, death. These four closely interrelated concepts include the last and, in our opinion, most important set of issues. The patient with depression is violently forced to face the pole of death. All living things, such as motion, change, social interaction and communication is caught up into depression and offers the polar opposite of the living: apathy, immobility, loneliness, thoughts of death. The pole of death so strongly manifested in depression, is the shadow of this patient.

The conflict is feared is that both life and death. The active life brings guilt and responsibility and this is what you want to avoid. Taking responsibility also means giving up the projection and accepting one’s loneliness. The depressive personality is afraid of this and, therefore, needs people to cling to. The separation or death of one of these people is often a trigger for depression. One is alone, and you do not want to live alone and take responsibility. One is afraid of death and, therefore, does not recognize the conditions of life. Depression gives sincerity visible disability to live and die. “.

A point to consider is also that most of our elderly, suffer from depression, very understandable in these cases because their fighting capacity is impaired by his many ailments, as well as the lack of future experience. There are often feelings of worthlessness, fear, loneliness and resignation.

From the perspective of Natural Medicine, which treats human beings in a holistic manner, ie, seeing the whole person, we believe that neither can nor should be addressed to the people affected by anxiety or antidepressant chemicals that trick the patient with a false recovery, but advise you to make a profound change in the form of food and natural supplements to bring back the lost balance.

Mental illnesses are more common than many people believe, and social convention has been that all people with a disorder of this type are seen as “crazy” or “unhealthy.” However, it is necessary to clarify that anyone can suffer from a condition requiring psychiatric care.

Bipolar disorder is one of the evils known worldwide, and is present in a high percentage of the population. It is a disease that is treatable, and with the aid provided the patient can live a full and smooth. The problem is that most health systems do not provide effective tools of containment.

A person is considered “bipolar” when his personality changed drastically in everyday life. You can pass a deep depressive state excessive exaltation, which can cause serious problems. The condition is treated with medication and psychiatric control newspaper, which is very important to consult a physician with deep emotional mismatch situations.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) could be an effective treatment for long-term treatment of major depression, according to a study published in the journal Brain Stimulation.

The MTS delivers magnetic pulses to the left prefrontal cortex to stimulate nerve cells in this region linked to depression, the researchers say. These pulses are of similar intensity to the magnetic field produced when a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Philip G. Janicak of Rush University and colleagues conducted the study with 301 people with major depression. They were randomly assigned to receive treatment magnetic stimulation or a sham treatment for 6 weeks. For those who have seen improvements, active and simulated treatment were then arrested for 3 weeks and gradually they began treatment with antidepressants. They were then followed for 24 weeks.

The results show that TMS is a viable treatment option for people with major depression who do not réponden antidepressant drugs, says Janicak. After an initial response to the MTS, treatment with antidepressant maintained the benefit for most patients during a period of six months, “he summarizes.

A Scientific American article published on August 30 indicated the United States, the GTS for the treatment of severe major depression is now available in private practice across the country. But the technology raises concerns about a very rare side effect but seriously: seizures grand mal triggering a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions.

People linking depression and heart disease have a risk of death from cardiovascular disease almost 4 times higher than those not showing any of these conditions, according to a study by Inserm published in the journal Heart.

In healthy populations, studies have shown that depression was associated with the development of cardiovascular disease, irrespective of specific risk factors for these diseases (unbalanced diet, smoking, physical inactivity, obesity, hypertension).

Hermann Nabi, Archana Singh-Manoux and the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and colleagues analyzed data on 5,936 British civil servants followed over 5 years. The mean age at baseline was 61 years.

After adjustment for potential confounding factors, the risk of death from all causes in people linking depression and heart disease was 2.9 times higher than people without either of these pathologies. This risk is 1.1 times higher in people with heart disease and only 1.8 times higher among those with depressive symptoms only.

As for the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, it was 1.3 times higher in people with heart disease only, 2.4 times higher in people with depressive symptoms only, and up to 3.9 times higher for those involving depressive symptoms and cardiac pathology in relation to the group not having any of these conditions.

The mechanisms underlying the interaction between depression and heart disease remain unclear.

According to a 2005 survey by the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (INPES), 19% of French 15 to 75 years have experienced or will experience depression during their lifetime.

Scientists from University College London discovered that the brain distorts the image we have of our body, which could offer an explanation to certain eating disorders, according to BBC News.

For the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team of Dr. Matthew Longo perception test conducted with 18 volunteers. The experiment consisted of getting people to calculate the size of their hands and then identified from a series of photographs.

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