healfrmdepress

How You Can Cure Your Depression in Five Minutes

healfrmdepress · May 15, 2018 ·

The title of this blog is How You Can Cure Your Depression in Five Minutes. The first thing you must be thinking when reading this title is. “Is this a gimmick. How can you cure depression in five minutes.”

Actually this talk is based on a NY Times article published on April 13, 2018 titled “How Sky Diving Cured My Depression.” In the article, the author shares how one experience of skydiving allowed him to release his obsessive thoughts and worries.

How can this be? Well, it seems that researches around the world are currently studying the effectiveness of adventure sports in combating anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Here’s how it works. When a person is depressed, his or her brain is invaded by automatic negative thoughts which which create neural pathways in the brain that make the negative thoughts stronger and stronger. You can think of these neural pathways as being like grooves in an LP vinyl record.

The way out of this negative thinking is to focus on the moment, and when you’re skydiving you can only focus on the here and now. If you forget to pull the parachute release..,. Thus, according to author and counselor Brian Stogsdill, action sports like skydiving are a very effective way to rewire the brain’s focus back into the present moment. That is why when I start to feel low or anxious, I hop on my bike and climb a hill called Rocky Butte. By the time I get to the top of the 350 foot climb, all I can think about is my next breath.

According to the author of the article, skydiving was a particularly effective in reducing his anxiety. He said, “Skydiving changed my relationship with fear which had become a regular part of my daily life while I was depressed.
I was afraid of reaching out to others and getting rejected., But do know what is scarier than rejection? Jumping out of awn airplane.
I was afraid to take risks. But you know what is scarier than failure? Jumping out of an airplane.
I was afraid to talk to anyone about my depression, but do you know what is scarier than being vulnerable? Jumping out of an airplane.”
He concludes, “I survived the scariest thing I can imagine doing, and now I feel like there’s nothing left in this world to be afraid of.”

Of course, if you experience chronic depression or anxiety, one skydive is not going to change your life, even though the writer said, “After my sky dive, I was able to think clearly for the first time in months.” However if you introduce present moment activities into your life and practice them on a regular basis your brain will start to change for the better. It’s interesting that the author says that after his experience of skydiving he was able to think clearly. That’s exactly what happens to me after an intense bike ride. My mind is clear, as if someone had swept away my mental cobwebs.

So, the takeaway from all of this is that to decrease your symptoms of depression or anxiety, you should get the state of flow—a mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. (On screen) This may be any athletic activity, playing musical instrument, painting or drawing, riding a motorcycle (for adrenaline), solving a Sudoku puzzle, or watching your favorite series on television or Netflix. In this way, you can escape being stuck in your negative thinking and return to the hear and now.

Is Facebook Making You Depressed?

healfrmdepress · April 20, 2018 ·

I recently read this to this article in The Guardian titled, “Facebook admits it poses mental health risk.” Apparently, studies have found that spending time on Facebook “passively consuming information” can leave people “feeling worse.” There are three reasons I believe this is true.

To begin, Facebook and other media sites give people a false sense of connection s most of you know, I consider social connection and social support to be one of the three essential ingredients of mental health. People go on Facebook to connect with their friends and family. But is this really connecting? When two people are together gace-to-face, a chemical interaction between their brains makes them feel close and bonded. But, for this chemical interaction to occur, the people must be having a live, personal communication.

You are not going to get the same experience if you are sitting at your computer all day and Facebooking friends and acquaintances. This is why the article in the Guardian says mobile phones and social media have redefined modern relationships, making people “alone together.”

Second, reading about other people’s lives online can lead to “negative social comparison,” the tendency to compare yourself to others and find yourself lacking. When you go on Facebook to see how your friends are doing what you see is only the positive aspects of their lives. They may be talking about their recent trip to the Caribbean or their child’s being accepted to a prestigious university. You may think to yourself, “Their lives are perfect and I feel like crap. So, comparing your else to others is a trap, and to the extent that being Facebook make it tempting to do so, it is bad for your mental health

Finally, when you are sitting in front of a computer for extended periods of time, it is bad for your physical health. Some have called excessive sitting “the new smoking.” The body was designed to move. This is why study after study shows that exercise is one of the best treatments for depression.

Of course, Facebook is not all bad. It’s a way for people to find old friends and it has recently been used to organize social movements such as the West Virginia’s teacher’s strike and the young people’s March on Washington. The key is, like everything else, to use it in moderation. So if you suffer from depression or anxiety and spend time on Facebook, make sure that you balance it out, but taking a break to move your body, and spending time with those you love.

How to Rewire Your Anxious Brain

healfrmdepress · October 3, 2017 ·

This blog on anxiety is called How to Rewire Your Anxious Brain, and it’s purpose of this video is to give you an overview of how to heal anxiety disorders. You can do this by looking at the two major brain circuits that are involved with anxiety. The first circuit is in the neocortex or the thinking brain. This part of the brain allows you to think and plan for the future, and to anticipate that future.

The second circuit involves the amygdala, and almond shaped structure in the midbrain. The amygdala is called “the sentinel of fear,” and its job is to warn you of any danger and is always on the lookout for some threat. It is wired to protect you from harm before the thinking brain even knows what he harm is.

Problems arise in the prefrontal cortex when we think about the future and exaggerate the negative outcomes and. This causes us to worry and to to “catastrophize.” The way to treat this type of anxiety is to use cognitive behavioral therapy to replace fearful, unrealistic thoughts with rational and realistic thoughts. Thus, if you are preparing for a job interview and thinking to yourself, “I’ll never get this job. And when I don’t get it I won’t be able to pay my rent and I’ll become homeless,” This is going to cause you to feel a great deal of anxiety. Using cognitive therapy, you can tell yourself “I’m well prepared for this interview,” or “I am as qualified as any of the other candidates.” This will calm your mind down and will decrease the physical symptoms of anxiety.

The second pathway in the brain that creates anxiety involves the amygdala, an almond shaped structure located in the emotional brain. The amygdala creates the physical sensations of anxiety which are more difficult to treat than the cortex induced anxiety.

The amygdala is called the sentinel of fear and is always on the lookout for some threat. The amygdala is wired to respond quickly enough to save your life and it seizes control in times of danger. And because of this wiring, it is difficult, if not impossible, to use reason-based thought processes that arise in the cortex to control amygdala-based anxiety. This is why it is hard to talk yourself out of an anxiety attack. The amygdala induces the fear response, even where is nothing out there to be afraid of. This is what happens in PTSD.

The key to healing amygdala-based anxiety is to use strategies that directly impact the brain and nervous system and bypass the thinking mind. Three examples are exercise, deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. Another one, taught in the DBT training, is to put your face in sink or bucket of cold water and hold your breath for as you long as you can. Doing this activates what is called “the dive response” which in turn activates the relaxation response. This may sound a bit unusual, but I have been told that it does work.

In conclusion, the key to rewiring your anxious brain is to first decide which brain pathway is determining your anxiety. If it is the cortex and you have issues with worrying about the future or anticipating the worst, than you should seek out cognitive based tools to correct your thinking errors.

On the other hand if you suffer from amygdala-based anxiety, which means that you feel anxious but there is no obvious cause—you just are fearful without knowing why, then you need to seek out strategies that will calm the amygdala and reduce the activation that has been created in your body. And in either case, you will want to be sure that you are seeing a counselor or therapist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety.

Should You Be Taking Psychiatric Medications?

healfrmdepress · June 20, 2017 ·

The title of today’s blog is “Should You Be taking Psychiatric Medications? This is a question that every single one of clients and group members asks.

Let me begin by asking a simple question. Can you imagine someone waking up , jumping out of bed, and saying with great excitement, “I just can’t wait to take my morning dose of Prozac!” In sixteen years of talking with my clients about medication, no one, myself included, has ever answered yes to that question. This demonstrates the ambivalence that many of us have about taking drugs for our anxiety or depression.

Now, what is the nature of this ambivalence? There are many reasons.

First of course there are the negative side effects.

Some of these side effects can be severe, causing a paradoxical response to the drug. As Dr. Jay Cohen wrote in the journal Postgraduate Medicine, “People vary in their sensitivity to drugs. One person’s remedy may be another person’s overdose.”

For example, I was thrown into an agitated depression in 1996 by taking a single dose of the antidepressant Effexor. Other people have reported the same experience with other SSRI medications.

Then there is the stigma of medication. An eighteen year old teenager told me that he didn’t want to be on medications because he was afraid that his peers would find out.

Finally, there is the question, How effectiveness are antidepressants anyway?” The National Institute of Health of the US Government published a study in early 2017 which concluded that 40-60% of people had improved moods with an antidepressant, but 20 to 40% who were given a sugar pill and were told it was an antidepressant also improved. In other words, antidepressants outperformed the placebo for only 20, out of 100 cases, or a 20% effectiveness. Not very high.

Yet, there are times that antidepressants can make a big difference in people’s lives. So to find out if you should be taking psychiatric medications, here is what you can do. If you begin to notice you have the symptoms of anxiety or depression, start by using the conservative non-medication tools and strategies. In addition to the information on my YouTube channel and website, there so many other resources that explain how to rewire your brain without using drugs.

Try these out for a few weeks. If you notice that your symptoms are decreasing, great. But if you notice that they are staying the same or increasing, then it is time to get out what I like to refer to as “the heavy artillery”-—Medications, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). One of my clients who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder would have horrible dips ever three weeks that were so bad, she couldn’t work. After trying things like exercise, diet, and cognitive therapy she went on Lexapro. The medication has been so effective that she hasn’t had a dip in six months.

So despite the fact that antidepressants have never helped me, I have seen psychiatric medication work in too many cases to dismiss it. Or as someone once said, “My karma ran over my dogma.”

What is Prozac Poop-Out and How Can I Deal With It?

healfrmdepress · May 16, 2017 ·

The title of today’s blog is What is Prozac Poop-Out and What Can You Do About It? Now, before you accuse me of making up a silly term, I want to let you know that this is a clinically known and accepted term that is used by the psychiatric profession. What I am going to do in this blog is tell you what Prozac poop-out is, what causes it, how often it occurs, and most importantly, how you can deal with it.

Prozac poop-out is a phenomenon where a person’s antidepressant simply stops working as well as it once did, causing a relapse of depression symptoms. Although this phenomenon is most commonly referred to as “Prozac poop-out,” it can actually occur with any SSRI. As one client told me, “I had been taking the antidepressant Celexa for two years. I felt great. Then one day it stopped working?”

Here is another version of Prozac poop-out that many have experienced. Sandy was taking the SSRI Effexor for depression. It worked, and by the end of for six months her symptoms decreased to the point that I she decided to taper off the drug. Then four months later, she felt her symptoms returning. But when she went back to the Effexor, it no longer worked. She felt no relief from any of her symptoms.

While the true incidence of Prozac poop-out is uncertain, some studies suggest that 25 to 30 percent of people will notice a decrease in effectiveness of their antidepressants over time. No one really understands the cause, but the leading theory is that the receptors in the brain become less sensitive to the effects of the antidepressant. This is akin to the body building a tolerance to alcohol or drugs over time.

If you experience Prozac Poop-out, the first thing you should do if you notice Prozac poop out is schedule an appointment to talk with your doctor. She will want to know if there is any stress happening in your life that could be contributing to your depression.

In addition to lowering stress, there are several strategies that have been tried to help people deal with Prozac poop-out Some of these include:

Increasing the dose of your particular medication.
Switching to another SSRI or a drug from a different class of antidepressants –
Lowering the dose or taking a drug holiday for a period of time, hoping that the medication will again be effective.
Augmenting treatment with a second drug such as a mood stabilizer or an antipsychotic.
Adding in either psychotherapy or counseling.
Adding in lifestyle changes that may help with depression.

This last strategy brings me to the point of this blog. In my video, “It Takes More Than a Pill to Heal From Depression,” I said the best way to treat depression involves using a holistic approach, involving physical self-care, mental-emotional self-care, social support, spiritual connection and lifestyle habits. While medications can be a useful tool in this system, one should never rely exclusively on them, because one day they may stop working.

On the other hand, when you work with the lifestyle approach first, you have a distinct advantage, as many lifestyle habits such as exercise are as effective as drugs in treating mild depression. Does this mean that I am against medication? Absolutely not. I have seen medications like Prozac and Luvox help people with obsessive thoughts. And if these or other medication stop working, this does not mean you can’t try a new medication to replace the old one. But antidepressants often take 4-6 weeks to work.

Thus, while you are waiting for the antidepressant to kick in, you can practice the numerous self-care activities that I write about in my book Healing From Depression and teach on this website. And if the new drug doesn’t work, you will have already made progress in your depression recovery.

healfrmdepress

FREE e-tip Newsletters