Expert Advice On Beating Depression And Finding Happiness Again
When you're depressed it doesn't just affect your moods. It interferes with every aspect of life. It can damage your interpersonal relationships, as well. Continue reading to learn intelligent ways of handling depression, and make immediate improvements in your life.
A great tip that can help you fight depression is to make sure you're eating a healthy diet. If you're getting in poor nutrition, you might become tired and sluggish. This can lead to depression. Eating healthy can go a long way in helping you get out of your depression.
Balance your diet to control your depression. If you go too long between meals, you'll end up tired and irritable, which makes your depression worse. Eating too much, however, will make you feel sluggish and guilty. Eat small meals on regular intervals to keep your energy levels up and your brain operating at its peak.
If you suffer from depression, it is important to acquire interests and activities to keep your mind stimulated. Taking part in activities is crucial for mental health, as it increases self-esteem and helps to keep your mind off of negative thoughts and emotions. All depressed people should attempt to take up a hobby that gives them joy.
If you're working on your personal issues, it can help you with your depression. You can avoid getting overwhelmed if you do this in baby steps. You can get a handle on your depression and lessen its effects by taking this one step at a time approach.
Try to avoid "glass half empty" types of people. If you suffer from depression than it is likely that you already have a pessimistic outlook on life and by hanging out with other people like this, you will only feed into your own negative thoughts. Focus on finding people with high spirits.
If depression is the only company you keep, you will keep yourself depressed! As hard as it may be to face the world or anyone in it when you are feeling depressed, seeing a friend or family member may be the best remedy. Even if it's just to take your mind off of your troubles temporarily, you will find the company of others can go a long way in making you feel better!
Try aromatherapy as a treatment for depression. Certain scents are known to affect your mood. You can either buy ready-to-use aromatherapy oils or make your own. Simply dilute the herbs with a little vegetable oil and rub into your skin. You can also add a few drops to your bath water or scent the entire room with a diffuser. Helpful herbs for depression include lavender, lemon, rose, and geranium.
Try to avoid being alone in your saddest moments. Whether you are talking to a trusted friend or just watching television with your spouse, being together with another person can often help you to feel as though you are not holding on to this entire problem yourself and this will alleviate some of the pain.
Use these tips as the first steps on your journey to recovery. Depression can be a terrible feeling, but as time passes you will find that you are starting to feel a little better. Take your time and don't force yourself to act happy if you aren't. Everything is unfolding in perfect time, including you.
YOUR HEALTH: Stimulate your depression
Treatments include counseling, medications, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, to stimulate the mood-regulating parts of the brain.
"Not all patients respond to the medication or to the neuromodulation," explained Dr. Francisco Romo-Nava, a physician scientist at the University of Cincinnati's Lindner Center of HOPE.
Dr. Romo-Nava and his colleagues are studying a new way to treat mental health disorders.
The neuroscientists are testing a device that delivers stimulation to a patient's spine.
Dr. Romo-Nava says the stimulation will improve the feedback in the central nervous system that is sometimes disrupted when a person has a psychiatric disorder.
For now, patients undergo spinal stimulation for 20 minutes, three times a week, for eight weeks.
"The kind of stimulation that we use is very well tolerated," he explained.
"The most frequent description is like a tingling sensation
Researchers say this stimulation therapy could be the first step to developing better treatment for some patients.
Dr. Romo-Nava was granted a patent for the stimulation method that utilizes transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation for the treatment of psychiatric disorders.
He says his research team is trying to determine how often, and how long, patients should undergo the stimulation for the best results.
Between 80% and 90% of people with depression respond well to treatment, and almost all patients gain some relief from their symptoms.
A new form of magnetic brain stimulation relieved symptoms of severe depression in 90% of participants in a study conducted by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The researchers are conducting a larger, double-blinded trial in which half the participants are receiving fake treatment and are optimistic it will prove to be similarly effective in treating people whose condition hasn't improved with medication, talk therapy, or other forms of electromagnetic stimulation.