USE YOUR MIND, BRAIN AND BODY TO UNDERSTAND,
TACKLE, AND BEAT DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS

You may have depression if you feel depressed nearly all the time, on most days, lose interest or pleasure in routine activities, and you experience:

• Loss or gain of significant amounts of weight
• Feel excessively sleepy or unable to sleep virtually all the time
• Notice that you have markedly slowed down and feel sluggish
• Lack energy and feel tired
• Experience lots of guilt or feel worthless
• Lose concentration and have difficulty making decisions
• Think about negative outcomes and self harm

None of this is a substitution for treatment advice, and consultation.  You should consult a recognized health professional if you believe you have depression.

Depression is a mind, brain, and body syndrome.

• Changing patterns of light and dark in the environment can create chain reactions in the pineal gland in the brain changing serotonin into melatonin and vice versa during dark and light in the environment.  Winter can fill some people with forboding, but understanding what is happening can help and be treated.
• Thoughts, memories, emotions and intentions, all create brain activity and physical sensations, making depression literally a type of pain – creating painful emotions.  Cellular memory and the brain itself remembers and plays back pain.  This is the emotional equivalent of learned pain.  The brain gets so familiar with the feeling of misery that it no longer responds to change.  It gets locked into negative feelings.  Unlearning negative memories and learning to think new thoughts involves building new thought pathways and abandoning old ones.
• Brain activity comes about by release of chemicals called neuro-transmitters, which change according to what is happening to us.  In depression, the mechanism which produces pleasure fails to produce or respond to the neuro-transmitters that turn it on.  There are many ways that the brain process and the mind interpret information from the external world.  Depression will not cure itself – getting treatment will lessen the possibility of relapse.
• Depression can be expressed in physical bodily (somatic) symptoms and common interactive symptoms associated with depression are:

• Back ache
• Chest pain
• Dizziness
• General aches and pains
• Fatigue
• Physical illness
• Indigestion
• Joint pains
• Loss of libido
• Palpitations
• Obesity/eating disorders

Depressed people may not link depression with physical symptoms and this can lead to a misunderstanding and underestimation of suffering.  Psychosematic symptoms without any cause may be related to depression.  Physical illness and chronic pain and illness can cause depression.  For example, research shows depression is common amongst asthma sufferers.

Recovery from Depression

The first step in recovery and treatment of all depression is a thorough holistic and careful assessment followed by an informal diagnosis.  A recognized health professional is the first person to visit when seeking help.  Find out as much as possible about your depression.  Recovery is achievable.  The situation is not hopeless – your attitude will make a big difference.

• Psychological Treatments – help people deal with the existing issues in their lives, in terms of past, present and future utilizing cognitive and interpersonal therapies, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and clinical hypnotherapy as well as neuro therapy techniques.
• Complementary Treatments – there is a growing preference for complementary naturopathic approaches, and there is evidence that these treatments can be effective for depression sufferers.  Natural complementary and naturopathic approaches are shown as being certainly worth trying, and approached in a sensible and considered way, may well have benefits for depression and general health, following proper diagnosis.
• Integrated (Holistic) Approaches – Utilise psychological treatments andcomplementary treatments in conjunction with treatments people might already be utilizing such as, yoga, Bowen Therapy, acupuncture etc.  Integrated approaches look at what can be done to keep people healthy and to prevent depression worsening or returning, with people themselves taking an active role in recovery and treatment.  Practical methods are utilized including:

• Support from family and friends
• Nutrition
• Exercise
• Relaxation
• Food and chemical intolerances
• Listening