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Clinical Depression is in a Class by Itself When it Comes to Depression

When you hear the term Clinical Depression, what comes to mind?  Clinical Depression is a serious illness.  This illness can affect the way you feel, the way you act and the way you think.  Like other conditions it is a disease and doesn’t make you a loser.  It is a condition that must be addressed.  Functioning like you did in the past will not be easy.  Activities that you once used to find entertaining may fail to interest you anymore.  Clinical Depression results in long term hopelessness and feelings of remorse.  Unlike a cold this isn’t a short term condition.  You won’t feel sad for a few days and then just get over it.  Clinical Depression is long term.  Clinical Depression is a mental disorder characterized by a pervasive low mood and loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities. The general term depression is better used to describe a temporary depressed or sad mood. By contrast, major depression is a serious and often disabling condition that can significantly affect a person’s work, family and school life, sleeping and eating habits, and general health. In Western countries, around 3.4% of people with major depression eventually commit suicide, and up to 60% of all people who commit suicide have depression or another mood disorder. Depressed individuals have a shorter life expectancy than those without depression, being more susceptible to medical conditions such as heart disease. However, depression may be overdiagnosed, and current diagnostic trends arguably have the effect of medicalizing sadness.

Every part of your normal life can be impacted by Clinical Depression.  A change in thought patterns and confusion are common.  Your will is no longer your own as this condition affects your very behaviors and moods.  It will affect your sleep patterns and eating habits, turning your life onto its head.  It’s possible that instead of being able to do your work or to focus on a task like school, you’ll wonder how it was ever possible.  Clinical Depression will target the way you deal with people.  You’ll become a stranger even to yourself.

The understanding of the nature and causes of depression has evolved over the centuries; nevertheless, many aspects of depression are still not fully understood, and are the subject of debate and research. Both psychological and biological causes have been proposed; the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine have been implicated, and most antidepressants work to increase their active levels in the brain. The question of whether there are two separate conditions, or a continuum of a single disorder has been researched since the 1920s. These two sub-groups have shown identical clinical courses, and in 1980 the term major depressive disorder was coined for the combined continuum, and has become widely used.

Common Symptoms of Clinical Depression

There are different forms of clinical depression with different combinations of the following symptoms:

Physical:

* Sleep disturbances-insomnia, oversleeping, waking much earlier than usual
* Changes in appetite or eating: much more or much less
* Decreased energy, fatigue
* Headaches, stomachaches, digestive problems or other physical symptoms that are not explained by other physical conditions or do not respond to treatment

Behavioral/Attitude:

* Loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed, such as going out with friends, hobbies, sports, sex, etc.
* Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions
* Neglecting responsibilities or personal appearance

Emotional:

* Persistent sad or “empty” mood, lasting two or more weeks
* Crying “for no reason”
* Feeling hopeless, helpless, guilty or worthless
* Feeling irritable, agitated or anxious
* Thoughts of death or suicide

Treatment for depression depends on many factors, including the severity of the condition, the persistence of the symptoms, and the person’s personal history with the illness. For many forms of depression, a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressant medications can be an effective treatment. Antidepressant medications can relieve symptoms of depression, while psychotherapy may help you cope with ongoing problems that may trigger or contribute to depression. Most patients are treated in the community with antidepressant medication and supportive counselling, including various forms of psychotherapy; admission to hospital may be necessary in cases associated with self-neglect or a significant risk of harm to self or others. A minority with severe illness may be treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), under a short-acting general anaesthetic.

For the more serious cases of clinical depression, electroconvulsive therapy can be helpful for people who haven’t responded to other treatments or who can’t tolerate antidepressants for other reasons. During electroconvulsive therapy, an electric current is passed through the brain to induce controlled seizures. Experts aren’t sure how electroconvulsive therapy relieves the symptoms of depression. However, it’s believed the procedure may affect levels of neurotransmitters in your brain.

Depression may also be caused in part by an overactive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) that is similar to the neuro-endocrine response to stress. These HPA axis abnormalities participate in the development of depressive symptoms, and antidepressants serve to regulate HPA axis function.

Depression may be connected to sleep abnormalities, or variations in the circadian rhythm. The REM stage of sleep, in which dreaming occurs, tends to be especially quick to arrive, and especially intense, in depressed people. Although the precise relationship between sleep and depression is mysterious, the relationship appears to be particularly strong among those whose depressive episodes are not precipitated by stress. In such cases, patients may be especially unaffected by therapeutic intervention.

As mentioned earlier Clinical Depression is not a personal defect.  It is not an illness that you can wish gone out of your life.  This is not an illness that will be cured through self- control or self-treatment.  It will take a long-term effort – weeks, months or even years of treatment – to control this problem.  People have been known to attempt suicide if this condition isn’t treated. The reasons for the depression may seem known to you.  However many different factors might contribute to this illness.  Typically, it is a group of factors that lead to Clinical Depression.  Your psyche, genetic factors, or even the environment might contribute.

Biological issues such as chemical imbalances can lead to Clinical Depression. Feeling sad and depressed is often a normal reaction to a stressful life situation. For example, it is normal to feel down after a major disappointment, or to have trouble sleeping or eating after a difficult relationship break-up. Usually, within a few days, perhaps after talking to a friend, we start to feel like ourselves again.

Clinical depression is very different. It involves a noticeable change in functioning that persists for two weeks or longer. Imagine that for the last three months you’ve slept more than 10 hours a day and still feel tired, you have stomach problems, you’re unable to cope with life, and you wonder if dying would solve all your problems. Or, imagine not being able to sleep more than four hours a night, not wanting to spend time with family or friends, and constantly feeling irritable. And when friends try to reach out to you, you get even more upset and bothered. You lose perspective, and you don’t realize that what you’re experiencing is abnormal. You want to just “wait it out,” and you don’t get help because you think it’s weak to ask for help or you don’t want to burden your friends.  Stress might also cause this illness.  Many areas of your life can be causing stress that affects your psychological make up .  Our lives are filled with all sorts of potential pressures that can wreak havoc with your system.  It’s well known that alcoholics and drug addicts often contract Clinical Depression. Don’t hesitate to consult a medical professional if you or anyone you know shows signs of this disease.

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When Fear Paralyzes

General Anxiety Disorder affects roughly 4 to 5 million people of the American population alone. The symptoms are many and vary from person to person. There are however a few symptoms that are the same across the board for most people and which generally characterize their lives and lifestyles. The sufferer will live in a chronic and exaggerated state of worry and tension most of the time. Extreme emotions may arise even if there is nothing happening to provoke these feelings. Symptoms can also induce the sufferer to be always anticipating disaster.

Although worry is a natural emotion and most of us experience it from time to time in our daily lives, for the sufferer worry is chronic and most times pathological. Many times the chronic worrier will let their worries overtake their world and will sometimes let it go so far as to incapacitate them in their daily lives.

It can bring on insomnia, panic attacks and depression. Intense anxiety and fear are also quite common to these symptoms. Other more physical, symptoms include headaches, diarrhea and nausea, lightheadedness, trembling or twitching. A palpitating or pounding heart, shortness of breath and trouble concentrating are also effects that can occur.
Irritability and mood swings, constant tension coupled with the inability to relax are all General Anxiety Disorder symptoms, and are all contributing features to other symptoms as well.

This vicious cycle can sometimes take its toll not only on the Disorder sufferer but also on the family of the sufferer. The pressures of living with a person who suffers from GAD, the inability to cope with the persistent and sometimes inconsequential worrying, the constant depression and mood swings can all take their toll. Most families do not survive too well if someone within the family suffers from this disorder.

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Taking Control of Your Health & Well-Being

Do you ever wonder why, in spite of all your good intentions, you just cannot seem to take control over your health and wellness the way you really want to? The answer to that question can be found in the words of Albert Einstein, who reminded us “you cannot correct a problem with the same thinking that created it”. In other words, you cannot change old behaviors without new information.

The Institute of Medicine recently published a study that indicates ninety million Americans are “health illiterate”, which means we do not know how to interpret or use health information to control or improve our health, or prevent chronic disease. Data compiled previously identified, “lack of information as the number one root cause of death”. Understanding that there exists a cause and effect relationship between what we know and how we behave, we need a model of integrating this important information to change the behaviors that lead to chronic disease. According to a 7-year, 1996, Harvard Medical School study, approximately 70% of all cancers are preventable through lifestyle changes. Furthermore, our diseases and conditions are primarily a result of stress, food, environment, attitude, emotions or beliefs that keep us in behaviors that lead to illness. Which invites the question, are we consciously choosing to be unhealthy, or do we just not understand sufficiently the relationship between what we think, how we behave, what we put into our bodies and how we keep ourselves well or make ourselves sick?

In a world exploding with health information, especially on the internet, we are caught in the dilemma of having abundant amounts of information, without a context through which we can understand and utilize this information in a way that is appropriate for our own unique personal health needs. There is, however, good news – making its way into the mainstream of health care is an integrated model of health information and education that provides a “whole picture of health” perspective, allowing each of us to discern and create our own unique approach to taking charge of our health and well-being. Whole Health Education, developed over the past 28 years, in cooperation with Boston physicians, nurses and educators, is an approach to understanding the cause and effect our behaviors and choices have on our state of health. Demystifying the five major factors that influence how sick or well we become, Whole Health Education provides a perspective on human anatomy and physiology, bio-chemistry, psycho-social, environmental and spiritual aspects which allows for an authentic understanding of what we need know to resolve chronic health problems or to stay healthy. Integrating evidence-based information with the wisdom of various spiritual teachings and a whole-person overview of behavioral options, Whole Health Education offers each of us a tool for personal health management by providing personalized health information that explains the physical, emotional, nutritional, environmental and spiritual aspects of a health concern.

For example, Mature Onset Diabetes affects approximately 18.2 million Americans and is the leading health concern in our culture today. As all chronic conditions are, Mature Onset Diabetes is a multi-dimensional disease state and the unique Whole Health perspective, can facilitate the restoration of health for those with chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Physical/Structural

What happens on a physical and structural level with Mature Onset Diabetes? The specialized beta cells of the pancreas, which produce insulin, become incapable of producing adequate amounts of the critically necessary secretion. This happens over a period of years and can begin in our bodies, over time, by eating large amounts of insulin-provoking foods. These insulin provocateurs, which are sugars and starches in the form of complex carbohydrates, require the pancreas to produce more insulin so that the sugars can be carried over the cell membranes to all parts of the body. Serious disturbances occur when we do not have enough insulin to carry the sugar over the cell membranes. Insulin hooks onto the sugar molecule and acts like a lock and key mechanism to bring that sugar into the cell which is then used in the energy cycle of cell metabolism. The nervous system, brain and the lungs cannot function without the proper metabolism of sugars.

Emotional/Social

Just as diabetes is a lack of nourishment on a chemical/nutritional level, so is it a lack of emotional nourishment on an emotional/mental level. It relates to the “feel good” nourishment component of your body. What do we know about carbohydrates and serotonin? Carbohydrates provoke the production of serotonin. Serotonin is a neuro-transmitter that produces a feeling of well-being. There is a direct relationship between what our body is doing chemically and how we feel emotionally. When we crave or build our diet around carbohydrates, this can be a way of “self-medicating” our emotional needs by eating carbohydrates to provoke insulin production.

Sugar problems can affect us emotionally. Let’s say you have a pancreas that is not working properly. What can happen somatic/psychically from the pancreas to the brain? If we are feeling the ups and downs of hypoglycemia, and its biochemical/neurological symptoms, it may undermine our sense of security, self esteem, and produce anxiety and fear.

What is the emotional component of diabetes and the pancreas? Often, it can be a poor sense of self-esteem and a fear of not being “good enough” or not belonging. These feelings, medicated by the serotonin foods, can lead us to not look deeply enough into what is causing our health concerns and allow the feeling/feeding cycle to continue.

Chemical/Nutritional

On the nutritional side, the treatment for people with Mature Onset Diabetes is to decrease the stress on the pancreas by making changes in their diet — decrease starches and sugars and decrease calories. Eat less, eat right. What kind of a diet would be best for preventing Mature Onset Diabetes? Vegetables, vegetables, and vegetables combined with lean proteins such as fish, chicken, water, a little fruit and a little fat. In a hypoglycemic situation, it is wise not to eat grain or sugar, but sprouted grain bread, and other substitutes can be healthy and satisfying.

Because hormones are chemicals, diabetes and hypoglycemia are both hormonal-based problems. What we know about the hormone system is that it works as a balanced interdependent system. Diabetes is an endocrine-related, systemic problem. With a systemic problem like diabetes, you have a body system problem–you do not just have a condition by itself. It is known that the pancreas is related, through hormone interaction, to the adrenals, and the adrenals are in turn related to the reproductive system. It is known that these glands are related through hormone interactions to the pituitary and the pituitary is related to the thyroid gland, the thyroid is related to the thymus, and the thymus is related to the immune system.

Environmental/Internal & External

The environment that we work in, live in, walk through, live near — how does that environment have an impact on the way that we feel and the way we feel about ourselves?

How do we learn to trust in the order of the universe? By behaviors that come from trusting the order inside ourselves. We do this by setting boundaries — codes of conduct of how we are going to behave, eat, work exercise and live. If we don’t violate our own boundaries, we are less likely to let anybody else violate our boundaries. We have to start with ourselves. Our experience of victimization can begin with our own self-victimizing behavior.

Spiritual/World View

A Hindu Vendata truth is that “the whole world is one family”. It is said that there is only one disease, the disease of separateness, separating oneself from the awareness that we are one living organism. Competition creates isolation. The spiritual challenge presented by hypoglycemia and diabetes appears to be involved with over- or under-valuing the self: judgment of self and then others. Where are we in the process of getting to the truth that we are all equally important? The drama created by a one-up or one-down dynamic that we may allow to be part of our experience can lead to psychophysiology and the behavioral issues which can contribute to and create Mature Onset Diabetes.

Whole Health Education can transform our experience of taking care of ourselves. It can provide an understanding of our health concerns and conditions from this multi-dimensional perspective that makes sense in a way we can utilize the information directly and in a meaningful way. In addition, having the information provided in a mindful, respectful way that invites each of us to discern what we know about our health and condition, how to choose to resolve the problem and what kind of care we choose to have, allows each of us to experience whole-person health care through whole health information. Then, WE become the center of our health and healing process, rather than the doctors or practitioners we go to for guidance.