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I just wanted to take a minute to thank sheepwoman for responding to so many of my posts.It's people like you that make all of this a little easier.You're the first other person I've ever talked to that has went longer than my son without sleep.It's just nice to know there's other people out there going through the same things
(-slw)
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Depression & Mental Health FAQs
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated 40 million Americans living today will suffer from major depressive illness during their lives. Seasonal affective disorder is major depression that appears in the fall or winter and goes away in spring, thought to be caused by lack of sunlight.
Postpartum depression occurs within four weeks of a women giving childbirth. Most new mothers suffer from some form of the �baby blues.� Postpartum depression, by contrast, is major depression, thought to be triggered by changes in hormonal flows associated with childbirth. Catatonic depression is a rare form of major depression characterized by (at least two): Stupor, excessive motor activity, extreme negativism, peculiarities in voluntary movement, and repetition of other people's words or actions. - mcmanweb.com
Psychotic depression is a rare form of depression characterized by delusions or hallucinations, such as believing you are someone you are not and hearing voices.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 18.8 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the US population age 18 and older in a given year, have a depressive disorder. Depression is a chronic illness that exacts a significant toll on
America's health and productivity. It affects more than 21 million
American children and adults annually and is the leading cause of
disability in the United States for individuals ages 15 to 44.
Lost productive time among U.S. workers due to depression is estimated
to be in excess of $31 billion per year. Depression frequently
co-occurs with a variety of medical illnesses such as heart disease,
cancer, and chronic pain and is associated with poorer health status
and prognosis. It is also the principal cause of the 30,000 suicides
in the U.S. each year. In 2004, suicide was the 11 th leading cause of death in the United States, third among individuals 15-24.
According to the World Health Organization, depression is presently on track to becoming the world's second-most disabling disease (after heart disease) by the year 2020. Depression is responsible for some $87 billion a year in lost productivity in the US (a conservative estimate), and according to Bank One, is responsible for most lost work days in its employees after pregnancy and childbirth. Additionally, one million people worldwide die by their own hand, most as a result of a mood disorder. Finally, the linkage between depression and a host of physical illnesses makes it arguably the world's greatest killer.
Research presented at the 56th Annual Conference of the Canadian
Psychiatric Association shows a marked link between bipolar disorder
and migraines. The odds of migraine in persons with bipolar disorder were 40% higher than the general population. Data
obtained from 36,984 people aged 15 and over, who screened positive for
manic or depressive episodes with migraine, were compared against those
who screened positive for mania but who didn�t suffer from migraines. Amongst
males, 14.9% of those with manic episodes were also diagnosed with
migraines compared with 5.8% of the general population. Amongst
females, 34.7% had both migraines and bipolar disorder compared with
14.7% who only had migraines.unquote.gif While the research was
skewed towards persons who were already diagnosed with bipolar
disorders, what does it mean for people who suffer from migraines but
who may have an undiagnosed bipolar disorder?
Migraines and headaches aren�t fully understood but the manifestations are very real and debilitating for their sufferers: Throbbing pain Nausea Heightened sensitivity to light or sound Seeing dots, wavy lines, flashing lights, or blind spots Difficulty with speech, sensation, or movement
An estimated 2.1 million
American adolescents have experienced major depression within the last
year, according to a new comprehensive government study. Researchers
surveyed more than 67,000 young people ages 12 to 17 and found that one
in 12 had suffered from serious depression in the previous year.Nearly
13 percent of girls had struggled with depression, compared to less
than 5 percent of boys. Odds of depression increased with age -- just 4
percent of 12-year-olds experienced depression but that climbed to 11
percent for older teens.
Our DF Members
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Make a Gratitude Adjustment Feeling thankful is one key to happiness, so count your blessings for a boost.
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By:Lauren Aaronson
As a child, Chris Peterson absolutely hated writing thank-you notes. His aversion continued right into his 40s, until one day he knew he had to face it.
A psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Peterson regularly gave his students an unusual homework assignment. He asked them to write a "gratitude letter," a kind of belated thank-you note to someone in their lives. Studies show such letters provide long-lasting mood boosts to the writers. Indeed, after the exercise, Peterson says his students feel happier "100 percent of the time."
But what Peterson didn't tell his students was that he couldn't bring himself to write his own letters. "I just thought it would be corny to do," he remembers.
When he finally forced himself to put pen to paper, Peterson avoided embarrassing sentiments by "cloaking it all in humor." His thanks wound up feeling insincere and didn't cheer him. When he tried again, he says, "I spoke from the heart."
The Snowball Effect
Gratitude is a sentiment we'd all do well to cultivate, according to positive psychologists, mental health clinicians and researchers who seek to help everyone create more joy in life. Feeling thankful and expressing that thanks makes you happier and heartier—not hokier.
The biggest bonuses come from experiencing gratitude habitually, but natural ingrates needn't despair. Simple exercises can give even skeptics a short-term mood boost, and "once you get started, you find more and more things to be grateful for," says Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher at the University of California at Davis.
In gratitude letters like those penned by Peterson and his students, writers detail the kindnesses of someone they've never properly thanked. Read this letter aloud to the person you're thanking, Peterson says, and you'll see measurable improvements in your mood. Studies show that for a full month after a "gratitude visit" (in which a person makes an appointment to read the letter to the recipient), happiness levels tend to go up, while boredom and other negative feelings go down. In fact, the gratitude visit is more effective than any other exercise in positive psychology.
Your Happiness List
Gratitude needn't be directed at another person to hit its mark. Take just a few minutes each day to jot down things that make you thankful, from the generosity of friends to the food on your table or the right to vote. After a few weeks, people who follow this routine "feel better about themselves, have more energy and feel more alert," Emmons says. Feeling thankful even brings physical changes, studies show. List-keepers sleep better, exercise more and gain a general contentment that may counteract stress and contribute to overall health.
Gratitude exercises do call for a certain amount of openness. Emmons remembers one woman who wrote the same gratitude list every day: "my cat, my dog and my apartment." In addition to slighting her dog as second-best, the woman probably didn't feel the fruits of gratitude, Emmons says, because she didn't put much thought or care into her task. Exercises "can be done with skepticism, but not with cynicism," Peterson notes.
At First, Fake It
For people who want to activate their gratitude, but feel slightly silly about the exercises, Peterson advises, "fake it until you can make it." Say "thank you" enough, he reasons, and your mind will fall in line with your words. Think you don't have anyone to thank? Gratitude "doesn't depend on circumstances," Emmons says.
You can be grateful for just about anything that you've received in part because of someone or something else. You may feel grateful to your neighbor for a car pool, to luck for meeting your spouse, to nature for a scenic view or to fate or a higher power for your safety. Thankfulness helps you see that you're an object of love and care. Says Emmons: "Your self-esteem is bolstered when you say, 'Hey, people have done things for me.'"
A conscious focus on gratitude may also remind you of unassuming pluses that get lost in the ups and downs of a busy life. "The most important blessings are the ones that are most consistent," such as family, health and home, says Philip Watkins, an Eastern Washington University psychologist. "And those are the ones we take for granted." Grateful reflection helps you pick out and savor the good in life, even if the good isn't flashy.
What's more, gratitude turns your attention to what you do have instead of what you don't, Watkins suggests. Consistently ungrateful people tend to think that material goods, such as a big-screen TV, or winning the lottery will make them happy. On the other hand, people who recognize the blessings they have tend to think they'll get happiness from things like fulfilling relationships—which, research shows, are the real sources of satisfaction. Because grateful people don't fixate on money or material goods, they may cut back on envy and nagging comparisons with the Joneses.
Get Noticed
Gratitude may chase away thoughts far worse than a desire for a big-screen TV. Traumatic memories fade into the background for people who regularly feel grateful, Watkins's experiments show. Troublesome thoughts pop up less frequently and with less intensity, which suggests that gratitude may enhance emotional healing. Thankfulness helps the brain fully process events, Watkins speculates. Grateful people achieve closure by making sense of negative events so that they mesh with a generally positive outlook.
When individuals start a daily gratitude journal, they begin to feel a greater sense of connectedness to the world. "The differences are noticed by others," Emmons says. "People who know them say they're more helpful." Thankfulness may launch a happy cycle in which rich friendships bring joy, which gives you more to be grateful for, which fortifies your friendships once again.
Even a simple "thank you" spurs people to act in compassionate ways they might not otherwise consider. People thanked for giving directions help more willingly in the future, social workers who get thank-you letters visit their clients more often, and diners whose waiters write "thanks" on the check give bigger tips.
Call it corny, but gratitude just may be the glue that holds society together.
This content is Copyright Sussex Publishers, LLC. 2006.
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Depression & Mental Health FAQs 2
What is Clinical Depression? Clinical
depression can affect your body, mood, thoughts, and behavior. It can
change your eating habits, how you feel and think about things, your
ability to work and study, and how you interact with people. Clinical
depression is not a passing mood, a sign of personal weakness or a
condition that can be willed away. Clinically depressed people cannot
"pull themselves together" and get better. Depression can be
successfully treated by a mental health professional or certain health
care providers. With the right treatment, 80 percent of those who seek
help get better. And many people begin to feel better in just a few
weeks.
Depression a Big Factor in Poor Health World Health Organization Finds Depression Often Goes Untreated By Salynn Boyles WebMD Medical News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD Sept.
6, 2007 -- Depression has a greater impact on overall health than
arthritis, diabetes, angina, and asthma, but it all too often goes
unrecognized and untreated, a report from the World Health Organization
(WHO) suggests. more... Depression a Big Factor in Poor Health
For Additional Information About Depression Write To: The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8184, MSC 9663 Bethesda, MD 20892-9663
For free brochures on depression and its treatment call: 1-800-421-4211. or visit: http://www.nimh.nih.gov
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