According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 9% of American adults live with depression. It’s also worth mentioning that a major depressive episode is the leading cause of disability for Americans between the ages of 15 and 44. Antidepressants are commonly prescribed to treat people with moderate or severe depression. And while […]
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 9% of American adults live with depression. It’s also worth mentioning that a major depressive episode is the leading cause of disability for Americans between the ages of 15 and 44.
Antidepressants are commonly prescribed to treat people with moderate or severe depression. And while these drugs do offer some relief, they often come with some pretty nasty side effects such as:
That’s quite a list.
The obvious problem is these side effects can make someone who is depressed feel even worse. But there is some good news.
Studies on exercise and depression are conclusive: Not only does exercise treat depression, it can also prevent it. In fact, researchers from Duke University found exercise to be as effective as medicine.
Exercise not only increases blood flow to the brain, it also releases endorphins, which are the body’s own natural antidepressants. Exercise also releases other neurotransmitters, like serotonin, which lift mood.
The really good news is, it only takes moderate exercise three times a week to reap the antidepressant benefits. You don’t have to train for a marathon or a triathlon to feel better. Here are a few exercise ideas to get you started:
Take your dog(s) for a half hour walk around the neighborhood. Not only will your body release endorphins but your dog’s health will also benefit from routine exercise.
Family bike rides are a great way to bond and get a good workout at the same time. If the weather doesn’t permit outdoor biking, a stationary bike is a good investment.
Swimming is one of the absolute best total body exercises. As a bonus, the steady movements through water also has a naturally calming effect.
Grab a few friends and/or colleagues on your lunch break and go for a half hour walk.
Exercise doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. Whatever form you like, commit to doing that at least three times a week and see if you don’t start to feel better.
You may also want to speak with a therapist, who can help you navigate your emotions and offer tools for coping. If you’d like to explore treatment options, please get in touch with me. I would be more than happy to discuss how I may be able to help.
We live in a society that values things that appear perfect. And I suppose there are things that can be perfect. Architects can draw the perfect straight line, mathematicians can solve an equation with a perfect calculation, and a chocolate cake can be perfectly moist. But as human beings, we can never reach a state […]
We live in a society that values things that appear perfect. And I suppose there are things that can be perfect. Architects can draw the perfect straight line, mathematicians can solve an equation with a perfect calculation, and a chocolate cake can be perfectly moist.
But as human beings, we can never reach a state of perfection because we will always be a work in progress. Perfection indicates a finality – a finished product – but we as humans are always growing and changing.
Many people view perfectionism as a positive attribute. They believe the more “perfect” they are, the more success they will have in life.
Perfectionism is NOT the same thing as always doing your best. It is important that we always do our best. By doing so, we can experience healthy achievements and growth. But perfectionism takes this concept to the extreme.
People with perfectionist tendencies often have self-defeating thoughts and/or behaviors that actually make it HARDER to achieve their goals. Perfectionism also can make the individual feel stress, anxiety, and depression.
Most human beings, from time to time, will strive for perfectionism in some aspect of their life. As an example, that “perfectly moist chocolate cake” I mentioned earlier got that way because the person who baked it was trying to get everything JUST RIGHT as a gift for someone’s birthday.
But there are those people who are “full-time” perfectionists. They strive for perfection in all aspects of their life.
Here are some signs you may be a perfectionist:
Again, perfectionism is not the same thing as doing your best. It is a condition whereby the individual is almost incapable of feeling joy or pride at what they accomplish because in their own minds, they are never quite good enough.
If you believe you may have traits of perfectionism and it is causing you stress, there are things you can do to change your behavior so you can live a healthier and happier life.
If you’d like to explore treatment options, please reach out to me.
SOURCES:
When talking about depression, a lot of people forget that depression is an illness that requires proper attention and treatment. If you’re depressed, it can be incredibly frustrating to hear things like “Just get over it”, “You’re being really dramatic”, “You have to be strong”, “Learn to deal with it”, “Happiness is a choice”. You […]
When talking about depression, a lot of people forget that depression is an illness that requires proper attention and treatment. If you’re depressed, it can be incredibly frustrating to hear things like “Just get over it”, “You’re being really dramatic”, “You have to be strong”, “Learn to deal with it”, “Happiness is a choice”. You might start to think of things like ‘Why can’t I just get over it’? We can stop ourselves from doing destructive things like putting our hand in a fire, but when it comes to depression, it’s a bit difficult to just ‘stop’. There are a number of reasons why ‘get over it’ statements like this don’t help. Here are some of the best reasons why.
Depression is real and painful. Just because you can’t see or touch it doesn’t make it any less real. If you suffer from depression or know someone who does, working with a therapist is a good start to overcoming your depression. I am available to help. Contact me to book a therapy session.
With 322 million people suffering with depression worldwide, it’s not surprising to learn that in America, depression is among the most common mental disorders. The cause of depression is often simplified as a chemical imbalance in the brain, but the reality is that the disease is far more complicated. Scientific research has yet to completely […]
With 322 million people suffering with depression worldwide, it’s not surprising to learn that in America, depression is among the most common mental disorders. The cause of depression is often simplified as a chemical imbalance in the brain, but the reality is that the disease is far more complicated. Scientific research has yet to completely understand the biology of depression. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, depression is caused by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental and psychological factors.
The disease of depression is the complicated combination previously described; this disease gives you the predisposition to fall into a depression after having experienced a negative external event. For example, getting fired from a job might send one person into a deep depression, while another simply bounces back after experiencing the initial sadness and disappointment.
Many experts in the cognitive behavioral field believe that depression is caused by, and worsens, with distorted negative thinking. The emotions you experience during an episode of depression are created by negative thoughts and perceptions. Your feelings will result from the meaning you attach to those thoughts. If you eliminate distorted, negative thoughts, you will find it easier to cope with the negative event that triggered your depression.
If you felt fine yesterday, but today feel depressed and hopeless, distorted thinking may be to blame. As an example, let’s say you woke up late and had to rush to work. This put you in a bad mood, and you started thinking distorted negative thoughts. “I’m always late. I’m a loser. My boss is going to be angry at me all day. He probably hates me anyway. I’m going to get fired.” As the day goes on, every event will be processed through this negative filter, causing you to feel worse.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that helps you challenge negative patterns of thought. By challenging these thoughts, you can improve your mood. For example, “I’m always late.” This is an overgeneralization. More than likely, you have not been late that often. If this is something you want to change, you can alter your schedule and habits to become more punctual.
Depression is a complicated illness, and as such is best managed by comprehensive treatment. If you’re suffering from depression, a licensed therapist can help you understand your mood disorder and develop strategies to cope with and improve your symptoms. Together, we can develop a plan for you to create the life you want to live. Give my office a call today, and let’s schedule a time to talk.
Whether you like to play soccer, basketball, or softball, joining a sports club is a great way to stay fit and make new friends. Not to mention, a sports club membership can also support your mental health beyond these benefits. While exercise is known to improve cardio health and help you build strong muscles and […]
Whether you like to play soccer, basketball, or softball, joining a sports club is a great way to stay fit and make new friends. Not to mention, a sports club membership can also support your mental health beyond these benefits.
While exercise is known to improve cardio health and help you build strong muscles and bones, exercise can also alleviate symptoms of depression in the following ways.
Endorphins
You have probably heard of endorphins. They are the “feel-good” chemicals your body releases after exercise, among other times. These neurochemicals have been shown to help boost mood and give us a sense of well-being.
Increased Energy
One of the most common symptoms of depression is fatigue or a lack of energy. A person may feel tired and sluggish all the time, even unable to get out of bed. This can exacerbate the depression because there is now guilt and low self-esteem associated with not accomplishing enough.
Exercise rejuvenates the body and gives it energy to combat any fatigue you may have been feeling.
Improves Your Identity
When we commit to an exercise plan, we feel good about ourselves. According to James Blumenthal, a neuroscientist at Duke University who specializes in depression, “One of the positive psychological benefits of systematic exercise is the development of a sense of personal mastery and positive self–regard, which we believe is likely to play some role in the depression–reducing effects of exercise.”
Why Joining a Sports Club is Better Than Joining a Gym
How many of us at some point in our life have bought a gym membership and then not gone to the gym? Plenty!
The great thing about joining a sports club is that it is incredibly fun and social, so we are more motivated to participate. This is the key when it comes to reaping the mental health benefits of exercise – sticking to it!
If you have been suffering with symptoms of depression and have been thinking about joining your local sports club, I encourage you to do so. Ask around town to see what groups may be available. You can also do a quick Google search to turn up clubs in your local area.
If you would like to explore treatment options for your depression, please get in touch with me. I would be more than happy to discuss how I may be able to help.
Sources:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/exercise-to-improve-your-mental-health/
https://psychcentral.com/blog/another-reason-why-exercise-benefits-your-mental-health/
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/coping-depression/2016/03/the-benefits-of-exercise-for-depression/
Did you know that on most days, the average person has between 25,000 and 50,000 thoughts? That’s an impressive amount of thoughts. But when happens when the majority of these thoughts are negative? Imagine the impact on your psyche and your life if you had thousands and thousands of negative thoughts each day? This amount of negative […]
Did you know that on most days, the average person has between 25,000 and 50,000 thoughts? That’s an impressive amount of thoughts.
But when happens when the majority of these thoughts are negative? Imagine the impact on your psyche and your life if you had thousands and thousands of negative thoughts each day?
This amount of negative thinking is a hallmark of depression. Negative or pessimistic thinking is depression speaking for you. It is the voice of depression. What many people don’t realize is that depression is manifested in negative thinking before it ever creates a negative thought itself.
This is why it is imperative for those suffering from depression to become acutely aware of their thought patterns. If not checked, negative thinking becomes a habit, one that has the potential to completely shape your life.
Change How You Think
One of the most powerful ways people can lift themselves out of the darkness of depression is to change their thinking patterns. This is why cognitive therapy is such a profound change agent. The approach is based on the fact that thought-processing errors contribute to a depressed mood.
By changing how you think, you automatically change how you feel. Once you become aware that changing your thinking is important, you are presented with an active choice you can take to benefit your mental health.
You will no doubt find that changing your thought patterns can feel about as easy as changing a tire in the rain with nothing more than a hardboiled egg and a paper clip. But it can be done.
Here are some tips on how you can begin to change your negative thoughts:
Keep Track of Your Thoughts
Many people are in denial about their thought patterns. They don’t want to believe they are overly negative or pessimistic. Catching yourself and recording as many negative thoughts as you can will help you to see your own mental patterns.
What will these thoughts look like? You could write things like, “I hate my feet.” “My boss is an idiot.” “I hate spring.” “I hate getting up this early.” “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Be particularly mindful of making sweeping generalizations from one specific event so that your entire future looks doomed. For example, a generalized thought such as, “My girlfriend broke up with me so I’m doomed to spend the rest of my life alone.” This kind of extreme, black and white thinking is a sure sign of depression.
Identify Triggers
Once you get an idea for the frequency of your negative thoughts, try and pinpoint the triggers for them. Your journal will also come in handy here, because it will point out certain types of events that set off a chain of negative thoughts. Triggers can include being rejected or ignored, or having an unkind remark said about or to you.
Positive Conversion
You have so far learned that the human thinking process is habitual. But the good news is, you can create good thinking habits.
To do this you’ve got to start converting all of those negative thoughts into positive ones. It will be hard at first, and you will most likely feel as if you’re lying to yourself and pretending to be a glass-half-full Pollyanna.
But, as they say, “You’ve got to fake it until you make it.” Though thinking positively may feel foreign to you and like a waste of your time, you are retraining your brain to think (and feel) good.
Every time you have a negative thought, stop, recognize it as negative, and immediately flip the switch and create the positive opposite thought in its place. This could look like:
Negative thought: “I’ll never get this report done on time.”
Positive Switch: “I’m making great progress and being careful to always check my work.”
To get the hang of how to do this, go through your negativity journal and create a separate column in which you will write the positive opposites of your many negative thoughts.
If you feel too dark and down to complete these exercises, please consider reaching out to a trained therapist who can prescribe medication, should you require it, and help you work through your negativity.
If you or a loved one are suffering from depression and are interested in exploring treatment options, please contact me. I would be happy to discuss how I may be able to help.
It is said that if you live long enough, you’ll eventually hit middle age. Once they hit that mark, many people begin to look around at their life and notice what is working and what isn’t. Unfortunately, some people notice much of their life isn’t working, at least not in the way they thought it […]
It is said that if you live long enough, you’ll eventually hit middle age. Once they hit that mark, many people begin to look around at their life and notice what is working and what isn’t. Unfortunately, some people notice much of their life isn’t working, at least not in the way they thought it would, and a crisis strikes.
What’s Really Going on in a Midlife Crisis?
For many of us, middle age is the first time in our lives that we pause for a moment to reflect. Birth, in a way, is like a slingshot, catapulting us into life at a significant speed. That momentum never slows as we gain an education, make friends, choose a career, commit to a significant other, have children, raise them as best we can, and plan for our retirement.
Eventually the pace of life begins to slow and we find we have more time to take stock of our lives; of what we’ve become and where we seem to be headed. And what do many of us find at this juncture?
We find we’ve been so busy earning a good living, keeping up with the Joneses (whoever they are), and pleasing everyone around us, that we haven’t always made decisions based on our own self-interests. In other words, we find ourselves lost and unable to recognize our lives as anything that we once imagined.
4 Ways to Cope with a Midlife Crisis
It’s important to understand that in this situation, the word “crisis” is a bit dramatic. Midlife crises aren’t traumas; they are instead wakeup calls that alert us to the fact we need to start taking better care of our minds, hearts and bodies.
With this in mind, here are four ways you can cope with your own midlife wakeup call.
Get Active
As I mentioned, midlife is generally when many of us finally begin to slow down. While this slowing can lead to mental and emotional insights, it can also lead to aches and pains. In other words, slow your pace of life but not your physical activity.
Now is the time to become even more active. If you haven’t been exercising, start now. Take up a new sport, try dance lessons, go hiking. Keeping your body limber and pain-free will help you stay positive.
Embrace Your Creative Side
Everyone has a creative side. That’s what life is, one big creative project. But many of us completely ignore our creative impulses either because of a lack of time or a belief that we’re “not talented enough.” That’s hogwash! Tapping into your creativity is one of the best ways to reconnect with your true self.
Do something to feed your creativity. Write in a journal. Learn how to paint. Take piano lessons. Not only will this bring you joy, learning something new keeps your brain young and active and fends off dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Make Some Changes
Midlife is an opportunity to make some changes you’ve been wanting to make. A change could be a simple as finally painting a room in your house, to getting your teeth whitened or a tattoo you’ve had your eye on, or to finally dumping some of your toxic friends. Start making choices based on your own needs, you’ve earned it.
Hang Out with Like-Minded People
Social interaction is key to a happy and healthy life. But many of us spend the majority of our adult lives around people we don’t like very much: namely coworkers and the parents of our children’s friends. Now is the time to surround yourself with those people who support and nourish you, and share common passions and interests.
A midlife crisis doesn’t have to be a crisis at all but a chance for you to take control and make different choices in your life.
If you or a loved one is experiencing a midlife crisis and is interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.
Watching a loved one suffer from depression is incredibly difficult. All you want to do is help them feel better. But when it becomes obvious you can’t take their pain away, you can become frustrated. As a friend or family member of someone suffering from depression, it’s important to remember that your loved one is […]
Watching a loved one suffer from depression is incredibly difficult. All you want to do is help them feel better. But when it becomes obvious you can’t take their pain away, you can become frustrated.
As a friend or family member of someone suffering from depression, it’s important to remember that your loved one is dealing with a real medical condition and you are, most likely, not equipped to handle their recovery alone.
Having said that, there are things you can do to support your loved one and help them on their journey back toward health and happiness.
Understand Treatment is Key
As we mentioned, depression is a medical condition and it requires treatment from a professional therapist. Do not try and take on someone’s depression by yourself. Yes, lend support, care, and compassion, but understand that they will need medical treatment, just as they would if their leg was broken. If they themselves do not recognize how important treatment is, do your best to help them understand.
Be Vocal
Often loved ones suffering from depression are the topic of conversation, but not part of it. It’s not enough to talk to other family members and discuss how concerned you are about your sister or uncle, let your sister and uncle know you see them suffering and you’re there for support. Offer to drive them to therapy or simply lend an ear. Those suffering from depression often feel lonely and isolated, so reach out as best you can.
Help Them Stay Part of the World
Those suffering from depression typically lose interest in activities they once found enjoyable. You can help your loved one by getting them active and part of the world once more. The key here is to be patient and stay committed. You can’t force your loved one to take you up on an invitation. Don’t bully them, just encourage them as best you can. Should they say “no” to your invite 50 times, don’t give up on them. Be patient, stay committed, and continue to extend your hand. Through weekly treatment they will eventually come around and say “yes.”
Get Educated
One of the best things you can possibly do to support your loved one who is suffering from depression is to learn as much about the condition as you possibly can. It’s a good idea to speak with their therapist to get recommendations of resources that will help you learn more.
Watching a loved one suffer from depression is not easy, but knowing there are ways you can help them will lighten the load for you both.
If you or a loved one is interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.
