If you’re feeling down in the dumps lately and wonder if you suffer from the mental health disorder depression, you may want to pay attention to how much sleep you’ve been getting. According to the National Sleep Foundation, most Americans get about 6.9 hours of sleep a night. Now this is an average so that means some people get much less than this and it’s not healthy.

Sleep and Depression

Having insomnia or simply not getting enough sleep can cause depression. When your body and mind don’t have enough time to repair itself during REM sleep, it functions at an alert state. This means you are more sensitive to situations around you and have a more difficult time dealing with challenges. When this happens, since you are without sleep and lack energy, you start to feel hopeless. This hopelessness may turn into helplessness, which spirals out of control into other symptoms of depression.

Genetics Role in Sleep Deprived Depression

How does genetics play in sleep deprivation and depression? Well, we all know that some people are more susceptible to depression because they may have a chemical imbalance of the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine. What this means is that they are more sensitive to the affects of insomnia, which is the reason why some people can function without as much sleep and do completely fine.

Sleep for Depression Relief

Therefore, if you have a family history of depression and you are in the habit of not sleeping at least seven to nine hours a night, you may be at risk for depression. Keep this in mind when you start to feel like you can’t do things as you used to do or you don’t enjoy life as much. To help yourself feel better, you may just need to schedule more zzzzz’s.

Photo: lovelypetal

You’ve probably heard it many times that exercise is a great way to help depression symptoms. However, do you really know how exercise makes you feel better? Did you know that exercise could have similar effects as antidepressants do? That means, for some people, with mild depression, exercise may be enough to get them to start feeling better and stop taking their antidepressants!

Altering Neurotransmitters Naturally

Many people who suffer from depression have a brain chemical imbalance. The chemicals associated with depression are serotonin and norepinephrine. When depression sufferers take antidepressants, it corrects the imbalance and helps them feel better.

However, there is another way to correct the imbalance in some people with mild depression – exercise! Yes, exercise produces chemicals in your body that naturally affect the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine, just like antidepressants.

Not only does the power of exercise change your brain chemicals, it also produces beta-endorphins that give you a mood boost as well. Besides the physiological changes that help beat depression, exercising can help you lose weight as well, which will raise your mood if you struggle with weight loss. It also helps with skin clarity and helps fight illness. With all the benefits of exercise, it’s a combo package in helping your mental health!

WARNING: Don’t Stop Your Antidepressants without Doctor’s Guidance

Just because you exercise doesn’t mean that you don’t need antidepressants. For some people, their depression is severe enough that exercise alone will not help. It’s important to discuss any changes to your medication with your doctor so you don’t risk suffering from depression rebound.

Photo: mikebaird

Mental health is the term that describe the state of the human brain and mind. When everything is working as it should be, then one’s mental health is considered to be good. However, problems arise that affect the brain or mind. These can include eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. These are conditions which tend to affect younger people, although older people can have them, too.

Dementia, another mental health concern, primarily affects older people, although, like many diseases, it knows no age limit. Anorexia nervosa is a condition in which people believe they are too fat. It primarily affects women, but men can suffer from it, also. People with anorexia nervosa will eat very little, if anything at all. If they do eat, they may literally watch every bite that goes into their mouths, or obsessively count every calorie they consume.

On the other hand, people with bulimia nervosa eat as much as they can hold and more at one time, then either make themselves throw up or take strong laxatives to expel the food before the digestion process can be completed. Both disorders can be very dangerous to one’s physical health.

Dementia is a mental health disorder which tends to affect older people. The word “Dementia” is often used to differentiate it from Alzheimer’s Disease. Dementia results in memory loss and confusion. OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, is characterized by frequent hand washing or other acts that are intended to kill germs, or the need to perform a certain act the exact same way each and every time. OCD may not be life-threatening, unless it interferes with eating or other health habits; however, it can affect a person both socially and financially.

Photo Credit: whatmegsaid on Flickr

Get help from someone who understands.

Everyone goes through difficult times in life. What’s important is that people get through this tough times effectively and in a healthy way. While many people can recover from trauma well with no after effects, other people need more help to move on and lead a healthy and happy life. This is when mental health counseling can help.

Five Benefits of Mental Health Counseling

#1  A different perspective.

If you’ve talked to your loved ones about what you are going through and how you are feeling but haven’t received the help you need, you may benefit from a different perspective of the situation.

#2  Learn new techniques for handling stress.

A mental health counselor can teach you new ways to manage stress so that you can better handle difficult situations in your life.

#3  Support and guidance

Many people don’t feel that their loved ones really listen to them and sometimes just knowing that they are being heard can help someone feel much better. A mental health counselor will actively listen to what you have to say and will give you advice about your situation, if needed.

#4  Referral to other places for help.

As you’re telling the mental health counselor about your situation and experiences, he/she may have resources to share with you that may help you better.

#5  Help you reach your goals.

Whatever goals you have in life or in a particular situation, your mental health counselor will help you identify them specifically and then together with you devise a plan on how to reach those goals.

Photo Courtesy of: Idle Type on flickr

The Canadian Press reported that a new study revealed that more teens are having mental health issues in this generation than in previous ones. Specifically, five times more high school and college students are being diagnosed with mental illness than they were in the Great Depression era. Since this is a pretty big jump – it may be useful to look at the reasons why.

The Great Depression and Mental Health

Mental health has been around since the dawn of time; however, people have not started to accept it until the last few years. Even still, there is a stigma surrounding it and many people continue to believe that it doesn’t exist. So, if people during this age still have doubts of the validity of mental illness, what do you think they thought back in the Great Depression? I’m willing to bet that people were just as mentally ill back then as they are now, it’s just that no one talked about it and no one did anything about it. People just lived in their misery and were ridiculed for acting out. If people were uncontrollable they were sent to a hospital and that was it for them.

Stress Then and Now

People will tell you that it was hard back then and I am not discounting that at all. I am sure that it was harder than we all could imagine. However, teens in this age are accustomed to a different way of life compared to the Great Depression days. When you’re used to one way of life and then are thrown into  another bombarded with stress, you go into shock and this can bring out a mental illness.

What to Do with the Information

Instead of alarming people of the high statistics of teen mental health problems, it may be more useful to discuss how we will help the youth of today. They are reaching out for help more than ever because they know there is help out there…somewhere. People need to be supportive of teens and not only encourage them to succeed but also show that failure comes with its lessons. Not only that, they need to know that a mental health issue is not the end of the road but rather a speed bump in life.

Photo Courtesy of: Made Underground on Flickr

Many people are taking steps to become healthier physically but eating healthy foods and exercising, however, not many people are taking such conscious steps to becoming mentally healthier. Your mental health has an affect on just about every area of your life including your physical health so it’s important to take some time each day to take care of your mental well-being.

Five Ways to Improve Your Mental Health

1. Relieve stress because it can decrease your self-esteem, give you mood swings, and believe things that aren’t true. It can also make you feel overwhelmed, irritable and angry.
2. Spend time with yourself. Many people do too much for other people and not enough for themselves. Take a few minutes – the more the better – each day to do things for yourself. This could simply be reading a good book, taking a bath, exercising, playing a favorite game or sport. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do as long as you are doing it for your own enjoyment and no one else’s.
3. Avoid negativity as much as possible. If you have people in your life that make you groan or want to hide, then you need to find a way to avoid them as much as possible. If you work with these people, see you can have your office moved. If you live with these people, it’s time to do some damage control and discuss the things that bother you about them so that changes can be made.
4. Journal every day. Journaling is a powerful mental health improver. Take some time to jot down what you did during the day, how you felt about it and anything about the past or future that concerns you. It will be an amazing relief to have all of your worries on paper rather than floating around in your hand.
5. Accept you for who you are and strive for better. Don’t beat yourself down each for what you can’t do but look at all the things you can do and accept it. Then look at what you would like to do in the future and identify steps you need to take do that. Setting realistic goals and working towards them will improve your self-esteem and give you motivation to do more to improve your mental health.

Photo Courtesy of: chmeredith on Flickr

How far will people go? Do they not have the decency and respect for people who are truly suffering?

According to Fox23.com, a woman in Western New York has been scamming community by claiming that she had cancer and asking for donations. She had boxes in local business all over the community asking for money for transportation and medical costs. She is now being charged with scheming to defraud.

Taking advantage of generous people is bad enough, but using a serious medical condition like cancer to do so just puts it over the top. Millions of people who are fighting cancer right now can’t afford their treatment and struggle to keep themselves alive physically and financially. Many of these people don’t ask for hand outs and end up with thousands of dollars in medical costs that haunt them well after they recover.

Then you have this woman who thinks she can take money from not only healthy innocent people but also from people who  truly need it to fight cancer. Now that she has defied the trust of people who were so giving to her, they may think twice before donating their hard earned money to others, including people with cancer.

It’s important to communicate to anyone reading this blog that while there are scammers out there claiming they have a medical condition but are in perfectly good health (besides possibly having a mental health issue), there are many more who really are sick and do need the money.

Do your research when you donate so you know if the person truly needs the money. That way, you can give comfortably without fear that you are encouraging a scammer.

Photo Courtesy of: yummyporky

Individuals who suffer from bipolar disorder go through many highs and lows. The mania makes them feel on top of the world and able to do anything they want. However, this high comes with a low that drives many people with bipolar disorder to suicide. Many people who take antidepressants to help the depression that comes with the mania-depression cycle of bipolar disorder find that they enhance their feelings of suicide. For these people, there may be a new set of drugs that can help curtail suicidal ideation and attempts – anti epileptic drugs.

In a recent study appearing in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers found that some people treated with anti epileptic drugs were less likely to attempt suicide. This was seen in cases of sufferers with severe forms of bipolar disorder and have had suicide attempts in the past.

What This Information Means for You

If you suffer from bipolar disorder and don’t believe your medication is helping you and/or you are having suicidal thoughts or has an attempt, you may want to discuss trying an anti epileptic drug with your psychiatrist. Of course, your psychiatrist  and you are the best people to decide if this course of treatment is best for you. Consider the risks and benefits of all treatment regimens when you make a switch and continue close monitoring from a professional.

Photo Courtesy of: ohadweb on flickr