Sensible advice to share--Depression tips

We’re heading into the darkest days of winter - it’s important to do self care, even if that’s just getting one thing done in a day.

DEPRESSION TIPS:

Shower. Not a bath, a shower.
Use water as hot or cold as you like. You don’t even need to wash. Just get in under the water and let it run over you for a while. Sit on the floor if you gotta.

Moisturize everything.
Use whatever lotion you like.
Unscented? Dollar store lotion? Fancy 48 hour lotion that makes you smell like a field of wildflowers? Use whatever you want, and use it all over your entire dermis.

 
Put on clean, comfortable clothes.
Put on your favorite underwear.
Those ridiculous boxers you bought last Christmas with candy cane hearts on the butt? Put them on.

Drink cold water.
Use ice. If you want, add some mint or lemon for an extra boost.

 
Clean something.
Doesn’t have to be anything big. Organize one drawer of a desk. Wash five dirty dishes. Do a load of laundry. Scrub the bathroom sink.

 
Blast music.
Listen to something upbeat and dancy and loud, something that’s got lots of energy. Sing to it, dance to it, even if you suck at both.

Make food.
Don’t just grab a granola bar to munch. Take the time and make food. Even if it’s ramen. Add something special to it, like a soft boiled egg or some veggies. Prepare food, it tastes way better, and you’ll feel like you accomplished something.

 
Make something.
Write a short story or a poem, draw a picture, color a picture, fold origami, crochet or knit, sculpt something out of clay, anything artistic. Even if you don’t think you’re good at it. Create.

 
Go outside.
Take a walk. Bundle up if you have too. Listen to whatever birds winter where you are, watch the squirrels, admire whatever lights are in the trees. Go to the mailbox, send a letter, a bill, a card.

 
Call someone.
Call a loved one, a friend, a family member, call a chat service if you have no one else to call. Talk to a stranger on the street. Have a conversation and listen to someone’s voice. If you can’t bring yourself to call, text or email or whatever, just have some social interaction with another person. Even if you don’t say much, listen to them. It helps.

 
Cuddle your pets if you have them/can cuddle them.
Take pictures of them. Talk to them. Tell them how you feel, about your favorite movie, a new game coming out, anything.

 
May seem small or silly to some, but this list keeps people alive.

Today’s message from Vantage Point Devotional

“A January 2005 article in TIME magazine reported: “Studies show that the more a believer incorporates religion into daily living—attending services, reading Scripture, praying—the better off he or she appears to be on two measures of happiness: frequency of positive emotions and overall sense of satisfaction with life.”

Are you a happy believer?  The psalm that contains today’s key verse begins with the confession of a very sad person.  Several times, he asks, “Why are you cast down, o my soul?” But he answers his distressing call with hope, praise and prayer.

Among answers to depression given in a 2016 article in Psychology Today, are to resist the urge to dwell on the past, and focus on what is going right.  The article suggests that one incorporate structure into every day. So the TIME magazine article had it right: attending services, reading Scripture, praying! And so did the psalmist: He sings into the night. The question, are you a happy believer, is worth repeating. More, it is worth doing something about. There are many unhappy people in government if the nightly news is any indicator. Pray that they would find the Lord first of all, and then, that they would find the night song in their souls.

Recommended for Further Reading: Philippians 4:4-9 “

Men: are you depressed?

And I don't mean about a serious international incident as Joe Biden promised us if we elected Obama. No, this is the depression we were told about in the Surgeon General's report in 1999: About 20 percent of adults will experience depression during their lifetime. Within this 20 percent, an estimated 6.4 million American men will suffer from depression each year. So you see, you are already a minority in this problem, just by being a male, because women have cornered this health problem.

But there's no money in studying depressed white men even though they would be the majority of this minority--German Americans, Irish Americans or descendants of Swiss Mennonites. So "disparity" is the necessary key word to get funding just as it is in many lucrative health grants. If you can't find it in the lab with real research and cure it, or develop a drug to treat it, then find it in the data, graphs, charts or neighborhood anecdotes and put people into race based studies. On November 6, 2008 there was a conference, Symposium on Health Disparities in Male Depression, supported by a $25,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to alert the various professional organizations, non-profits, insurance companies and government officials of the cultural barriers, stigma and treatment minority men suffer with depression. When wealthy foundations provide this kind of money to launch something, it is the signal that prevention and policy money from the government will be forthcoming for this problem. Oink, oink. Come to the trough, for all is ready.

Here's depressing news

A new study published in PLoS Medicine questions the efficacy of the new generation antidepressant drugs such as fluoxetine (Prozac), venlafaxine (Effexor), nefazodone (Serzone), and paroxetine (Seroxat / Paxil). The study was done in the UK. In a meta-analysis, once the unpublished studies were included, the improvement in depression among those receiving the trial drug, as compared to those receiving placebos, was not clinically significant in mildly depressed patients or even in most patients who suffer from very severe depression. "The benefit only seemed to be clinically meaningful for a small group of patients who were the most extremely depressed to start out with. This improvement seemed to come about because these patients did not respond as well as less depressed patients to placebo, rather than responding better to the drug." (News release)

The authors used the data sets from the FDA used in the clinical trials.

Note: If you go to the original article (see link above) and scroll down on the first page, there is an editor's summary in a blue box--much easier to read than the whole article.

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Soldier-moms have work-family conflicts

Now isn't that a big surprise! Women in the Air Force who have served in war zones have a work-family conflict that might be related to PTSD. Weren't the feminists warned this might be the case back in the 70s when they were still insisting there should be were no gender distinctions and differences? Story here. The study was presented at the American Psychological Association annual meeting in San Francisco this month, but I don't see that it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, so be advised.

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Depression in teen girls

A study published in a recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry links low birth weight and depression among adolescent girls, but not boys.

There were 1420 participants in this study done in North Carolina, 49% of them females. The cumulative prevalence of depression among adolescent girls with low birth weight was 38.1%, compared with 8.4% among girls who had normal birth weight after controlling for other adversities. When adversities were present, they affected the low weight girls more than the normal weight. The thinking is that fetal development has consequences for stress response. Low birth weight did not predict other psychiatric disorders in either boys or girls.

"Prediction from low birth weight to female adolescent depression: a test of competing hypotheses," by EJ Costello and others. Archives of General Psychiatry, 2007;64:338-344.