In the last post, you saw a video and a link to help you understand more about depression. It is a serious health disorder and should be taken seriously when you encounter it, either personally or with someone you know or love.
Let's re-cap some of the symptoms:
- Sadness, anxiety, or "empty" feelings
- Decreased energy, fatigue, being "slowed down"
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed, including sex
- Insomnia, oversleeping, or waking much earlier than usual
- Loss of weight or appetite, or overeating and weight gain
- Feelings of hopelessness and pessimism
- Feelings of helplessness, guilt, and worthlessness
- Thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts
- Difficulty concentrating, making decisions, or remembering
- Restlessness, irritability or excessive crying
- Chronic aches and pains or physical problems that do not respond to treatment
You don't have to have all of these signs to be considered "depressed", but they have to last at least for 2 consecutive weeks. Also, if you have a few of these signs, it could actually mean something totally different, like hypothyroidism. That is why it is important to be examined by a health care practitioner who is licensed in your state. Hypothyroid will be the topic of another post, one of my favorites I might ad.
I also want you to pay attention to your children, do they show signs of depression?
Studies show that 2 out of every 100 children and 8 in 100 adolescents have major depression.
In teens, as in adults, bipolar disorder and depression are clearly connected. As many as 30% of teenagers who experience an episode of major depression develop bipolar disorder in their late teens or early 20s.
The presence of childhood depression also tends to be a predictor of more severe illnesses in adulthood. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1999; 281(18): 1701-1713.
Hopefully by now you are getting the idea of how serious a problem this is. To the majority of us, who go through our day feeling "on top of the World", there are many who feel like they are on the bottom. There is help and hope for them.
You have read about some of the traditional treatments for Depression, for the rest of this post and the next, I want to talk about some alternative therapies that can be used in conjunction with conventional treatment.
In the last post, I mentioned that in oriental medicine each organ system has a related emotion, for example the liver/gallbladder relates to anger, frustration, the kidney/bladder relates to fear, the stomach/spleen/ pancreas relates to worry and overwhelm. I chose these organ systems because they are outlined in the following link on using Chinese medicine for treating depression.
That should help you understand more about natural treatments using Chinese medicine for depression.
Next time, I will discuss the hormone and neurotransmitter component to treatment. Will you join me?
Blessings to YOU!
"One cannot learn anything so well as by experiencing it oneself." - Albert Einstein
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