VitalTree - Stress, Anxiety, Depression

Our Best Friend

We all have days that may be more challenging than others, when things go 'wrong', or we deal with more stress than usual.

For the most part we manage to handle life and life's events, and remain on good terms with our brain.

What is happening when your 'best friend' - your brain - no longer makes you feel good, doesn't help you cope with life, and makes you feel bad, and unable to remember feeling happy and positive?

Studies show that not only is there a change in brain activity when a person's mood shifts, but parts of the brain actually shrink. If mood symptoms are severe, or continue over time, shrinking in the hippocampus occurs. The hippocampus is associated with making and recalling memories, and controlling emotions.

Your 'best friend' is ailing, and you are suffering for it.

Depression

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Annual statistics show that 25 million people in North America alone suffer from major depression, which is a yearly cost to the nation of 80 billion dollars. Thus, the treatment of depression is literally a billion-dollar industry, but one with significant personal cost.

It is a cruel irony that science can explain bizarre rare conditions, but common afflictions like depression - Western countries' second most disabling ailment (after heart disease) and the world's fourth - elude understanding. However, progress is being made. In the last several years, refined imaging techniques have begun to provide an unprecedented look into the neurobiology of depression, showing what goes on in the brain as it processes positive and negative experiences.

Depression is a disorder affecting thoughts, mood, feelings, behavior, and physical health. There was a time when it used to be viewed as "all in your head" and if an afflicted person really tried, they could simply "snap out of it" or just "get over it". However, depression is not a weakness, and it is not something you should have to stoically "soldier" through.

Depression can be triggered by a stressful life event. Or it may occur spontaneously with no seemingly particular cause.

A person may experience depression only once in their life. As is often the case, however, it can occur as repeated episodes over a lifetime, with periods of normalcy in between these episodes. Or depression may be a chronic condition, with debilitating symptoms that continue over a lifetime.

Signs and Symptoms of Depression

Two key symptoms considered in establishing a diagnosis for depression are:

Loss of interest in normal daily activities: Things you used to enjoy no longer hold interest or bring pleasure. You experience a sense of "numbness", or a feeling of being disconnected from your life.

Depressed mood: You feel sad, helpless or hopeless, and may have crying spells.

Also, if you experience several or all of the following conditions continually for 2 weeks or more, depression could be the diagnosis:

Low self-esteem: Depression may cause you to feel worthless and experience excessive guilt.

Impaired thinking or concentration: You may experience trouble concentrating or making decisions and have memory problems.

Sleep disturbances: Sleeping too much or having trouble sleeping can be a sign of depression. Waking in the middle of the night or early in the morning and being unable to get back to sleep are typical.

Changes in weight: An increased or reduced appetite and unexplained weight gain or loss may indicate depression.

Agitation: You may feel restless, anxious, irritable, and easily annoyed.

Fatigue or slower body movements: You feel weariness and lack of energy frequently. You may wake up in the morning feeling as tired as you did when you went to bed. You may also feel like everything is happening in slow motion, or you may speak in a slow, monotonous tone.

Less interest in sex: If you were sexually active before developing depression, you may experience a significant decrease in your libido.

Thoughts of death: You may have persistent negative views of yourself, your situation in life and the future. You may have thoughts of death, dying, or suicide.

Depression can also cause a multitude of physical symptoms, including gastro-intestinal problems (indigestion, constipation, or diarrhea), headache and backache.

Understanding Depression

So what is the cause of depression?

Stress appears to play an important role as an instigator to depression, with such factors as genetics and temperament playing key parts in causing depression to remain after the initial onset.

Regarding depression as "just" a chemical imbalance adds to the misunderstanding of the disorder. Current research indicates that major depression has in fact become a neurodegenerative disorder, disrupting the structure and function of brain cells, destroying nerve connections, even killing certain brain cells, and bringing on cognitive decline.

Are Antidepressants the Cure?

Antidepressant drugs are now the most commonly prescribed drugs in North America, totaling over 135 million prescriptions in 2005. This reflects the fact that at least one quarter of North American adults will have a major depressive episode some time in their lives.

So with the incidence of depression on the rise worldwide, despite the widespread use of antidepressant prescriptions, how do we take treatment back into our own hands?

Stress

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Understanding Stress

The Oxford English Dictionary describes stress as “a state of mental, emotional, or other strain.” Pressure, strain, anxiety, constant worry, nervous tension and trauma: all names for stress, and all very familiar to us.

Stress can be caused by something as big as a bear or as tiny as a virus. Whether you’ve lost your job or a loved one, spent several nights sleeping poorly, are on a low calorie diet, or have been ill or injured, your body, specifically the amygdala, reacts in the same way.

The amygdala is a walnut-shaped group of cells located in the brain that governs such emotions as anger and fear, and triggers your response to danger, a reaction commonly called the "fight or flight" response.

To understand stress we need to know what it is and what it does to the body.

During times of stress the amygdala responds by sending instructions for cortisol to be released into the bloodstream. Cortisol is the hormone released in response to either physical or emotional stress, and is part of the "fight or flight" response. It can stimulate the breakdown of muscle and bone to supply the body with minerals that are needed for "fight or flight" reactions. Cortisol causes proteins in your blood to stick together, and suppresses the immune system in preparation for this response to stress.

When you are in a constant state of stress, cortisol is continuously being released into the bloodstream, keeping your body locked into an impasse with the "fight or flight" response. The constant release of cortisol into the bloodstream can lead to health problems, both biological and psychological.

Repeatedly invoked, stress can contribute to hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, ulcers, headache and backache, and depression.

Many of these effects are due to increased sympathetic nervous system activity and an outpouring of adrenaline, cortisol, and other stress-related hormones. Stress that is chronic and more insidious due to loneliness, poverty, bereavement, depression and frustration, is associated with impaired immune system resistance to viral linked disorders, ranging from the common cold and herpes to AIDS and cancer.

Stress can contribute to depression and anxiety, and has various effects on the gastro-intestinal system.

Anxiety

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Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. It can help us deal with tense situations and pressure, and help us stay focused. Anxiety, in a nutshell, helps us cope. However, when anxiety escalates to an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, it has become a disabling disorder.

Anxiety disorders affect around 40 million American adults in a given year, resulting in experiences of fearfulness and uncertainty. Anxiety disorders can last at least six months, unlike mild, brief anxiety such as that experienced on a first date or speaking in public.

Anxiety and Depression

It is not uncommon for someone with an anxiety disorder to also suffer from depression or vice versa. In fact, nearly half of the people diagnosed with major depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Though anxiety and depression disorders share many of the same symptoms, each disorder has its own causes and its own emotional and behavioral symptoms.

Many people who develop major depression have a history of an anxiety disorder earlier in life. Certainly, if you suffer from either depression or an anxiety disorder, you are more likely to develop the other than if you had no disorder.

Helping Our Best Friend

What can you do for your ailing brain? Or, better yet, how can you keep it in top health to start with?

Believe it or not, your diet plays a big part in your emotional health. Our emotional responses are closely linked to our brain health and chemistry. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which regulate mood, are formed from amino acids. These chemical pathways require minerals as co-factors for their normal function. Similarly, the brain is made up of mostly fatty acids and requires a healthy supply of other nutrients to function properly. Almost every mineral deficiency can cause psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, irritability, and low stress tolerance.

Before they were stopped in the 1970’s for ethical reasons, scientists used to study the effects of nutrient deficiencies by depriving subjects of specific nutrients. The scientists found that psychiatric symptoms were common among the individuals.

Each mineral typically has a number of different functions. Magnesium, for example, is required by over 300 biochemical reactions in the human body. Minerals are needed for the normal production of neurotransmitters, hormones, cellular energy, antioxidants, DNA and digestive substances. When these important functions falter due to mineral deficiency, our health and mood are subsequently affected.

Your brain will use 23% of your daily calorie intake to properly carry out all of its functions. These need to be nutrient-dense calories. Nutritional deficiencies can seriously impede the body's production of amino acids. Amino acids are vital to good psychological health. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit nerve impulses between brain cells, and are made from amino acids. Studies show low levels of the amino acid tryptophan in people with depression. Serotonin is a key neurotransmitter made by tryptophan. This essential amino acid, which is necessary for the body to be able to create serotonin can only be obtained through our diet. Again, the amino acid, tryptophan, plus all amino acids, must be obtained from our diet!

Getting all the essential nutrients from diet alone can be a challenge in itself, even if you feel you are eating healthy food. Our food no longer contains the same levels of nutrients that could be found in the foods our great grandparents consumed and thrived on.

To ensure your brain remains your 'best friend', it may be necessary to supplement your healthy diet with essential concentrated nutrients not being supplied by our food. A healthy and happy brain can be determined by what goes in your mouth.

This information is provided for educational and informational purposes only, and is not intended to be a substitute for a health care provider's consultation.

sourced in part from: The American Institute of Stress (www.stress.org); National Institute of Mental Health (www.nimh.nih.gov); Anxiety Disorders Association of America (www.adaa.org); Mayo Clinic (www.mayoclinic.com).