Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 04/08/2015 21:50:01

Title: What are the best ways to fight depression?
Post by: thedoc on 04/08/2015 21:50:01

Patrick sabu philip asked the Naked Scientists:
   
What are the best ways to fight depression?
What do you think?

Title: Re: What are the best ways to fight depression?
Post by: Pecos_Bill on 05/08/2015 02:06:50

Depression is nothing to screw around with because ...

"The overall relative risk (RR) of dying in depressed subjects was 1.81 (95% CI: 1.58-2.07) compared to non-depressed subjects. No major differences were found between men and women, although the RR was somewhat larger in men. The RR in subclinical depression was no smaller than the RR in clinical depression." (1.)

So that means you should find a board certified Psychiatrist and get checked -- even if you are "subclinically" depressed. Accept no substitutes. The life you save may be your own.

“the person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise”
- Kate Gompert in "The Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace (who hung himself in 2008)

(1.) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12450639

Title: Re: What are the best ways to fight depression?
Post by: Pecos_Bill on 10/08/2015 07:32:46

Now pull the other one.

"doing exercise, like running, hand out with friends, also make a lot of money"

You can bet that oceanwild has made this facile and naive response because he doesn't know the difference between the megrims and real depression.

Study Question: Do you REALLY think that Robin Williams or Junior Seau killed themselves because they were broke, or didn't take enough exercise? Do you think Virginia Woolf loaded rocks in her coat pockets and drowned herself because of "fibromyalgia"? Was poor sleep hygiene the reason Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the gas oven?  Bah! and yet again - Bah!  Past all hooping.

Depression is a dangerous illness. It is nothing for untrained amateurs to fossick around with.

Title: Re: What are the best ways to fight depression?
Post by: scotty stull on 10/08/2015 16:20:49

Let your body heal it's self, your body will heal it's self if you let it. All of us get depressed at times, but it's when it last for longer than a couple weeks and that's when I was told to seek help and I am glad I did!. My church helped me when I told them , coming forward to tell the church members was hard for me to do because that's the nature of depression.

Title: Re: What are the best ways to fight depression?
Post by: Pecos_Bill on 10/08/2015 18:20:08

One of my first jobs as an Army medical corpsman at Landstuhl was to hold the feet down when they gave electro convulsive treatments on the psych ward. I must admit that I was dubious about it.

Later when I had wrapped up a few young suicide corpses and taken them to the morgue my doubts were considerably diminished.

Now it is the twee faith healers that I am dubious about. I wish that Robin Williams could have gotten a course of ECT before he hung himself.

Title: Re: What are the best ways to fight depression?
Post by: smart on 13/06/2016 20:04:25

Cannabis is a natural antidepressant and stimulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Also cannabis may potentially reduce anxiety and mood disorders (depression) due to chronic stress.

https://www.jci.org/articles/view/25509