Depression - PsyBlog

This Authentic Personality Trait Reduces Depression

The trait is linked to feeling pure and in touch with yourself.

Believing in free will makes you feel more authentic and pure.

Free will is the belief that we have the power to make our own choices and we are not ruled by fate.

Feeling closer to your true self has a number of benefits, including lower depression and anxiety.

A sense of free will also helps boost people’s self-esteem and increases their sense of meaning in life.

Dr Elizabeth Seto, the study’s first author, said:

“Whether you agree that we have free will or that we are overpowered by social influence or other forms of determinism, the belief in free will has truly important consequences.”

For the study, almost 300 people were split into two groups.

One group wrote about experiences that reflected free will, while the other wrote about experiences that lacked it.

The results showed that a lack of free will was linked to less self-awareness and even self-alienation.

People who wrote about free will, though, felt more in touch with themselves.

Dr Seto said:

“Our findings suggest that part of being who you are is experiencing a sense of agency and feeling like you are in control over the actions and outcomes in your life.

If people are able to experience these feelings, they can become closer to their true or core self.”

In a subsequence study, people whose sense of free will was boosted, reported feeling more authentic about making a donation to charity.

Dr Seto said:

“When we experience or have low belief in free will and feel ‘out of touch’ with who we are, we may behave without a sense of morality.

This is particularly important if we have a goal to improve the quality of life for individuals and the society at large.”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Seto & Hicks, 2016).

This Major Depression Treatment Works Where Other Therapies Fail (M)

The therapy reduces symptoms of depression in those that have not responded to antidepressants, talking therapies or other interventions.

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How Depression Affects The Brain Long-Term

Long-term depression needs a new type of treatment.

Persistent depression changes the brain over the years.

The longer people are depressed without receiving treatment, the more their brains become inflamed.

The study suggests that people who have been depressed for a long time need a different type of treatment — one that unfortunately doesn’t yet exist.

Despite this, people with depression are usually treated in the same way, no matter how long they have been suffering.

The findings come from the same team that was the first to confirm that the brain does indeed become inflamed in clinical depression.

Dr Jeff Meyer, who led the study, explained that inflammation has also been linked to neurodegenerative diseases:

“Greater inflammation in the brain is a common response with degenerative brain diseases as they progress, such as with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.”

The study found that people who have experienced depression for over 10 years without treatment have higher levels of a translocator protein that is a marker of depression.

Unfortunately, current treatments do not target brain inflammation, although they are being developed.

Depression also follows different courses.

Some people’s depression comes and goes over the years, while others have more continuous, persistent periods of depression.

There is relatively little evidence about how to treat people who have been depressed for long periods of time or what happens in their brains.

The study was published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry (Setiawan et al., 2018).

How Depression Changes The Experience Of Time (M)

Turns out the sense of time passing may be yet another hidden symptom of depression.

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The Creative Therapy That Helps Reduce Depression

Higher self-esteem from a common creative therapy that also helps reduce depression.

Music therapy can reduce depression in young people with behaviour problems, research finds.

Music therapy also increased self-esteem compared to those who received the usual treatment without the therapy.

The conclusions come from the largest every study of its kind.

It involved 251 children, only half of whom were given music therapy.

The music therapy itself included things like the therapist asking children to describe how they felt by playing a tune.

All the children in the study were being treated for behavioural, emotional or developmental problems.

The results showed that those who received the music therapy had higher self-esteem and reduced depression in comparison to those that had care as usual.

Professor Sam Porter, who led the study, said:

“This study is hugely significant in terms of determining effective treatments for children and young people with behavioural problems and mental health needs.

The findings contained in our report should be considered by healthcare providers and commissioners when making decisions about the sort of care for young people that they wish to support.”

Ciara Reilly, Chief Executive of Every Day Harmony, a music therapy charity, said:

“Music therapy has often been used with children and young people with particular mental health needs, but this is the first time its effectiveness has been shown by a definitive randomised controlled trail in a clinical setting.

The findings are dramatic and underscore the need for music therapy to be made available as a mainstream treatment option.

For a long time we have relied on anecdotal evidence and small-scale research findings about how well music therapy works.

Now we have robust clinical evidence to show its beneficial effects.”

These 10 Musical Styles Will Unlock Calm, Clarity, Focus, Motivation, Meaning, Happiness & More (P)

The study was published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, (Porter et al., 2016).

A Worrying Mental Sign Of Vitamin D Deficiency

Vitamin D may be linked to critical neurotransmitters and inflammatory markers.

Feeling low can be a sign of vitamin D deficiency, research suggests.

Vitamin D may be linked to critical neurotransmitters and inflammatory markers that can cause depression.

Along with low mood, the most important symptoms of depression are:

Decreased interest in life or pleasure.
Energy loss.
Concentration problems.

The conclusions come from a study of 12,600 people whose symptoms of depression and vitamin D levels were examined.

It emerged that people with low vitamin D levels were more likely to be depressed.

The study cannot tell us if low vitamin D is a cause of depression or the result.

The study’s authors explain:

“We found that low vitamin D levels are associated with depressive symptoms, especially in persons with a history of depression.

These findings suggest that primary care patients with a history of depression may be an important target for assessment of vitamin D levels.”

Foods that are rich in vitamin D include oily fish and eggs, but most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.

That is why levels are typically lower in the body through the winter months in more Northern climes.

Up to 50% of young women may be deficient in this vitamin, other research has shown.

Professor E. Sherwood Brown, study co-author, said:

“Our findings suggest that screening for vitamin D levels in depressed patients — and perhaps screening for depression in people with low vitamin D levels — might be useful.

But we don’t have enough information yet to recommend going out and taking supplements.”

Vitamin D levels are now routinely tested during physical exams as deficiencies are linked to other health problems, such as obesity, diabetes and general cognitive decline.

The study was published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Hoang et al., 2011).