The Personality Trait That Predicts Anxiety and Depression Disorders (M)
Anxiety and depression predicted by this common personality factor.
Category: Depression
Ask These Questions To Lower Depression And Anxiety (M)
Allow yourself to consider these question for better mental health.
How To Naturally Boost Neurotransmitters Sapped By Depression (M)
Critical neurotransmitters were boosted in the study, possibly helping to restore mental health.
17 Jobs With The Highest Depression Rates (M)
There are four things about a job that are likely to make it a depressing one.
Enhanced CBT Is Better For Long-Term Depression (M)
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), now a standard option for treating depression, involves addressing people’s thoughts and behaviours together.
The Common Painkillers That Help Treat Depression
A range of common drugs, many available over the counter, help to reduce depression.
A range of common drugs, many available over the counter, help to reduce depression.
Fish oils, statins and common painkillers like aspirin — all available over-the-counter — can help treat depression, research concludes.
The positive effects of these anti-inflammatories are even stronger when taken with antidepressants.
The reason these drugs may help is because inflammation in the body can contribute to depression.
The research found that the most effective anti-inflammatory drugs are:
- Omega-3 fatty acids,
- statins,
- non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs),
- and minocyclines (a type of antibiotic).
The study also found that other anti-inflammatories, like steroids, modafinil and N-acetyl cysteine, were linked to a positive effect on depression.
The conclusions come from an analysis of 30 different studies which collected their results together.
Professor Ed Bullmore, a neuropsychiatrist at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study, explained:
“The paper uses rigorous statistical methods to combine results from 30 previously published trials, involving about 1600 people with depression.
Based on this large amount of data, they find that anti-inflammatory agents “on average” have modest but robust anti-depressant benefits.
Interestingly, anti-inflammatory agents had a stronger effect when they were taken together with a conventional anti-depressant drug, like an SSRI.”
Around one-third of people given antidepressants do not respond to the medication.
Taking anti-inflammatories, though, reduced depression symptom severity by 52 percent.
They also increased the chance of curing depression symptoms by 79 percent.
Prof Bullmore sounded a note of caution, though:
“The study falls short of providing definitive evidence that any particular agent is an effective anti-depressant, or is likely to work well for everybody with depression.
Even for over the counter drugs and food supplements, it is advisable to let your doctors know what you’re taking, especially if you’re already taking prescribed medication or you experience any side-effects.”
The study was published in the journal Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry (Bai et al., 2019).
The 5 Main Reasons People Get Anxious Or Depressed (M)
There are three thinking styles which can lead to depression and anxiety.
Depression Is Reduced By Feeling Connected To A Group (M)
It’s not just being in a group that helps depression, it’s identifying with the group that’s vital.
Hyper-Connected: What Depression Does to Your Brain
People who’d experienced depression had hyper-connectivity in areas of the brain which have been associated with rumination.
People who’d experienced depression had hyper-connectivity in areas of the brain which have been associated with rumination.
Young adults who have experienced depression have hyper-connected cognitive and emotional networks, a study finds.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago scanned the brains of 30 adults between the ages of 18 and 23 while they were in a resting state (Jacobs et al., 2014).
The participants had previously experienced depression but were otherwise healthy and not taking any medication.
Their fMRI scans were compared with those of 23 controls who had not experienced serious depression.
They found that people who’d experienced depression had hyper-connectivity in areas of the brain which have been associated with rumination.
Rumination involves running personal problems over and over in your head without coming up with a solution.
Dr Scott Langenecker, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at UIC, said:
“Rumination is not a very healthy way of processing emotion.
Rumination is a risk factor for depression and for re-occurrence of depression if you’ve had it in the past.”
Along with rumination, the researchers examined how much cognitive control participants had.
Dr Langenecker continued:
“Cognitive control and rumination, as you might expect, are related to each other.
As rumination goes up, cognitive control goes down.”
While the young adults in the study were not currently depressed, given previous research we know that around half of them will relapse within two years.
Young adulthood may be a critical period in which people are more responsive to the correct therapies.
Dr Rachel Jacobs, the study’s first author, said:
“If we can help youth learn how to shift out of maladaptive strategies such as rumination, this may protect them from developing chronic depression and help them stay well as adults.
We think that depression is a developmental outcome, and it’s not a foregone conclusion that people need to become depressed.
If we can provide prevention and treatment to those people that are most at risk, we might be able to prevent depression, reduce the number of depressive episodes, or reduce their severity.”
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The Best Way To Fix A Bad Mood (M)
Mindfulness skills were compared with cognitive by researchers to see which repaired a bad mood most effectively.
