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Category: Depression
Brain Stimulation Helps 70% Fight Major Depression
Some depressed patients even experienced dramatic improvements in just a couple of weeks.
Some depressed patients even experienced dramatic improvements in just a couple of weeks.
Electrical brain stimulation produced a marked improvement in depression symptoms in 70 percent of people who took part in a recent study.
Some depressed patients even experienced dramatic improvements in just a couple of weeks.
The painless, non-invasive treatment targets a natural pattern of electrical activity in a specific part of the brain.
Most people in the study reported that their depression symptoms were reduced by at least half after two weeks.
The newer type of brain stimulation used in the study is called ‘transcranial alternating current stimulation’ (tACS).
Dr Flavio Frohlich, study co-author, explained:
“We conducted a small study of 32 people because this sort of approach had never been done before.
Now that we’ve documented how this kind of tACS can reduce depression symptoms, we can fine tune our approach to help many people in a relatively inexpensive, noninvasive way.”
All the people in the study had been diagnosed with major depression.
They were randomly divided into three groups with two of them getting a sham version of the treatment to provide controls.
The electrical brain stimulation lasted 40 minutes and was done on five consecutive days.
It targeted natural electrical oscillations in the brain called ‘alpha waves’.
Alpha waves are more predominant when people close their eyes and dream, or meditate.
Studies have suggested that depression is linked to an imbalance of alpha waves in the right frontal cortex.
Stabilising these waves, the scientists found, caused many people’s depression to lift after two weeks.
However, after four weeks, the effect of the brain stimulation appeared to have worn off.
Dr Frohlich said:
“It’s important to note that this is a first-of-its kind study.
It was unclear what would happen if we treated people several days in a row or what effect we might see weeks later.
So, the fact that we’ve seen such positive results from this study gives me confidence our approach could help many people with depression.”
The study was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry (Alexander et al., 2019).
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The Type Of Breathing That Fights Depression And Anxiety
Changing patterns of breathing improves mental health, concentration and memory.
Changing patterns of breathing improves mental health, concentration and memory.
Deep breathing can help reduce the symptoms of depression and anxiety, studies show.
It also has the power to increase concentration and memory.
Controlled yogic breathing has even been shown to help with severe depression.
But, it has to be done right.
Diaphragmatic breathing — colloquially known as deep breathing — involves contracting the muscles underneath the lungs.
Sometimes it is called ‘belly breathing’ because it feels like breathing from the belly.
In contrast, ‘chest breathing’ — using the muscles around the upper body — is less efficient.
Dr Melanis Rivera, a clinical psychologist who works at a student counselling centre, said:
“When you breathe with your upper chest, upper lungs, upper body, what happens is you are taking in less oxygen which is vital to your body and organs.”
This sort of shallow breathing is linked to anxiety, fatigue and muscle tension.
It can also lead to headaches and panic attacks.
Belly breathing is best done by breathing in steadily for four seconds from the diaphragm, then exhaling for six seconds.
Dr Nathaly Shoua-Desmarais, a clinical psychologist and biofeedback specialist, said:
“The misconception is the longer you suck in air the better, but it’s the longer exhalation that provides the most benefit.”
While it might seem odd that we need to train ourselves to breathe properly, Dr Shoua-Desmarais said:
“Babies use diaphragmatic breathing.
Somewhere along the way we develop bad habits that develop into thoracic breathing.”
Retraining ourselves to do something so natural, though, can prove difficult.
It is best to start with a 5-minute routine at first, said Dr Rivera:
“If you’ve been chest breathing for a good portion of your life and you suddenly tell your body, hey, let’s stretch out these lungs, you could feel dizzy or get a headache, even hyperventilate.”
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Teaching people to focus on positive emotions helps them deal with stress, new research finds.
People were taught classic positive psychology exercises such as keeping a gratitude journal, recognising positive events each day and doing small acts of kindness.
Together, the training helped reduce people’s anxiety and depression over the six weeks of the study.
The researchers focused on 170 caregivers for people with dementia.
Half were put in a control group, while the rest were encouraged to focus on their positive emotions.
People were taught eight skills:
- Practice a small act of kindness each day and recognise the power it has to increase positive emotions.
- Set a simple and attainable goal for each day and note down progress.
- Savour a positive event through journalling or discussing it with someone.
- Spot at least one positive event each day.
- List a personal strength and how you have used it recently.
- Use mindfulness to pay attention to daily experiences.
- Identify a daily stressor and reframe it as a positive event.
- Keep a gratitude journal.
Professor Judith Moskowitz, the study’s first author, said:
“The caregivers who learned the skills had less depression, better self-reported physical health, more feelings of happiness and other positive emotions than the control group.”
The results showed that those who learned the positive psychology exercises experienced a 7 percent drop in depression scores and 9 percent drop in anxiety.
This was enough to move people from being moderately depressed to being within the ‘normal’ range.
Professor Moskowitz chose dementia caregivers as the disease is on the rise:
“Nationally we are having a huge increase in informal caregivers.
People are living longer with dementias like Alzheimer’s disease, and their long-term care is falling to family members and friends.
This intervention is one way we can help reduce the stress and burden and enable them to provide better care.”
One participant in the study commented:
“Doing this study helped me look at my life, not as a big neon sign that says, ‘DEMENTIA’ in front of me, but little bitty things like, ‘We’re having a meal with L’s sister, and we’ll have a great visit.’
I’m seeing the trees are green, the wind is blowing.
Yeah, dementia is out there, but I’ve kind of unplugged the neon sign and scaled down the size of the letters.”
The study was published in the journal Health Psychology (Moskowitz et al., 2019).
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