Human Depression

I think that depression is a lot more straightforward than people are making it out to be. It’s quite the complicated emotion, but a very simple concept.

Depression can be simply characterized by a “depression” in happiness. Specifically depression is either; chronic or acute and chemical or situational.

It is important from a psychoanalytical standpoint to be able to classify as broad of a term as this as simply as possible.

And before people ask, yes, I have been there and back. Life is a much more rewarding experience now.

I see a lot of people discussing nutrition and exercise as well. Both of these play a critical role in the genuine rehabilitation of depression in my opinion. My take on both of this are as straightforward as it was for depression!

Diet: Keep it simple.
Take in plenty of complex carbohydrates, lean protein, and healthy fats throughout the course of five to six equally portioned meals a day.
My take on fats: If I can see it floating at the surface of water at room temperature, I assume that it will do the same in my blood.
My take on carbohydrates: If it isn’t brown and doesn’t remind me of a fist full of nuts and grain, I avoid it. I generalize everything else as rapid metabolizing (or simple) carbohydrates, which spike insulin levels.
My take on proteins: If it’s not lean, I assume that it will not make me lean.

I am also very keen on bioavailability. If you don’t know what this is, you should do your research. It deals with the different metabolic properties of different foods. This is a very important aspect of nutrition that is often overlooked.

Exercise: Keep it simple:
Strictly strength training and MMA for flexibility and diversity.
Strength training: Complex exercises only, no isolation (i.e. barbell curls). If it doesn’t weight at least 135 lbs and recruit many different muscle groups, I won’t lift it. I utilize a strength training program that operates under the principal of liner progression and comprises of five different exercises only, three of the exercises per session, for a total of three workouts a week. It’s a simple and quick routine that anyone can do with minimal resources.
Cardio: I don’t do it. Strength training has been proven to be far more efficient in maintaining optimal health than anything else. The amount of effort required to squat 285 lbs for 5 sets of 5 three days a week causes your body to go into an incredibly anabolic state. This effort also increases your Basil Metabolic Rate over a course of 24-36 hours. What does this all mean? Increased calories burnt even in the absence of exercise. More, in fact that what can be done with the same amount of time spent on a treadmill. Also, we know that muscle burns far more calories than fat. Increase your lean muscle mass and your metabolism will increase in a directly proportional fashion.

This all fairly well encompasses my take on fitness from a nutritional and physical standpoint.

Welcome to ILP.
answers.com/topic/bioavailabilty
I’ve been told that vinegar helps alleviate arthritic pain. After a week or so of eating Kosher pickles and drinking the vinegar, my arthritic pains and consequent bad dreams have become less severe (almost nonexistent). Apparantly, the bioavailabilty inherent in vinegar is enough to prove remedial for me. Biodiversity, however, determines what helps whom.

Interesting, have they sciencified this? Not that I doubt your testimony but anecdotal is anecdotal. There’s always that placebo question, the power of which is undoubtedly significant.

From the skimpy research I’ve done the vinegar remedy for arthritic pain is still in the "alternative " medical arena. There are several anecdotal references and a few books aout this. If it’s a placebo, I don’t care. For me it works.

edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/02/lkl.01.html
I’m including this site here because it deals with depression. I’ve admired Candice Pert, neuroscientist, since the 1980s. It appears that she has gotten into what some might call “New Wave.” The crux of the conversation is that depression is a habit.

Quite. Just asking.

Will anybody take the time to read the short transcript? It covers a lot of what has been said here.

Hoo Ha! don’t you mean, has anyone scientifically sanctified a vinegar cure for arthritic pains?

Come on, Calrid, if something works for someone, is it really important to know why? You know that ‘phantom’ pain can be present in a severed limb. Leave it alone.

I didn’t read the whole transcript nor know what has been said here, but the idea that depression is a habit, something that we’re emotionally addicted to, is quite interesting.

Yes because it might work for others. It’s important to trial it to see its efficacy otherwise we might as well just give everyone placebos and hope they get better through the power of suggestion. And of course since vinegar is readily available, it wont get trialled by anything but a charity because there’s no money in it, but that’s by the by. :slight_smile:

If it works for you anecdotally then it just works is no way to help the millions of sufferers out there who could benefit if it was effectively studied.

I know it sounds odd, but not all Science is evil, just my science to create a bomb that will destroy the whole solar system, but then one has to make ends meet by holding the world to ransom for 1 million billion dollars or what have you.

For the past 20 years Candice Pert, co-discoverer of endorphins (endogenous morphine) has mapped these and their receptors in the brain. This is another hint at solving the addiction/habit problem, at least on the level of neuroscientific investigations. Some 20 years before that Donald Hebb noted that frequently used neuronal communication pathways become almost automatic. Putting the two together, one can see how memory and emotion join together in a habitual manner that bypasses most of the prefrontal, left brain anaylses–i.e., where logical choices are made. Depression, in this vein, becomes a memory/emotion habit.

If only it were that simple, then good therapy would always be effective on its own.

I can’t say it isn’t. In any event Skepitco rakes Pert over to coals for wandering into territories of ideas that are not “scientifically verifiable”. One again, left brain, prefrontal lobe logic makes the claim that it is sole arbiter of truth about body/mind.

There’s no part of the brain that isn’t involved in logic, except perhaps Shatner’s Bassoon.

Why?

Pert goes so far as to relegate consciousness to every body cell!

Because good therapy does not work as well as good therapy and/or drugs, at least for most people, yo break someone out of a cycle by words alone, then try doing it when they have drugs too or just drugs alone, get back to me on that one. Some science would be nice…

Everyone has a theory that it’s all just habit or it’s all just brain chemistry, or it’s all just environment or it’s all just what? But let me tell you this, I know some pretty smart people in the field with PhD’s and the last thing they would do is claim it’s solved, trite or down to x or y, or for that matter the whole alphabet! Friend of mine says they’re no closer to finding a solution to depression than they ever were, all that is happening is that they are narrowing down on the people it happens to and why, and that focus is so diverse that it will take a long time to figure out exactly what depression is.

Everyone has the answer, try suffering from it. Get back to me when you’ve walked a mile in everyone’s ferking shoes, ffs. :slight_smile:

By the way no one would like to see a cure for the blues more than me, but I get kinda tired of people making blanket statements about a complex field and one they know generally nothing about. Think on. :slight_smile:
To sum up, there are no easy answers in science, anyone who claims there is, is either a fraud a quack or a layman. O:)

Why?
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Can you back this up?

I am asking you about your assertion.

I still don’t see why if what he said was true about depression would mean that therapy would always be effective on its own. His statement does not indicate how easy or hard it is to change these patterns. Nor does depression being based on emotional habits and memory mean that drugs would or would not aid added to or instead of talk therapy.

I don’t understand why you are aiming this at me. It makes no sense. What is it about what I have written that this makes sense as a response to?

I work in the field. I consider your statement to be facile and confused and that is why I am asking you about it. i don’t think your assertion makes any sense, actually, but I am trying to find out more of why you believe it.

By the way, there are easy answers in science. Some things have rather simple explanations. I tend to think this is not the case with psychoemotional issues, but given that the words emotional habits and memories are abstract terms for incredibly complex phenomena, to say these are the root of depression is not offering a simple answer, nor does it make clear what kind of therapeutic approaches will work.

moreno is asking some good questions…
i hope there are some good answers…

What are you his mum. :wink:

Going to watch a movie in a few mins. Have to get back to it when time allows… :stuck_out_tongue: