Symptoms
There are a number of symptoms that might indicate the presence of depression. People who are experiencing this condition may suffer from persistent sadness and feelings of hopelessness and may experience disruptions in sleep and appetite. They might also notice a significant decrease in motivation, experience fatigue and listlessness, and may find that they are struggling to engage in activities that would normally bring them pleasure. Some find it extremely difficult to partake in simple tasks, such as showering or getting out of bed, and some experience a decrease in interest in social interactions. Others find they need to withdraw from social settings entirely. A decrease in sexual libido is not uncommon with depression. Cognitive impairments, to include decreased concentration and poor memory might also be present. In some cases individuals might also experience other symptoms, such as psychosis or dissociative states. When feeling hopeless and in despair, some individuals will experience the passive feeling of not wanting to exist or even active thoughts of suicide. As is the case with many illnesses, depressive symptoms range from mild to severe and no one-person experiences it exactly the same.

Medications
Medications might be prescribed either by a General Medical Practitioner or a Psychiatrist. The most common medications prescribed for depression are antidepressants including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), selective norepinphrine reuptake inhibitors and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). These medications affect levels of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain and are often successful in alleviating the symptoms of depression.

Side Effects
These medications are typically considered safe. However, as with any medication, there may be side effects. Typical side effects include headache, nausea, sleep disruption and agitation. Some individuals also experience sexual dysfunction while taking antidepressant medications. In some cases, particularly if the depression is a symptom of another mood disorder known as Bipolar Affective Disorder, antidepressants may cause a manic episode. It is important those medications and their side effects are monitored by a physician and that any changes in mental status, worsening of symptoms or suicidal ideation are discussed with a doctor. Finally, medications alone might not be effective. Many find that additional therapies are required to address underlying causes, such as trauma or complex grief.

Therapy
Current treatments for depression include a variety of therapies. Many individuals respond well to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a short-term form of therapy that focuses on changing the way one thinks and feels by targeting behaviors. This therapy model, along with Solution Focused Therapy, is a favorite among funding agencies and insurance companies, as it generally only takes between 6 to 20 sessions, compared with longer-term treatments. Other forms of therapy include, but are not limited to, Emotion Focused Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and more. Regardless of which therapeutic modality is selected, it is important to find a therapist that feels comfortable and has a professional designation or license, such as a registered Psychologist or a Marriage and Family Therapist.

When to call a doctor or mental health professional
While it is important to respect the wishes and desires of a friend or family member suffering from depression, there are some instances where it is vital to step in and take control. This is particularly true if the individual suffering from depression is at an imminent risk causing bodily harm. To determine if an individual is feeling unsafe, the question must be posed. It is all right to ask if someone is having thoughts of suicide. If uncertain how to proceed with raising the question or what to do if the answer is yes, contact a local mental health facility, doctor or crisis line for assistance. If an individual is also experiencing symptoms of psychosis, such as hearing voices or seeing things, or their symptoms of depression are likely to cause physical illness (i.e. from lack of food) then it is advisable to seek the opinion of a mental health professional.

Prevention
Can depression be prevented? To know this for certain, the cause of depression would have to be known. However, there are many things that can be done to promote positive mental health, including connecting often with peers, taking time to relax and rejuvenate, meditating, exercising regularly, and maintaining proper nutrition. It might also be beneficial to seek the support of a qualified mental health professional during times of transition in one’s life, such as divorce, career change or losses. Maintaining emotional, physical and spiritual health can promote positive mental health.

If celebrities may rightly be considered as representatives of their times, then, it is obvious that the current generation has a serious addiction problem.

Use of illicit drugs is a common problem in many countries, particularly the developed nations. It generally begins during adolescence and seeps into adult life. According to a National Survey of Drug Use and Health, more than 45% of Americans have used one or more kinds of illicit drugs at some point of their lives. However, most people who experiment with drugs successfully avoid addiction. Only a small percentage of users are at risk of becoming addicts.

What is it that causes some people to deal with their drug problems while others succumb? What contributes to this risk? Scientists have been puzzled by these questions for years.

Some of the risk factors that push people towards addiction may be listed as below:

• Psychiatric illnesses or disorders: Personality disorders, anxiety and mood swings have been known to trigger addiction. A study by the National Institute of Mental Health reports that people with mental illnesses are three times as likely to become addicts as normal people. Although the numbers point to a definite connection, it is not clear whether mental illness predisposes someone to addiction or vice versa.
• Personality disorders: A number of personality disorders could trigger addiction. For example, narcissistic patients struggle with feelings of inadequacy all their life. Such people have a tendency to depend on drugs or alcohol for the feelings of power and confidence generated by these substances. Similarly, people suffering from borderline personality disorder depend on drugs to take the edge off their impulses and anger.
• Genetic: According to emerging evidence, long term addiction could be the result of inherent genetic traits. Tests conducted in this field suggest that drug addicts may be wired differently. They are unable to derive sufficient pleasure from everyday events and therefore become victims of the power of drugs.
• Environment: Man is a social being. Life is all about copying and adapting to situations around us. Research shows that even those who do not suffer from the above predisposing conditions can become addicts if they are in an environment where they are constantly exposed to drugs and alcohol. A stressful environment where drugs are readily available for use could be the first step towards a lifelong addiction. This means that just about anybody can develop addiction under favorable circumstances.

In most people, drug dependency, substance abuse and alcoholism begins in adolescence. Whether this develops into an addiction depends on several factors. However, even though there are strong genetic, environmental and psychological factors contributing to addiction, the most overriding of all seems to be the power of choice – rather, the lack of will to make the right choice.

Researchers at the Columbia University studied the relationship between happiness and heart health and found that positive emotions produced ‘heart-protective outcomes’. Quite predictably, the study showed that unhappy people ran a higher risk of developing heart attacks or chronic chest pains (almost 20%+).

Another study published in the European Heart Journal monitored a group of civil servants in the UK over a span of several years and found that those who enjoyed their lives in assorted domains like work, family, sex and self, had reduced risk of coronary heart disease, both in the cases of men and women.

Although it has long been recognized that anxiety and stress trigger heart diseases, the definite association between positive emotions and heart health is something new. According to experts, the reduced risk may be due to several factors. People who are happy tend to practice better lifestyle behaviors. They sleep better and have less stress in life.

The above findings have led to the possibility of innovative treatment systems for cardiovascular patients. One approach being actively considered by experts is known as behavioral activation, and it involves helping patients do more of that activity which brings them joy. Experts, however, point out that much research is required in this field and the clinical significance of the association between happiness and the heart will only be established once it has been proven that increasing the positive effect can bring down the risk of cardiovascular disease.

It must be noted that behavior modification is only one aspect of controlling heart diseases. Patients can lower their risks significantly through healthy lifestyle choices like not smoking, eating healthy food and regular exercise.

Some benefits of massage
Massage has various benefits for everyone. These are the major ones:

Improved lymphatic flow and detoxification
The lymphatic system helps return waste products to the blood and thus purge them from the body. When lymphatic flow is increases through regular massage, this process is increased and speeded up. The removing of potential toxins and bacteria helps cleanse the body and makes it healthier.

Furthermore, the increased blood flow also enables the body to better absorb the nutrients that it does need. This can even improve healing since increased blood flow brings more beneficial oxygen and nutrients that will reach the organs.

Increased flexibility and lower muscle tension
People often spend a lot of time sitting behind computers and TV screens while performing repetitive activities without proper exercise. This causes muscles to tighten and leads to various back, joint, shoulder, neck and other problems. Even when people do stretches and exercise, it is frequently not enough to counteract these problems, particularly as they age. Regular massage will help reduce tension while increasing flexibility and mobility.

There are added benefits of increased mobility to include decreased muscle cramps and spasms.

Feel good effect
The feel-good effects of massage go past the pleasurable feelings of the massage itself. Just as physical activities such as running can produce endorphins, chemicals that reduce pain and give the person a natural feeling of well being, so can massage.

Lower blood pressure
Heart disease and strokes are the biggest killers in much of the world, and massage can help reduce them by lowering blood pressure. Over time, by lowering stress levels and increasing blood flow, blood pressure can be significantly reduced.

Improved breathing
By reducing muscle tension throughout the body, regular massage also relaxes the respiratory system and thus makes breathing more efficient. Breathing becomes deeper and more effective with more relaxed muscles as well as better blood flow.

Improved posture
When muscles are tense or sore, the body positions the muscles to reduce pain. Unfortunately, this leads to bad posture that will make muscle pain even worse over time. Regular massage can break this vicious cycle by eliminating tension and pain while keeping muscles relaxed. Good posture can thus be maintained much more easily.

Other benefits
Other known benefits of massage include better sleep and less fatigue.

Getting Regular Massage
Massage is obviously not something people can do for themselves and needs to be performed regularly for its full benefits. For those who can afford it, visiting a massager is the best option, but this is beyond the financial reach of most people.

Massage chairs have advanced greatly in recent years and the better ones ones now offer most of the benefits a human massager can bring. However, good massage chairs cost thousands of dollars. For those who can make the investment, this is still much cheaper than hiring someone to do the job, and the health benefits one can offer over time should pay off handsomely. It will also save the time of having to travel to a massager.

Another option for those who have a regular partner is to learn massage and give them to each other. From online videos, books to DVDs, there are lots of ways to learn basic techniques from home if need be.

Whatever the method used, everyone should do what is necessary to get the benefits of regular massage. They are too numerous to pass up!

Here are some natural stress busters that can help you:

Take some time out
Sometimes, taking a short breather from stressful situations can make a big difference. Of course, it may not always be possible to put some distance between you and a stressful situation, but you can try to do this as much as possible. This can help you channel your thoughts towards a more balanced frame of mind and keep stress at bay. It is never possible to control everything in one’s life so it is best to just let some things go. We only have one shot at life as far as we know so why not make the best of it?

Visualize
One good activity to do when taking some time out is to visualize. Envisioning a favorite or an ideal place can do a lot to put a mind at ease. Try to mentally hear, smell and see as much of that place as possible.

Meditate
While this word conjures up images from hippies to monks in the minds of some people, meditation does not have to be thought of as anything more than relaxation techniques. It is simply a way to focus all your thoughts on one particular thing and exclude everything else. Taking the focus away from the source of stress can be helpful in resolving the problem. There are various meditation techniques, and everyone needs to find the way that works best for them.

Exercise Regularly
Exercise releases endorphins into your system, and they can be wonderful stress busters that can give you a natural feeling of well-being without having to resort to medication. Regular exercise can keep your blood pressure under control and help you cope with the adrenaline released during the periods of stress better.

Get a Good Night’s Sleep
A good night’s rest has an unmatched therapeutic value. It can help you get rid of the day’s stress and make you feel rejuvenated and able to face the next day cheerfully. You should try to relax your body and mind before going to bed in order to achieve this.

Learn to control your reactions
The very same event can cause vastly different reactions and stress levels in different people. Obviously, those who do not become so stressed out have better ways of handling problems. When faced with different problems, visualize possible solutions as calm manner before taking any action. There is never a problem so bad that it could not be worse!

Think good thoughts
At the end of every day or when feeling stressed, take some time to think of the positive things in life. Some good can always be found. Concentrating on those things will make you feel better about life in general. Science has shown that mental attitude and what we choose to dwell on has a lot to do with the levels of stress and happiness in our lives.

With a combination of these stress-busting techniques, you should be on your way to a calmer frame of mind, and the results are bound to show up both at home and at work.

Mental health problems are rising by the year all over the world. A renowned psychologist once said that 99 percent of the world’s population is mentally afflicted in some way or the other. He also went on to say that the surest way to better ones mental health is through calm and quietude. He was talking about meditation.

Yoga is a great way to overcome mental health issues, and it is not very difficult to master. For those who have, they are able to go into a trance-like state and take full control of their thought processes to bring about feelings of calm and tranquility.

Some people travel all the way to India and pay huge sums of money to learn the art of yoga. While this is fine for those who want to learn yoga in this way, it is not necessary unless one wants to take it to a very high level. Simple classes and/or DVDs are all that are required.

Other people are under the mistaken impression that yoga is all about extreme flexibility and other very difficult feats, but nothing could be farther from the truth. While yoga does have its physical aspect, (this varies greatly with the type of yoga one practices), at its core it is a mental discipline involving meditation. This practice of meditation is one of the best ways of controlling the mind and thereby taking control of negative thought processes while achieving a greater level of mental health.

Like yoga, self-hypnosis is another way to bring about a better state of mental health. There are many products such as self hypnosis compact disks and downloadable files that can be played on iPods and other digital media. Just by listening to these recordings in quietude and concentrating on the techniques described in them, it is possible to master self-hypnosis processes that can effectively be used in improving one’s state of mental health.

Drug addiction, depression, alcoholism and other behavioral issues are all related to unstable mental health. While medication is required in some of these cases, it is not in most. Just developing a schedule to meditate in the morning or evenings through yoga or self-hypnosis techniques is enough to gain control and improve ones mental health and thereby setting out on the road to health and happiness.

How it works
Exercise has been shown to have various mental health benefits from reducing depression to improving brain function for the elderly. How exactly it works is complex and varies with the individual, but there are some strong theories.

One involves the body’s production of endorphins. Exercise triggers the production of endorphins as a natural pain-reliever in a response to the physical pain that exercise can bring. These endorphins are opiates that are similar chemically to morphine (although the effects are much milder). The effect of these natural chemicals goes beyond pain relief to produce a sense of well-being in people that lasts after the exercise session is over (see Runner’s High With Endorphins for more details on endorhpins).

For reasons not yet fully understood, exercise has also been shown to increase activity in the frontal lobes and hippocampus of the brain. Furthermore, it boosts production of other neurotransmitters and chemicals known to boost mood. Finally, exercises increases the levels of other compounds that help brain cells survive longer.

Outside the brain, exercise burns adrenaline and immune system chemicals that can make depression worse while increasing body temperature. This works to calm the body and improve physical as well as mental health.

Other emotional benefits of exercise
Exercise has many other mental health benefits that do not involve the production of chemicals. One of these is the boost to self confidence that exercise provides. Be it from the feeling of having accomplished something or looking more physically fit, exercise boosts confidence by making people feel better about themselves and their actions.

Exercise also provides a healthy diversion away from problems and issues in everyday life. By providing a time for people to think about something else, it distracts the mind, gives it a chance to unwind and helps people think of more pleasant thoughts.

Although the act of exercising does not always provide a chance to meet and talk with people, it does provide socialization place and topic of discussion for many. Being highly social beings, this socialization can help people’s mental health.

Then there is sleep. People who are physically fit sleep better than those who do not. Good sleep can work wonders to make people feel better, reduce problems in daily life caused by lack of sleep and also increases physical health.

While all the positive effects exercise has on mental health are not clearly understand and scientists are unsure exactly how and why they work, there is no reason why its positive effects cannot be enjoyed now. Remembering these points can help create a positive feedback loop to keep people on their exercise programs.