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lifting depression

Depression is ghastly, but so are so many of the treatments.

The inconvenient truth for the pharmacist is that in the 20th century the amount of depression in the Western world rose by about 1000% And the amount of change in the human genome was around 0%

So, if depression is supposed to be due to chemical imbalances in the brain, what drove those imbalances? What really changed in the last century was the social environment, and it continues to deteriorate. It is now harder than ever for people to meet their emotional needs for security, companionship, status, self-esteem, meaning, and so on, and all of these needs are essential. When they are not met people worry, and anything you worry about and do not act on is bound to cause trouble. Here's why.

It has been known for 50 years that depressed people dream more, and thanks to Joe Griffin's work connecting worry, dreaming, exhaustion and depression, we can now see why. Ideally, when something excites or upsets a human being (or any other mammal) he or she should act on it directly. All the emotional arousals that are not acted on in the day are played out in the night in extended phases of dreaming rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This sleep is not restful, as anyone who is depressed knows. It fact it is about as energetic as being awake. Also, the orientation response, which alerts us to potetially interesting and pleasurable events in the daytime, is exhausted by the prolonged energetic REM sleep. So it's not surprising that depressed people wake up exhausted and unable to motivate themselves.

The solution lies in three phases: one, calm the patient down, as depression is, paradoxically, a highly aroused state. If you are struggling with depression yourself try a good relaxation CD, such as Relax. Two, find out what the patient is worrying about and reframe these problems, preferably in guided imagery, to put them into a better perspective so that they seem solvable, or at least less overwhelming. Three, shift the patient's focus from the problem to the future, reconnecting him or her with pleasurable experience and motivating a change in behaviour towards solving difficulties and meeting essential emotional needs, so that the change becomes self-sustaining and does not depend on continued therapeutic support.. All of this is best done in guided imagery, so if you are trying to choose a therapist make sure he or she is skilled in this immensely powerful therapeutic technique.