“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” ~ Viktor Frankl
Recent study found that mothers should hit the gym soon after childbirth in order to combat chances of depression. According to a University of Melbourne study the risk of postnatal depression cuts in half by exercising in the first three months after giving birth and was indicated an increase in the mother’s her sense of wellbeing and mental health.
Previous studies have stated that simple exercise like walking around the block with the child in a stroller can help but researchers at the Melbourne Angliss Hospital found intentional exercise sessions were most effective at preventing the the onset of depression in the mothers in the study.
Study head author Prof Mary Galea said, “This program can reduce the risk of postnatal depression and women who are referred to such a program will have less chance of developing the illness. It is important that mothers exercise and exercise safely, but it is a bit hard for them to go to a gym because it is not the right environment.” About 161 new mothers were divided in two treatment groups. One exercised and had education classes and the other group took education classes but had exercises to do at home.
So what were the findings? Well here is what they found out …
It was found that after the three-month programs the risk of postnatal depression was cut in half in those who did the exercise sessions. This is further evidense for the mind-body connect I have written about on other blog articles. If you’d like to see the entire study at its source you can do so at this link.
http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/n-152
“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” ~ Victor Frankl
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Today it is not uncommon to find people texting each other while in the same office or home. Gadgets from iphones, ipads, to facebook and twitter are changing the vehicles available to communicate with others. The technology offers quick worldwide communication, thing is most are not emailing a merchant in China or ordering a Mongolian grill via a seller on eBay in Mongolia! Instead, they are emailing others in town, updating their Facebook status with a trite saying they announce to the world, or tweeting a 100+ character message to others via Twitter.
Where in the hell are we headed? I work with scores of patients and am finding more and more disconnection in marriages and families than ever before and most of it is in part due to practices associated with devices that are supposed to HELP use communicate! Now, I am not old schooler, I own a primo iMac that is loaded, a laptop, and another desktop system. I also have a BlackBerry mobile device so I am no stranger to the e-world. My gripe is that the very tools that can connect us when used judiciously can also enslave use to a life of plugged in yet detached relationships. The notion of ‘friend’ is very different since the inception of Facebook.
So, reasearchers are now out, probing into the phenomenon of this movement in the current generation. Here’s what they are finding.
Lead author Dr Catriona Morrison, from the University of Leeds, said: “The internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side. While many of us use the internet to pay bills, shop and send emails, there is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities.”
These ‘internet addicts’ spent proportionately more time browsing pornography sites, gaming sites, and online chat communities. I might add per my words above that all these ‘friendship’ arenas are virtual and the porn they see will never materialize, the games stimulate the mind but suck hours on end, and the online relationships are trite and shallow at best. The study also showed a higher incidence of moderate to severe depression than non-addicted users.
One last thought from the study too …
“Our research indicates that excessive internet use is associated with depression, but what we don’t know is which comes first – are depressed people drawn to the internet or does the internet cause depression? What is clear, is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies.”
So, plug into your relationships, don’t get sucked into hollow trite online ones that really don’t foster love and belonging the two ingredients I find my patients need to be stable and at peace with themselves.
Get off the net and into reality. Trust me, it has been a battle for me as a blogger. I blog early early am before my kids awake so as to not quash the time with my sweet wife or my kids. No kid wants a dad or mom that is behind the internet monitor or living out teenage fantacies via Facebook.
Peace, Justin
So you want to stay up and Facebook and Tweet? It may come at a cost, a significant one. Adolscence is a key time in which teens brains are growing almost rapidly as they were when they were newborns, difficulties is this is when they want to stay up and go on less and less sleep. Rather than ‘resting’ their mind via rapid eye movement REM they stay up facebook till 1am crash, get up at 6am, get ready for school and hit a Red Bull or other sugar loaded caffience packed punch to get them by. This lifestyle does come with his price though.
I had a former teen patient a few years ago that could not make it in to school. He was often so tired he was unable to wake and was failing his classes. His parents brought him in to see me as a last resort. Turns out he was jerking his psyche around with Red Bull, Rockstar, and the like in order to attempt to manage his world. Well, his world came crashing in on him. His disengaged father was missing in action and his mother was lost emotionally and overwhelmed that he was not attending classes. I helped him cut out the drinks and get on a schedule and he eventually was able to begin to handle his world and start socially functioning again.
New research has indicated that teens whos parents demand that earlier bedtimes for them are substantially less prone to suffer from depression, and they are less likely to have any suicidal ideation too when compared to teens that go to bed later. Teens involved in the study, whose parents had set bedtimes of midnight or later were 24% more likely to battle depression, in addition to being 20% more likely of having thoughts of suicide, as compared to adolescents with bedtimes of 10 PM or earlier. As per the research, youngsters who admitted of getting 5 or fewer hours of sleep a night were 71% more likely to report depression and 48% more likely to have suicidal thoughts, as compared to those who were in bed for at least 8 hours. “Our results are consistent with the theory that inadequate sleep is a risk factor for depression”, said study researcher James E. Gangwisch, PhD, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York. The study was published in the January issue 2010 of SLEEP.
So, the verdict is out, teens have got to sleep. Their prefrontal cortex that manages impulse control, emotional regulation, and executive functioning is not resting thus conflict and depression result in family and school relationships not to mention their grades plummet with their depression as well.
If your a parent, start getting your teens in line.
If you are a teen, get to bed … your brain cannot afford to stay up!
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ~ Anatole France
Postpartum depression can be a large contributor to marital conflict and eventually lead to distance and a sense of loss in one or both spouses. Many women that battle postpartum symptoms are unaware of their husband’s emotional process as they are drowning in their own sense of confusion and the new responsibility of the baby that recently arrived. Women are caught in a battle between the primary relationship, the marriage the new beautiful but oh so needy child with feedings, diaper changes, sleep (or lack thereof) etc. In this post I want to very briefly talk about some of the tenets to this condition and the significant that the marriage be kept a high priority one equal to the needs and demands of the newborn.
Fathers typically are eager for the baby to come and excited for the new addition to the family. Some fathers, particularly those that are less secure in the marriage do find they are now competing with the baby for time and affection. Some fathers are unaware tension they feel and conflicts that occur are small leaks in this internal confusion as they love their child and yet are also at times jealous and at a loss as they are not primary or as primary in their spouses eyes, especially if the child is the couples first.
Now, when and if postpartum symptoms are present the fathers become further confused and can become upset and conflict ensues. Fathers I have worked with find that they are resentful and then defensive when interacting with their wife, the mother of the child. This cues and triggers upset and feelings of failure in the mother only complicating her postpartum process.
So, some advice here.
Mothers, your husband has been used to being #1. Ensure you love and nuture your child but do not neglect your marriage. If you are in the throws of postpartum get some professional help and ensure you enlist your husband as your biggest support.
Fathers, your wife has just given birth to a child. Her body is going through a chemical upheaval and now in a process of adapting to the new child in the home. If you feel abaonded this is normal, just hang in there. You are still important but as roles shift you can and will need to build your wife up and help her. If she is struggling with postpartum depression help her get some professional help. There is no shame in this, all women’s bodies, minds, and hearts are different and the complexities of child birth and then the resulting mental processes are not to be underestimated.
Most of the most major acute issues can be best handled by husbands that are good listeners. Many men I see in my office often want to fix or give answers. Difficulty is, postpartum is not a linear issue meaning that there is no simple fix. Working with depression of this kind is not like stopping a leaky oil pan. There’s not quick plugging it. It takes listening, helping, loving and often professional help to help sort out the process and get the child’s mother back on pace.
Your loyalties first need be to each other, first and foremost. Then your joint loyalty and love is for your child, the one you created together. Build your marriage, lean on each other, attend emotionally to one another … doing so will create one of the greatest journeys that men and women can embark on!
“A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke – and that the joke is oneself.”
Clifton Paul Fadiman
Most individuals have taken some psychology classes in high school and some even into college. If you’ll go back to the psych 101 classes you may remember that we have gray matter in our craniums that is in two hemispheres, the right and left brain. The left brain deals with our thought processes and more complicated thinking and processing abilities. The right brain on the other hand is activated when we have to use creative processes such as playing the piano, figuring out a new layout for your living room, and lining up a floral arraignment for the office table.
Most tasks that involved creativity will activate and get your right brain going. Knowing this information and understanding it clearly can arm you with a path to helping alleviate depression and anxiety. Individuals whose minds are caught up in what I tell my patients in a ‘washing machine cycle’. Their minds get caught in a spin cycle of negative thougths or cognitions as we call them and are unable to really process anything but left brain processes much of which are ladden with negative and are faulty, meaning the thoughts themselves are in error and often not true. One such example of one of these thoughts may be a generalization like, “I can’t ever keep this house clean. I am a horrble mother, I’ll never be a good homemaker.” The ‘nevers’ and ‘can’t’ are examples of faulting thinking in the mind of one that is not only depressed but also caught up in the left brain in a ’spin cycle.
One such method to stop the ’spin cycle’ of thought is to get out of your left brain and into your right and actually supress stress and push peace in your psyche. Something as simple as drawing, doodling, or other right-brained activities will help your anxiety and depression to begin to subside. The pervasive thoughts that fuel the ’spin cycle are actually the power behind your depression itself and engaging the right brain helps to keep one from lapsing back into negative thought patterns.
So don’t delay! Yes, I know it sounds simple but I am telling you that patients I work with that are often caught up in left-brain spin cycles have found they can begin to become aware and often then move their mind into right brained freedom. So, try some painting, wood carving, creating something on the computer or online, playing an instrument, or reorganize your family or dining room!
Depression is fueled by a variety of causes. You are not a victim, but a powerful agent that can actually overpower depression. It often does not leave on its own, you’ll have to choose to battle it. Jumping into right-brained behavior is but one simple way to start that battle and become free of sullen and depressive thinking and feeling.
