In recent times depression has been reclassified as an actual disease. According to statistics from the World Health Organization it affects over 181 million people and is the leading cause of suicide, which costs approximately 850,000 people people each year. Depression can make life very difficult, not just for the sufferers themselves but also for their loved ones.
Depression can hold us back in many ways. From the interpersonal level it promotes broody, solitary behavior keeping us from making connections with people and puting a strain on existing relationships. It is an emotionally crippling condition, completely overwhelming the sufferer, affecting every facet of their lives and greatly hinders further personal growth and development.
Although medication has been developed in recent years that can help alleviate depression, it’s expensive and misdiagnoses are still common. Doctors often prescribe medications designed to combat clinical depression, deliberately or otherwise, to people for whom counseling might be a far better option, for example to people who have recently experienced a traumatic event or lost a loved one.
Anti-depressant drugs are designed specifically to address the neuro-chemical imbalances linked to clinical depression. It is important to remember, however, that the mind is not an engine and one cannot simply pour additives in to improve efficiency, it is a highly inter-connected and complex system.
Therefore for those who suffer from depression, or those living with someone who does, it is important that they educate themselves so as to better understand the condition so as to ensure they receive the best and most appropriate treatment.
You Can Heal Your Life (Gift Edition)
selfhelp : June 29, 2011 12:52 pm : depression-books
Louise L. Hay is a best-selling author and one of the luminaries of the self-help movement. For almost 30 years this book has provided motivation and inspiration to countless people, many of whom facing serious illnesses or going through traumatic periods in their lives.
This is a great companion book to pick up when you’re going through tough times, or if you’re just feeling blue. It contains some stirring words of inspiration to remind you of just how great you are as well as some absolutely stunning, vividly coloured illustrations to help your imagination take flight.
This gift edition is the perfect present for anyone you know who may be going through some difficulty in their lives or are perhaps in need of a pick-me-up to remind them that you think they’re wonderful and that they should too!
Traditionally depression was seen as something akin to self-indulgent melancholy and you just had to “snap out of it”. Thankfully our society has evolved since then and now we understand more about the nature of depression, though that does not automatically mean life has become any easier for those who suffer from it.
Our lives are result based, and the goalposts keep getting moved further and further away. It can be a struggle in and of itself, without also having the crippling burden of depression lumped up on top.
Those who suffer from depression, as well as related conditions such as bipolar disorder oranxiety, often see their condition as a heavy weight that’s been chained to them. This weight slows them down, finally bringing them to a grinding halt whilst they watch others race ahead in life, love, career and finance. This frustration only serves to fuel further depression resulting in a increasingly painful downward spiral and a potential cascade of other problems such as job loss, debt, health issues and relationship problems.
This book, first and foremost, gives some excellent advice on how to recognize and understand particular patterns of behavior which may be detrimental and how to either minimize their impact or eliminate them completely. It also provides tips on how to cope with and even prevent depression plus some invaluable and extremely practical depression survival tips including how to mentally prepare yourself for the workplace while depressed, how to interact with others and still get the job done no matter what.
So, if your relationships and career are being negatively affected by your depression, you really can’t afford not to buy this book.
The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
selfhelp : June 29, 2011 11:24 am : Books, depression-books
The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness – with Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn
Although contemporary western society has come a long way towards recognizing depression as an actual condition, and a rather serious one at that, western medicine has been focused almost exclusively on pharmacological treatments, or, in layman’s terms, selling us various brands of happy pills.
In The Mindful Way through Depression an international team of experts come together to tackle depression with a whole new approach, combining the best and most up-to-date information from the field of cognitive science research with oriental meditation techniques. The result is a revolutionary set of practical methods to deal with ones own depression directly, using the illimitable power of the human mind.
Not only is this book essential reading for sufferers of depression, this is the type of book that anyone can read and come away with a fresh viewpoint and new mental skills to help vastly improve the quality of their daily lives.
