Sleep Disorders Are No Laughing Matter...But You Can Laugh At This.

March 7 thru the 13th is Sleep Awareness Week. Good sleep is important for physical health. As for emotional health, studies suggest that mental health difficulties are often accompanied by sleep disturbances.

Don't let sleeping too little or sleeping too much interfere with your well-being. Contact your healthcare professional.

Though sleep disorders are no laughing matter, the video below is.





Lee, M., Choh, A., Demerath, E., Knutson, K., Duren, D., Sherwood, R., Sun, S., Chumlea, W., Towne, B., Siervogel, R., & Czerwinski, S. (2009). Sleep disturbance in relation to health-related quality of life in adults: The fels longitudinal study The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, 13 (6), 576-583 DOI: 10.1007/s12603-009-0110-1

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The Importance of Proper Media Coverage of Suicide

The way media reports suicide can do one of two things. They can unwittingly create a contagious trend or can educate and help others receive treatment.

Research has shown that how suicide is reported makes all the difference. Below is an excerpt from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.


What to Avoid

• Avoid detailed descriptions of the suicide, including specifics, method and location.
Reason: Detailed descriptions increase the risk of a vulnerable individual imitating the act.

• Avoid romanticizing someone who has died by suicide. Avoid featuring tributes by friends or relatives. Avoid first-person accounts from adolescents about their suicide attempts.
Reason: Positive attention given to someone who has died (or attempted to die) by suicide can lead vulnerable individuals who desire such attention to take their own lives.

• Avoid glamorizing the suicide of a celebrity.
Reason: Research indicates that celebrity suicides can promote copycat suicides among vulnerablepeople. Do not let the glamour of the celebrity obscure any mental health or substance abuse problems that may have contributed to the celebrity’s death.

• Avoid overstating the frequency of suicide.
Reason: Overstating the frequency of suicide (by, for example, referring to a “suicide epidemic”) may cause vulnerable individuals to think of it as an accepted or normal response to problems. Even in populations that have the highest suicide rates, suicides are rare.

• Avoid using the words “committed", “failed” or “successful” suicide.
Reason: The verb “committed” is usually associated with sins or crimes. Suicide is better understood in a behavioral health context than a criminal context. Consider using the phrase “died by suicide.” The phrases “successful suicide” or “failed suicide attempt” imply favorable or inadequate outcomes. Consider using “death by suicide” or “non-fatal suicide attempt.”


What to Do

• Always include a referral phone number and information about local crisis intervention services.

• Emphasize recent treatment advances for depression and other mental illness. Include stories of people whose treatment was life-saving or who overcame despair without attempting suicide.

• Interview a mental health professional who is knowledgeable about suicide and the role of treatment or screening for mental disorders as a preventive strategy.

• Emphasize actions that communities can take to prevent suicides.

• Include a sidebar listing warning signs, or risk and protective factors for suicide.


Resources

List of Suicide Hotlines

Suicide Symptoms and Warning Signs

Overcoming Suicidal Thinking

Protective Factors and Resources



Pirkis, J. (2009). Suicide and the media Psychiatry, 8 (7), 269-271 DOI: 10.1016/j.mppsy.2009.04.009

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March 1st is Self-Injury Awareness Day

Self-injury (SI) – is any deliberate, non suicidal behavior that inflicts physical harm on one's body to relieve emotional distress.

Self-injury does not involve a conscious intent to commit suicide, though many believe that people who harm themselves are suicidal.

People who SI are often trying to:

* Distract emotional pain
* End feelings of numbness
* Calm overwhelming feelings
* Maintaining control
* Self-punish
* Express thoughts that cannot be put into words
* Express feelings for which there are no words

Who engages in self-injury?

There is no simple portrait of a person who intentionally self-injures. This behavior is not limited by gender, race, education, age, sexual orientation, socio-economics, or religion. However, there are some commonly seen factors:

* Self-injury more commonly occurs in adolescent females.

* Many self-injurers have a history of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

* Many self-injurers have co-existing problems of substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder or eating disorders.

* Self-injures tend to have been raised in families that discouraged expression of anger, and tend to lack skills to express their emotions.

* Self-injurers often lack a good social support network.


What are the types of self-injury?

* Cutting

* Burning
* Picking at skin
* Interfereing with wound healing
* Hair-pulling
* Hitting
* Scratching
* Pinching
* Biting
* Bone-breaking
* Head-banging

* Embedding items under skin


Treatment

Self-injury is often misunderstood. Self-injurers trying to seek medical or mental health treatment frequently report being treated badly by emergency room doctors and nurses, counselors, police officers and even mental health professionals.

Finding professionals who specialize in working with self-injury is IMPERATIVE. With proper treatment, new ways of coping will be learned and slowly the cycle of hurting will end. For more information, check out American Self-Harm Information Clearinghouse, First Signs and LifeSigns

Lloyd, K. (2010). Understanding Repeated Self-Injury: A Multidisciplinary Approach The Psychiatrist, 34 (2), 77-77 DOI: 10.1192/pb.bp.109.026534

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How Observant Are You?

This was fun. Interesting how we "see" things. If you take the quiz, let me know what you get!

Your Observation Skills Get A B-

Your senses are pretty sharp (okay, most of the time) And it takes something big to distract you!

How Observant Are You?

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Book Review - "Self Help for Your Nerves," by Dr Claire Weekes

I started this blog in 2008 to share the story of my recovery from severe depression, in the hope that what I write may give practical advice, hope, and spiritual comfort to those suffering from depression, in the hope of helping them to cope with depression and speed them on the path to recovery.

In my enthusiasm to share my story, twelve months ago I joined a depression forum on a social networking site. One member asked others to share what practical things had helped them to recover from depression, so I gave a short list of some of the things that had helped me. This included advice from a friend (also dealing with depression) to find things that interested me and pursue them, learning that my world view had become distorted, regular physical exercise, seeing a doctor and being put on anti-depressant medication, Christian counselling, retraining my thought processes, and putting into practice the techniques presented in the book, "Self Help for your Nerves" by Dr Claire Weekes.





Another forum member attacked my post and concluded with the comment, "and burn the self-help book!" I then saw another post in the same forum titled, "Self help books, what are they good for?" Every comment on that post criticised self help books, with the general consensus being that they were only fit to be used as kindling.

Now with the glut of self-help books on the market today, I have no doubt that some of them deserve this fate. (Such as a self-published self help book on depression I saw on Amazon the other day…)

The fact is that I am indebited to "Self Help for your Nerves" for the very major role it played in my recovery from depression. Only after I read it did I truly understand what was wrong with me and how I had gotten into such a state. Only after I put into practice the amazing, practical advice shared in this book, written by someone who had been there herself, did hope re-enter my life as I began making great leaps forward in my recovery.

My mother had borrowed the book from the public library to lend to one of her friends, but I chanced upon the book before she passed it on. I was hooked from the first page, which said, ‘It will not be difficult for you to read this book: it is about you and your nerves, and for this reason you will read it with interest, whereas to read an ordinary book or newspaper may seem an impossibility, or, should you succeed, may leave you more distressed than when you first began.” (1)

This is the diary entry I wrote after reading the book, after struggling for eight months in a black pit from which I could see no escape:

28th July 1990 -
This book goes on to…describe EVERY single thing I have been suffering from for the past eight months, and even back for the five or so months prior to that. I had no idea all of the strange things in my mind, body, and emotions, were ALL interlinked and caused by the same thing! And it even says how I've been sitting and wondering what happened to me, and wondering if I’ll ever be the same again? The book explains everything, right down to obsessive thoughts, and that people who've developed this thing have probably been stuck with it for weeks, months - one guy even had it for ten years.
And for the last 8 months, as always, I've reacted to it in the same way. I have been scared of it, and feared all the many side effects and things that were going wrong with my mind, body, and emotions. And my other reaction has been to fight it. And now I have learned from this book that these two reactions are the wrong reactions, because they both only make it worse. Basically, my nerves have fallen apart, and have been manufacturing too much adrenalin. I have feared and fought, and this has produced more adrenalin, which made me fear or fight more, and it just got worse and worse and worse. It’s a catch 22 situation, a merry go round.
So this book has taught me how to react so that the merry go round will be stopped. And it’s teaching me how to react whenever it strikes again in the future.

If you pop over to Amazon.co.uk (just click the book's image above) and read the reviews on this book, and you will see that dozens of people have left 5-star reviews as they share with great delight how this book helped to overcome the grip anxiety had on their lives.

"Self Help for your Nerves" provides a comprehensive list of the symptoms that can be caused by anxiety, explains how they are caused, stresses the importance of seeing a doctor. It explains how to break the fear-adrenalin-fear cycle, discusses guilt, how to get a new point of view on obsessive fearful thoughts, being yourself again, do's and don'ts, and much more. And although this book was written some time ago, it's message is just as relevant today. Some messages, regardless of when they are written, contain wisdom that endures throughout all generations - like the most important timeless classic every written, the Bible.

And on that topic, even as I read "Self Help for your Nerves," I recognised immediately that it provided practical ways to put into practice Bible verses such as John 14:1, James 1:2-4, Philippians 4:12-13, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

Please note that this book is readily available from many public libraries, and can be purchased from Amazon.co.uk.

Download a free ebook on depression (that is, of this blog's articles) if you click on the image below.



(1) ‘Self Help for Your Nerves,’ Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p1.

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February is Eating Disorder Awareness Month

Canada, The United Kingdom and The United States use the month of February to bring awareness to Eating Disorders.

Generally, eating disorders involve self-critical, negative thoughts and feelings about body weight and food, and eating habits that disrupts normal body function, and daily life activities.

What causes eating disorders is not entirely clear, though a combination of psychological, genetic, social and family factors are thought to contribute to the disorder.

Types of Eating Disorders

Anorexia Nervosa~ Essentially self-starvation, this disorder involves a refusal to maintain a minimally normal body weight. In severe cases, anorexia can be life-threatening

Bulimia Nervosa ~ This involves repeated episodes of binge eating, followed by ways of trying to purge the food from the body or prevent expected weight gain. People can have this condition and be of normal weight.

Binge-eating Disorder~ This is characterized by frequent episodes of overeating without purging.

Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) ~ A range of other disordered eating patterns don’t fit into the other types of eating disorders. These eating patterns are still serious, and intervention and attention are necessary.

Left unattended, eating disorders can lead to serious health problems or even death.

Orbanic, S. (2010). What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Treating Eating & Weight Issues Eating Disorders, 18 (1), 78-79 DOI: 10.1080/10640260903439581

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Depression, Momentary Elation, & Setting Realistic Expectations

Depression is one of the most confusing ailments that can afflict us. Not only are we stricken by despair, loss of hope, anxiety, panic attacks, and dozens of other unpleasant physical, emotion and mental symptoms, but we may also experience moments of giddy elation.

From my diary, several weeks after the onset of severe depression:

31st Jan ’90 – I feel like the Melbourne weather. I regularly get extremely angry, very angry…even with God. And then, half an hour later, I want to cry, in despair and loneliness, or just cry because I feel extremely sad for some reason. And I even feel extreme momentary excitement every now and then. What has happened to me?

At the time I could not fathom why I was feeling so bad all the time, and the existence of these moments of elation just added to the confusion.

I did not realize that my nervous system had become exhausted to the point of collapse and no longer functioned within normal parameters. As well as releasing endless streams of negative adrenalin into my body, it also occasionally misfired in the opposite direction, causing a wave of unexplainable excitement. For a few seconds I felt so good, as though on top of the world, only to crash back to the miry black pit of woe immediately afterwards. Once I understood that this was just another symptom of depression, I was no longer confused by these episodes.

(Please note that the moments of elation I experienced rarely lasted for more than a few seconds. Hypomania or mania - characteristics of bipolar depression - are somewhat different. These episodes can last for several days, and along with euphoria may include periods of increased activity, poor judgement, and restlessness. I have not experienced bipolar depression, so I am only going by what I have read about it.)

Setting Realistic Expectations

I also noticed during depression’s initial stages that I sometimes felt tempted to embark on a grand new venture that would send my life in an entirely new direction.

For example, in November 1989, prior to my becoming depressed, I received an offer to join another church planting team. This offer was later shelved due to a change in plans. When I became severely depressed, and before I knew what was wrong with me, I tried to carry on with ‘life as usual,’ even contemplating going out to plant a new church by myself. Although my mind at this time was so exhausted by never ending panic attacks, I still somehow considered starting new ventures such as this. My perspective of my own condition and abilities was completely distorted.

I never acted on the compulsion to plant a new church, which was good as I would not have been able to carry it through. And had I attempted to do so and failed, I would have felt even worse. Fortunately, I soon realized that I was in no condition to start any major new projects and formed a more realistic expectation of my abilities based on my current condition. Instead, I worked at keeping myself constructively occupied, but I was careful not to commit to anything that I could not cope with.

So my advice to anyone who is suffering from depression and who is considering embarking on a major new venture is to give the idea to God and let Him carry it, and then shelve the idea, resist submitting to it, and it will mostly likely fade away. If the idea does not fade away, I recommend getting a second opinion from someone such as a pastor/counselor or wise friend, and trust their judgment over our own.

We do not need to stop living while recovering from depression, but need to be mindful that we are in a recovery phase and need plenty of rest. We need to set realistic goals for ourselves, and to maintain realistic expectations. Recovering from depression is like recovering from any other illness, it takes time, and we need to go easy on ourselves during that time.

Psalm 23:1-3
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

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