How to help when a loved one is down. Health Blog at Patient.co.uk. Exercise can reduce stress and anxiety and also help sleep The Time to Talk campaign is music to my ears. Every year, it encourages people to talk about mental health problems like depression - to show how common they are, and how they don't need to be hard to talk about. Doctors have long since moved away from seeing depression as a 'lack of moral fibre', something that could be sorted if you just pulled yourself together. The Great British Public, sadly, still often sees it as a source of shame. Yet depression is a very real problem, and there's every chance it has affected someone close to you. So if your loved one seems troubled, ask yourself if they could be depressed - and if they are, don't skirt around the subject. What should you look out for?
If you're looking out for symptoms of depression in a loved one, the first ones to consider are whether in the last few weeks: They've seemed down, depressed or hopelessThey don't seem to be taking pleasure in things they normally enjoy. How I found my way back from depression. Posted on 3 March 2014 by Chris Manning 18 comments When my depression started it was the most physical event of my life, the sensation was like a sharp knife cleaving my brain in half and the feeling of being drained through the soles of my feet. I was a GP at the time and had been feeling increasingly stressed for the previous 12 months or so, with a plethora of fleeting, yet consistently unpleasant and worrying physical symptoms – mostly gut-related.
I took six months off to deal with my depression in 1986. Everyone in my practice was wonderfully supportive and understanding and I learned a lot about what matters in life. Relationships and actions had no meaning, leaving only an increasingly exhausted will and lifeless body to force through the motions of day-after-day pointlessness. My psychiatrist was brilliant. He said: ‘We will help you put your armour back on, Chris,’ and I knew even in the depth of my sheer fear and hopelessness, that he meant it. Doctors.net.uk | Doctors.net.uk - by doctors, for doctors. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me | Ellen Forney | Health | Constable & Robinson books. Humorous, insightful and occasionally outrageous graphic memoir of an artist suffering from (but enjoying) bipolar disorder. Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Suffering from (but enjoying) extreme mania, and terrified that medication would cause her to lose creativity, she began a long struggle over many years to find mental stability while retaining her creativity.
Searching to make sense of the popular idea of the 'crazy artist', she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to 'cure' an otherwise brilliant mind. Psych Central | Commentary by Dr Raj Persaud and colleagues. Size of personal space is affected by anxiety. The space surrounding the body (known by scientists as ‘peripersonal space’), which has previously been thought of as having a gradual boundary, has been given physical limits by new research into the relationship between anxiety and personal space. New findings have allowed scientists to define the limit of the ‘peripersonal space’ surrounding the face as 20-40cm away. The study is published today in The Journal of Neuroscience.
As well as having numerical limits the specific distance was found to vary between individuals. Those with anxiety traits were found to have larger peripersonal space. In an experiment, Dr Chiara Sambo and Dr Giandomenico Iannetti from UCL recorded the blink reflex - a defensive response to potentially dangerous stimuli at varying distances from subject’s face. They then compared the reflex data to the results of an anxiety test where subjects rated their levels of anxiety in various situations. Dr Giandomenico Iannetti Image: 'Crowd' by James Cridland on flickr. Psychopathic criminals have empathy switch. Psychopaths do not lack empathy, rather they can switch it on at will, according to new research. Placed in a brain scanner, psychopathic criminals watched videos of one person hurting another and were asked to empathise with the individual in pain.
Only when asked to imagine how the pain receiver felt did the area of the brain related to pain light up. Scientists, reporting in Brain, say their research explains how psychopaths can be both callous and charming. The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their "empathy switch", which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation. Mirror neurons The ability to empathise with others - to put yourself in someone else's shoes - is crucial to social development in order to respond appropriately in everyday situations. Criminals with psychopathy characteristically show a reduced ability to empathise with others, including their victims. 'Bleak prospect' "Our work shows it's not that simple.
100 Ways to Make it Through the Next 5 Minutes : You Matter. When I’m doing well, I like to plan ahead. I like to think about tomorrow, next month, next year, or my retirement. But when I’m struggling, it’s the opposite. It’s hard for me to even see past that very second, much less the next 5 minutes. So what I like to do is keep a list handy of some things that will help me calm down or distract me for a bit so that I can eventually make it to a place where I can process and deal with my emotions. It’s a lot easier to say to yourself, I will think about and deal with this in 5 minutes.
As always, if you’re really not sure what you’re going to do, you can always call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org to chat with a crisis counselor. Here are 100 ideas to get you started on your own list. Mental Capacity Act and carers - Care and support. The Mental Capacity Act is designed to protect people who can't make decisions for themselves or lack the mental capacity to do so. This could be due to a mental health condition, a severe learning disability, a brain injury, a stroke or unconsciousness due to an anaesthetic or sudden accident. The act's purpose is: To allow adults to make as many decisions as they can for themselves.
To enable adults to make advance decisions about whether they would like future medical treatment. To allow adults to appoint, in advance of losing mental capacity, another person to make decisions about personal welfare or property on their behalf at a future date. To allow decisions concerning personal welfare or property and affairs to be made in the best interests of adults when they have not made any future plans and cannot make a decision at the time. About mental capacity Every person should be presumed to be able to make their own decisions.
How 'mental incapacity' is determined Best interests. Hikikomori: Your stories about refusing to leave bedrooms. 17 July 2013Last updated at 19:01 ET Has a family member or friend withdrawn into their bedroom for months or years on end? A Magazine feature published earlier this month raised this question, and there was a huge response from readers.
After an article about the young people in Japan who remain holed up in their homes - known as hikikomori - readers from across the world got in touch with similar stories. Some withdrew from the world themselves, others witnessed a loved one doing so. In withdrawal I shut myself away from society about 12 years ago. Mike's window at 5am, with a study for one of his artworks on the sill After different jobs in New York, a happy stint as an earthquake relief volunteer in Haiti (cut short by my father's death) and a year teaching in Sierra Leone, I settled at my mother's home when I came back to New York. Continue reading the main story Just a Japanese thing? I am 43 and have lived with my parents all my life. I am a retired professor of astrophysics. Mental Capacity Act and carers - Care and support.
OUP | Online Resource Centre | Psychiatry PRN: Principles, Reality, Next Steps. Psychiatry Conference Companion. Hyperbole and a Half Blog | Adventures in Depression. Royal College of Psychiatrists | Student and trainee bursaries 2012.