The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Depressed and What You Can Do to Change It Kindle Edition

The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Depressed and What You Can Do to Change It

I have a chemical imbalance which have caused anxiety, severe depression and panics. The worst I have to deal with is the depression that I have had for over 20 years.

This is an excellent book and very interesting to read. I really don't know if I would say these are the 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques but they sure can't hurt to try. I have been to many group and most talk about the same way, as in this book, on ways to deal with depression. So I can't disagress with the techniques but some techniques work one all people with depression.

This book is a great book and I am re-reading it again once I finish some other stories on my eReader.

Excellent book that was recommended by my councillor. It really helped me pin down one of the causes of my depression.

Perfect

While some of the techniques weren't interesting to me, the introductory scientific explanations were fascinating. There was a really good understanding of areas authors of overlook, such as dealing with isolation as an introvert.

I wrote a little summary on my bog at conscientiousintrovert.wordpress.com that follows:

1.Identify Triggers, Plan New Responses
2. Start Where You Already Are: Record strengths and how you use them, rating degree of pleasure
3. Cool Down Burnout: get a buddy to choose changes i.e. sleep and self-care, and monitor progress
4. Mobilize Your Energy
5. End Isolation
6. Balance Your Life
7. Prevent Destructive Behavior
8. Broaden Your Perspective
9. Increase Flexibility
10. Learn to Live Fully

Types of depression may be related to their underlying history:

Intense despair often associated with serious loss, i.e. early life adversity. This may be a consequence of attachment problems or abuse.
Helplessness and rumination often associated with traumatic stress requiring resolution of memory later than childhood like an accident.
Exhaustion and isolation often associated with chronic stress requiring change in the situation. This can be hard to shake from depletion of critical neurotransmitters.
Endogenous depression often associated with low motivation for recovery and limited pleasure in life. This type of depression is genetic and neurobiological. Sufferers complain of low cognitive energy, persistently negative mood, and irritability. “There is a tendency to be passive and hard to motivate.”

When Serotonin is Too Low

Negativity, worry, sensitivity to threat from activity in the amygdala
Poor planning, unable to push negativity away or find a positive frame, loss of emotional control or affect regulation, inability to feel satisfied from activity in the prefontal cortex
Poor impulse control, irrational responses to problems from activity in the orbitofrontal cortex
Ruminating worry and inflexible attitude from activity in anterior cingulate gyrus
When norepinephrine is too high, it leads to inner jitteriness, tension, hyper-vigilance, perfectionism, and chronic stress. If it is too low, symptoms are physical and mental lethargy and sluggishness.

When dopamine is too high, symptoms are perfectionism, overfocus on details, and too much stress response to subsequent memory. If it is too low, it may mean loss of interest or pleasure, low motivatio, and low energy.

If there is GABA and Glutamate imbalance throughout the brain, symptoms are agitation that exacerbate other problems, such as pain perception. Excess glatamate in the hippocampus can mean impaired memory while excess in the amygdala might result in oversensitivity and excess negativity.

“Although neurotransmitter imbalances underlie all types of depression, in endogenous depression, those imbalances themselves are the trigger … Therefore, the way of responding differently to this trigger is to consciously override that biochemically determined low energy by entering into positive neural networks … by purposefully thinking positive, optimistic thoughts taht will boost your motivation to do something different.”

Sample Strategies

Improve satisfaction: review what went right
Consciously shift away from negativity: “I can think what I want and I want to think I have many good traits”
Make a “to do” list of simple, productive activities as distraction: music, movie, game…
Plan to get what you want instead of planning to be hurt and hopeless, just face it when it happens
Do more of what gives you energy: inspirational reading, walking outside, etc. and cut back on energy drainers
Turn “I can’t” into “I won’t” because your actions and thought are in your own control
You don’t have to like what you choose to do if there are good reasons to keep on doing it (until you get something better)
Take a break from the problem for 10-20 minutes
Utilize your future energy: pick a small task; create vivid image of how you’ll feel when it’s done; focus on the outcome; do the task; pay attention to the relief or pleasure after it’s done
Time unpleasant tasks
Exercise 5-7 days a week for 25-45 minutes at 70% of maximum heart rate i.e. brisk walking
Make appointments for contact, i.e. tell someone you’ll call to chat at a specific time
Break your routine and don’t spend all day doing one thing
Plan to do one thing different in order to interrupt pattern of behavior for a new path