How to kill depression in the bud?

[Lord777]

When a sore throat begins to sore, a headache creeps up or a finger is in the door, a modern civilized person has a quick and completely correct reaction: first remove the pain, then, if the cause of the pain is not obvious, find and eliminate it.

Soul hurts = leg hurts
When a sore throat begins to sore, a headache creeps up or a finger is in the door, a modern civilized person has a quick and completely correct reaction: first remove the pain, then, if the cause of the pain is not obvious, find and eliminate it. When it comes to a bad mood that turns into depression, our actions are usually not so timely and logical. “I'm just tired”, “everything is bad, probably this is karma”, “God is punishing me for yelling at a child”, “just people around are stupid and angry”, “the authorities have gone completely crazy, what to say about us, ordinary people "," it's just not my day, you can't be happy all the time "and other silly excuses prevent you from catching the moment when depression can be easily prevented. You don't think“ broke a finger, nothing, according to statistics,

Mental pain is the same breakdown in the body as physical. Being in a bad mood is just as abnormal as suffering from a aching tooth or a lumbago in the lower back.

Take a closer look at your mood, as an allergic person looks at flowers with suspicion. Emotions began to fail, but the mind remained with you. Let it work and depression, like a migraine, will be prevented at the precursor stage.

The body is like a kit of a young chemist
World culture is rich in descriptions of the subtle mental structure of a person. All this airy, divine and unknowable flatter the romantic natures and obscures from them the other side of the question - that all experiences are just tiny changes in the biochemistry of the brain. If you want to gain control over your emotions, it is useful to perceive the body cynically, like a scientific laboratory or a 24-hour restaurant with an absent-minded chef who can drip into a pie instead of a gram of vanillin and a gram of quinine and spoil dinner for all visitors with such a trifle.

A bad mood almost always means a chemical imbalance in the body.

Before finding out whether an external object (the death of a friend, a stain on a dress, gays were forbidden to vote) is the cause of this violation, or vice versa, your relationship with the world has deteriorated due to a malfunction in the body (hormonal shift, a lack of a trace element in the diet), you need to try to restore the formula of normal chemical balance.

First, as you already understood from the first paragraph, you need to act quickly. Secondly, mental repair should be a priority. To hell with the diet and the schedule, if you don't fix the problem now, later you will still eat a kilogram of marshmallows under the whiskey, staring blankly at the unfinished report. So, what you need to have on hand:
- fast carbohydrates: your favorite sweet, and best of all dark chocolate
- tablets like Magne B6 (preparations containing magnesium and B vitamins, on which the mood directly depends): eat four. If your job is stressful, eat eight a day in 2-3 meals. If there are no tablets, beer and smoked meats will do, they also contain the necessary substances. A Bavarian lunch with tiramisu for dessert should dampen the incipient melancholy.

Anti-anxiety drugs, such as over-the-counter afobazole
- alternative stimulants: if you constantly drink cola or coffee, replace it with mate, ginger, ginseng or eleutherococcus
- herbal sedatives such as persen. Yes, they put you to sleep. But they can be washed down with red bulls, if you do not do this systematically, nothing terrible will happen.
- nootropics (phenotropil, phenibut). The effect of phenotropil is best noticeable in the first dose, lethargy and gloom will be replaced by enthusiasm, you feel hungry, a side effect - instead of peace of mind, you can become even more nervous, so this is more of a one- time remedy. Many people develop tolerance to phenotropil in a few days. Phenibut has a more anti-anxiety effect; for a stable effect, it needs to be taken three 0.25 tablets a day for a week.

You need a stimulant or a sedative, decide for yourself, if everything is not clear, drink anti-anxiety (anxiolytics). There is a sedative glycine, which does not help everyone, but it costs a penny and reduces the craving for alcohol.

By the way, it is worth getting drunk in the only case - when the slide into depression is caused by a strong external stress factor (failure at work, parting with a loved one). The break drowns out the emotional memory of the event, which begins to be remembered more distantly, as a fact, plus the hangover has the effect of "when you cough, take a laxative, and the cough will cease to be your main problem."

Do not rush to rush to the cult Prozac (fluoxetine) - if you manage to get it without a prescription, remember that it begins to act as it accumulates, that is, at least after a week, and mixing it with alcohol causes absolutely hellish consequences for the psyche, including suicidal moods.

Parallel reality marathon
It's great if you are not a slave and if depression approaches, you have the opportunity to quit your job for the sake of therapeutic activity. There are two remedies that help most people reverse decadent tendencies. The first adrenaline is an extreme attraction like racing or go-karting, if you drive a car well, if not, visit some of the scariest slides and fast carousels in the amusement park, a free fall simulator in an elevator is also good.

The second tool is based on the effect of crowding out “you” “I” by others, and it works best for long nights in theaters with huge screens and powerful sound. As a last resort, a large home theater screen will do. This will not work with a laptop, the main thing here is the impact on a primitive level of the amount of light and sound. Make no mistake with the film: no arthouse, no tragedies or dramas! Best of all - a superhero epic in three parts, "Transformers", "Fast and the Furious" or something as dynamic as possible, without ingeniously written suffering and with strong heroes. If you feel able to laugh, go to a comedy, but being disappointed in a comedy can only make matters worse.

Depression shrinks the world to a black point inside a person who has been lying powerlessly under the covers for days. Here the world rushes into your head in all the splendor of an eventful whirlwind, and lower and stronger psychic structures begin to work than the super-ego of the tortured city dweller that gave the tilt of the super-ego.

Don't let the flour develop
The effect of meditation is based on this simple phenomenon. Dissatisfaction, fear and suffering arise from the work of thought, which compares, characterizes, and draws conclusions. No assessment - no pain. If you are walking down the street, you see snow and you start thinking the thought “snow, a lot of snow, it's dirty, I'll get my boots dirty, damn communal services haven't removed again, damn country, damn winter , when I'm already dead, ”then cut it off immediately after“ snow ”... Just think" snow snow snow snow ", without deviating anywhere, and you will have a meditation on snow.

You can hum a melody inside yourself or repeat "Our Father" in a circle, the main thing is not to let the mind rush to the sides and beat against the walls of the cell it has created. Do not be afraid, as a result of these exercises you will not get stupid. It is more like cleaning an empty room, while your usual mental activity is like juggling garbage in a stuffy kitchen.

Say no to social strokes
When an animal feels bad, it hides in a secluded place and licks its wounds (or dies) there. Not a single lion or rabbit will come out in the middle of the flock, by signs showing how bad he is without a paw and how he wants consolation. They will simply gnaw him. The truism “man is a social animal” does not negate the ancient natural truth: no one likes the weak. Everyone loves the strong, the witty, the fast, the healthy, the successful, and so on. They are inspiring, they personify your bright future as a result of vile daily stirring.

If you crawled out on the social network to moan, remember: the more you whine, the lower you fall in the ranking among healthy sane individuals. You only irritate them. If you whine inadvertently (and witty whining is no longer the whining of a real depressant), tomorrow you will be loved even less (and after all, today we found out that no one loves you anymore). You can't whine in society. It is possible and necessary - to ask for specific advice to solve a specific problem.

Keep a black diary
As we found out above, you can't whine on social networks, you can sit on the ears of your best friend, girlfriend or mom, but this is also not suitable for everyone. Men and those women who consider themselves independent do not like to do this. A good solution would be to keep a black diary, one in which you will pour out your soul in the most dreary moments, without bothering with the wording. Best of all, it should be a website (a modern person will be exhausted from scratching in a notebook, besides there is a risk that it will be found) and that the records on the website should not be available to anyone but you (otherwise this is not an outpouring of the soul, but a demonstration, dancing and prostitution emotions).

When it rolls over, sit down and scribble without thinking about structuring the text or re-reading it. Write until it lets go, then save and close. Reread in moments of goodness, courage and self-confidence, this will help you see how funny yesterday's sorrows look from the outside and how boring, pathetic and stupid you are at such moments. It's good that nobody saw you (see the previous point).

Get a pet
People whom no one loves (more precisely, who are sure that no one loves them) become dictators, teachers, watchmen and warriors of light. To prevent this from happening to you, keep one or more pets at home. If you don't want to get into exhibition slavery, choose a friend not by breed and pedigree - pedigree animals are often bred according to the principle of appearance, not character - pick up an abandoned mongrel, take a kitten from your grandmother in the transition. Few in this life require so little and give so much as a cat or a puppy. If you are not yet ready for such a serious relationship with the world, get a turtle or kivsyak.

Doctor of your body
If everything is suddenly bad, you may experience a feeling of coldness, unwillingness to move, apathy and a dream of a coma. These are quite serious symptoms that often appear in cyclothymics. In order not to aggravate the condition to the point where you are stuck and cannot bring yourself to budge in the middle of the supermarket (see "Crazy Depression with Stephen Fry"), crawl into a hot bath, and then to a massage therapist. Human touch induces the formation of substances that provide a sense of peace and relief.

If you live alone and rarely have close contact with people, you have a chronic lack of these types of substances. Massage in this regard is a substitute for sex to a greater extent than masturbation. In principle, any physical activity is good, but if the image of a treadmill makes you sob uncontrollably, then at least come up with quests for a quick targeted walk around the city or sign up for a pool to move weakly at the side, looking at schoolgirls.

List of what you love
It may seem strange, but a depressed person often forgets about everything except the depression itself, and walks in this state, not seeing anything else. The joy of life is so far from you that Byron seems to be a resident of the Comedy Club. For these cases, you need to have on hand a list of things that once, a hundred years ago, in a past life, gave you pleasure. Train yourself to write on your phone, notebook, or whiteboard every time you do something enjoyable. In the mind-numbing anguish when thinking and remembering hurts, this list will come in handy.

Help another
There is nothing really illogical, there is only that in which you do not see the logic. So there is nothing truly altruistic: people do good because it makes them good first of all. As Viktor Olegovich rightly noted in his last work, the topic of making other people happy helps to achieve happiness.

Your conventional "I" rushes about in a haze of despondency, and it seems that nothing can please him. Therefore, you can approach from the other side and approach the happiness of another person by creating it. This is similar to secondhand smoke. This is at the heart of all the alliances that are discussed in the expressions "he is so wonderful, smart, handsome and rich, and she is such a terrible schmuck."

It is beneficial to be disinterestedly kind, and in order to understand this, you need to be unhappy, that is, an adult. This is why kids don't like to share toys, and why billionaires give away their fortunes. In addition, making the other happy involves some kind of action, and actions in themselves already mean that you are on the right path to getting out of the blues.

 

[Tomcat]

How to beat depression: from psychedelics to electrical stimulation​

According to WHO estimates, more than 300 million people worldwide suffer from depression, and this figure is increasing every year. According to scientists, by 2030, depression will become one of the main health problems and come out on the second place among the causes of disability - at least in the countries of the first world. Everyone has a chance to face depression, if not in their own lives, then in the lives of their loved ones.

Unfortunately, the main treatments for depressive disorder - antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy - are not helpful for everyone. A third of patients remain in serious condition, no matter what drugs they try and how many psychotherapists they visit.

Pharmaceutical companies tout the benefits of their products, but in fact almost all of them operate on the same principle. Fifty years ago, when modern antidepressants appeared, depression was thought to be caused by an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain. Drugs like fluoxetine were supposed to restore this balance and relieve the symptoms of depression - loss of interest in life, constant fatigue, feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts.
Today we understand that this model does not work. We still have little idea of what the cause of depression is and how to fix it.

In addition, antidepressants have a huge list of side effects - people gain weight quickly, suffer from diarrhea, nausea, anxiety, dizziness, insomnia, weakness, and apathy.

But the good news is that, for the first time in years, new treatments for depression are emerging that are based on completely different mechanisms. Perhaps they will not only change the approach to treating psychological disorders, but also help us better understand how consciousness works.

In medicine, ketamine is commonly used for general anesthesia and pain relief. In high dosages, it produces vivid hallucinations and a sensation of being out of the body. Thanks to these properties, it gained popularity in the counterculture and the rave movement - in particular, this substance was popularized by psychoanalyst and neurobiologist John Lilly, who conducted experiments with ketamine in a sensory deprivation chamber.

In the 2000s, ketamine began to be used to combat refractory depression, which does not respond to other treatments. Unlike antidepressants, ketamine works very quickly - in just a few hours, not months. For suicidal patients, this becomes a real salvation. But since ketamine was not patented, pharmaceutical companies did not see it as a way to make money or fund clinical trials. More recently, this situation has changed.

In March 2019, the FDA approved the ketamine-based Spravato spray as a new treatment for severe depression. This solution is called the first major innovation in medical psychiatry in half a century.

As an antidepressant, ketamine is used in low doses, which do not send on a psychedelic journey, but relieves anxiety and depressed mood. Several studies have confirmed that ketamine helps severely depressed patients who are not affected by other methods. But it also has disadvantages: the effect usually disappears within one to two weeks. To achieve long-term improvement, treatment will have to last for many months or even years, long enough to form a serious addiction.

Unlike traditional antidepressants, ketamine acts on NMDA glutamate receptors - this causes a surge in neuronal activity and helps create new synaptic connections between brain cells. Apparently, this helps to get out of the vicious circle of depressive thoughts and look at reality in a different way. Patients report that ketamine helps to think more clearly without narrowing the spectrum of emotions like conventional antidepressants.
Psychiatrists hope that other quick-acting antidepressants will follow the ketamine spray.

Despite the pros, ketamine has many disadvantages and limitations. "I think that the use of a nasal spray with ketamine is rather dangerous: firstly, the long-term effect of ketamine on depression has not been proven, and secondly, in addition to a lot of side effects, including addiction, it will be very difficult to comply with the dosage, " says Olga Martynova, employee of the Center for Neuroeconomics and Cognitive Research at the Higher School of Economics.

Doctors recommend using ketamine only if other methods do not work, always under the supervision of a doctor and in combination with psychotherapy. Perhaps by studying the positive properties of ketamine, scientists can find other, safer ways to achieve the same effect.

In 2018, psilocybin was designated a "breakthrough therapy" by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This means that the active substance of hallucinogenic mushrooms can now be legally used for research. Another substance that is strongly associated with mysticism and counterculture is gradually gaining legal status in the academic and medical environment.

The effect of "magic" mushrooms in the treatment of depression has already been proven many times. In 2021, American scientists found that psilocybin reduced the symptoms of depression in 80% of patients with terminal cancer. In 2021, researchers at Imperial College London gave 12 severely depressed volunteers 10 or 25 milligrams of psilocybin each. After three months, five of them were in complete remission; the rest had significantly decreased anxiety and depressed mood.
Using tomography, scientists were able to show how psilocybin changes the activity of the nervous system. It strengthens the connections between different parts of the brain and stimulates the formation of new synapses - the connections between neurons.

Like traditional antidepressants, psilocybin acts on serotonin receptors. It alters the workings of areas of the brain that are associated with mood - in particular, it reduces the activity of the network of the passive mode of the brain, which is associated with obsessive thoughts and depressive states. As a result, people become more aware of hidden patterns in their thinking and behavior. The positive effect of one "trip" can last even years after ingestion.

“People who regularly take antidepressants often complain of dull perception. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors suppress both negative and positive emotions. After taking psilocybin, people talk about the opposite - about emotional release and reboot, as if their feelings became brighter and more responsive, ” says one of the main researchers of psychedelics Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London.

Could psychedelics be a major breakthrough in the treatment of mental disorders? Carhart-Harris believes that even if more extensive trials prove their effectiveness, they will still not be a panacea. Unlike antidepressants, psychedelics do not stifle anxiety, but rather force them to face their repressed emotions and experiences directly. For many, this effect may be too painful:
You should also be aware of possible side effects and bad trips. A future in which psilocybin can be bought at the pharmacy with a prescription is unlikely to come very soon.

Ayahuasca is a traditional American Indian drink that is used for communication with spirits and for healing. One of the main ingredients in the drink contains the powerful psychoactive alkaloid dimethyltryptamine (DMT). It evokes vivid visions in which a person returns to his own past or experiences contact with otherworldly beings. The Indians believe that plant spirits appear to people to help them and direct them on the right path.

In most countries, Ayahuasca is banned as a strong drug, but in Brazil and Peru it is considered a sacred drink and a national treasure. Even government officials sometimes confess their love for Ayahuasca. The Governor of the Brazilian state of Acri Binho Márquez once said: “I myself, in times of doubt, when I did not see any hope for the future, gained knowledge, enlightenment and hope through these plants.”

Indian shamans-healers who use ayahuasca in their rituals receive thousands of people from all over the world every year.

Residents of Europe and the United States have been coming to the Amazon for a long time to get rid of depression, anxiety disorder and other psychological problems that Western medicine cannot yet cope with. Scholars generally dismiss such methods as magical superstitions. But recently, the healing effect of ayahuasca has been demonstrated in academic research as well.

Two years ago, Brazilian scientists conducted the first double-blind, placebo-controlled study of Ayahuasca for the treatment of severe depression. Before the experiment, all participants tried several therapies and did not achieve any effect. One week after the experiment, 64% of participants who took ayahuasca felt much better - while in the placebo group, only 27% of cases were positive.

At the physiological level, DMT molecules, like psilocybin, act on serotonin 5-HT2A receptors. Recent experiments with rats have shown that small doses of DMT can help rodents cope better with stress and anxiety. But the treatment of depression in humans is likely to be more than just physiology.
In March this year, scientists at Johns Hopkins University showed that a fast-acting DMT-based psychedelic can relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety disorder. Importantly, the greatest effectiveness was achieved when participants reported deep mystical and personal experiences. At the same time, the intensity of the hallucinations did not affect the result in any way.

Apparently, Ayahuasca has a healing effect precisely through the psychedelic experience, and not simply due to the effect of the substance on the body. Like other psychedelics, DMT helps you gain access to deep and unconscious patterns of thought, and then change them into something more stable and positive. Sometimes it looks like a real transformation - enthusiasts compare one experience of ayahuasca with ten years of psychotherapy.
Perhaps psychedelic therapy can help bridge the gap between modern and traditional therapies.

Neuroscientist Robin Carhart-Harris believes psychedelic drugs will revolutionize psychiatry by 2024 and will be used to treat depression, PTSD and other illnesses. But until that future arrives, Ayahuasca remains a hope for the few who are willing to go through shamanic rituals. The psychiatrist is unlikely to write a prescription for this.

Electrical brain stimulation (tDCS) is the effect of a weak current on the cerebral cortex through electrodes located on specific areas of the head. This is not a new technology, but it has recently been rediscovered and actively researched. It turned out that electrical stimulation leads to a number of positive effects - relieves chronic pain, improves memory and concentration, speeds up learning, and also improves mood and helps fight depression.

Electrical stimulation works just as effectively as some antidepressants. For example, a double-blind study by Harvard scientists showed that depressed patients recovered even faster after tDCS sessions than after taking fluoxetine. Two weeks of tDCS therapy had an effect comparable to four weeks of antidepressant therapy.
According to a 2021 meta-analysis, active electrical stimulation improves 33% of depressed patients. The results are markedly superior to the placebo effect. In control groups using non-working tDCS devices, symptoms are reduced in only 19% of people. At the same time, electrical stimulation has almost no contraindications and side effects. The only unpleasant sensation that can bother patients is a slight burning sensation and itching at the place where the electrodes are attached.

Scientists at Harvard cite electrical stimulation as one of the most promising and underrated treatments for depression. In Europe, it was awarded a "Class B", meaning "the technology is likely to be effective," approved for the treatment of depression, and is already being used in many clinics. But this method also has limitations. Electrostimulation is not designed to have a quick effect - research shows that it provides the most benefits with long-term use.

In an Australian study, depression symptoms decreased in only 28% of participants after 3 weeks of daily tDCS sessions. But when the course was extended for another 3 weeks, the results were much more impressive - 42.5% of patients responded to the treatment. Many of them had not previously been helped by medication courses.

The principle of tDCS is quite simple. Positively charged electrodes reduce the potential difference on the membrane of neurons - they are faster excited and easier to build synaptic connections with other brain cells. In contrast, negatively charged electrodes reduce the activity of neurons in areas that are too active. Thus, electrical stimulation helps to overcome obsessive thoughts and triggers learning mechanisms weakened by depression. Somewhat similar to ketamine and some antidepressants, only much safer.

Electrical stimulation can also be used by healthy people to improve mood and resilience to stress. Modern neurogadgets - for example, the Russian Brainstorm neurostimulator - assume a free arrangement of electrodes, so the device can be used for several purposes. When used correctly, electrostimulation reduces anxiety, depression, and hostility towards others, and improves memory, concentration, and mental stress.

Electrical stimulation is the only new treatment for depression that is not prohibited by law and is safe. Due to the low cost, almost anyone can use tDCS devices. If a single session of ketamine therapy in the United States costs up to $ 885 (58,400 rubles), then a portable tDCS device from Russian developers will cost almost 10 times less.

Experts recommend using electrical stimulation as an auxiliary therapy - and, of course, only after consulting a doctor. If you do not have depression, such devices can be used independently.
* * *

Depression is not a symptom of an imbalanced neurotransmitter, but a serious mental disorder. Depression has not one but many causes, some of which scientists are just beginning to understand. Perhaps new therapies will spur a deeper understanding of mental health and help millions of people return to fulfilling lives.