Depression Factors, Their Prevention, and Treatment

There are many factors that cause or influence the severity of depression. These factors include genetics, medications, hormonal imbalance, metabolic disturbances, blood and brain imbalances. Life style habits including alcohol intake, inadequate sleep, severe stress, grief, and attitude to negative life events affect depression as well.

Many physicians do successfully treat depression when the above factors are treated. The problem is that often diet, metabolic disease, and life style factors are not addressed or properly diagnosed. Many people are afraid to get help or afraid the diagnosis will be entered into health care records. They may be in denial of their problem and refuse diagnosis or treatment. This outcome can lead to suffering and suicide.

Getting To The Root Cause Of Your Depression:

Genetics: If depression or other mental problems run in your family then that is important. Even if there are strong genetic links, you need to undergo medical testing to determine if genetics is the main factor in your depression or just one of several possible factors.

Metabolic Problems: You need to find out if there are any health problems that factor into your depression. That involves a medical exam and testing for metabolic problems such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, adrenal fatigue, diabetes, hypoglycemia, and thyroid imbalances. Obesity is also a factor in depression. There are many metabolic problems that cause depression or make it worse.

Medications: There are hundreds of prescription drugs that can cause depression. That is a stated fact in drug description inserts found in your prescription package. Many people do not take time to read those inserts or do not understand the medical jargon. Combining prescription drugs also cause many different kinds of mental disturbances. If you are taking prescription drugs, that is one of the first places to look as a cause for your depression.

Lifestyle Factors: Life style factors including severe stress, financial pressures, job pressures, and marital pressures which can take a person over the edge. When you add inadequate sleep, alcohol, lack of exercise, and other negative patterns you have all the ingredients for depression. Learning to deal with the stress in your life in a positive way can lead to a healthier life without depression. Exercise, meditation, Yoga, music, writing, volunteering can all help to relieve stress and defeat depression.

Diet and Nutrition: It is a known fact that depression can be caused from an inadequate diet. If you are seriously deficient in vitamins and minerals, that will have an impact on your physical and mental health. You need to have a dietitian or life coach go over your diet and habits with you to identify problem areas. Sugar and caffeine can cause severe imbalances. You need to cut down or cut out completely liquor, sugar, junk food, and start exercising.

Orthomolecular Medicine and Depression: You need to check out Orthomolecular Medicine and its treatment of depression. Orthomolecular Medicine tests to find the metabolic brain imbalances that are impacting your depression. These physicians then use nutrition, vitamins, minerals and amino acids to normalize those imbalances. Orthomolecular Medicine has helped many people with depression, manic depression, and schizophrenia. These people under standard medicine would be on psychotic drugs for the rest of their life unable to function normally.

Childhood and Marital Abuse: Past and present abuse is the cause of much depression. If you have abuse in your childhood history or in your present life, you must get help. Until you get help to resolve abuse issues and let them go, you will keep having depression. Your attitude toward the past gives you your attitude in your present and future. Most individuals do not get over an abusive past without counseling. If the abuse is in your present life circumstances, you need help to break away from that abuse. Counseling is an important tool to help and prevent depression.

Your Attitude to Life and Life's Circumstances: You will find people who grew up in drug invested slums that overcame their environment and circumstances to become happy and successful. Their attitude and determination propelled them above environmental, physical, and mental obstacles. Attitude often is the difference seen in someone who lives their whole life in a slum and someone who came from the slums but rose above their circumstances. You must change the way you view your life and circumstances to defeat depression. You must have determination and guts to overcome medical problems. You can have joy in the worst of circumstances and depression in the best of circumstances. You must learn to make the choice of feeling joy rather than pain. Many people refuse to let pain go despite the havoc it plays in their life.

Brain Injury Depression; Even in case of birth defects or brain injury, depression may be lessened if these other factors were corrected. Before you resort to drugs such a Prozac, try to get help to resolve the real factors behind your depression. Drugs should be used only after other factors have been eliminated. I have listed links to help you research this subject further.

References:

http://www.orthomolecular.org/history/index.shtml

http://www.iahf.com/orthomolecular/orthomolecular.html

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/30480053/Orthomolecular-Medicine---A-Leading-Light-For-Mental-Health-and-Nutrition_-Mental-Diseases/

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINCOL17079020080311

http://www.heattreat.ca/metabolicsyndrome.php

http://depression.emedtv.com/depression/risk-factors-for-depression.html

http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/70/1/40