Depression Information
Alleviate the Physical and Emotional Symptoms

Depression Information and Senior Health
Depression can fall into 1 of 5 main categories:

Major depression - an overwhelming sense of sadness and worthlessness, with a loss of interest in activities. Your sleep patterns and appetite become disturbed and you may have difficulty concentrating.

Dysthymia – a less severe condition, but may be longer lasting, often two years or more.Adjustment disorders – resulting from a death, life change or similar event, with feelings of tenseness, sadness, or overwhelming anger.

Bipolar disorder (Manic-depressive disorder) – occurring with recurrent episodes of depression and elation (mania).

Seasonal affective disorder – a pattern of depression that is related to changes in the seasons and the consequent lack of sunlight. It may cause headaches, irritability and a lack of energy.

Depression affects your thoughts, feelings, behaviour and mood and as a result your physical health too. If it is left untreated it can destroy your life. This is unfortunately all too common as many people either do not recognise their illness, or feel unable to seek help and therefore try to deal with it alone.

Depression Information and the Elderly

Depression can affect the elderly as well as the young. Older people tend to hide low feelings more, not realising that biological changes may account for their depressive state.

Brain-images show us that areas of the brain responsible for mood regulation and thought may fail to work properly if brain chemicals and neurotransmitters are out of balance.

Chronic illness, emotional factors, e.g. the death of a friend or partner, changes in living circumstances and changing fitness levels all contribute to states of depression in older people.

Depression Information
Anxiety Disorder

There is a big difference between anxiety and ‘anxiety disorder’. It is normal to have feelings of anxiety or worry at various times in your life. It is part of your ‘fight or flight’ response that keeps you from danger and helps in decision making. If these feelings grow and interfere with your daily life however, where your mind has trouble distinguishing between the normal anxiety of life and an irrational fear, you may be suffering from anxiety disorder.

Depression Information Types of Anxiety Disorder include:

* Generalized anxiety disorder (where you worry and feel anxious most of the time. You may forget why, or simply not know why.)
* Obsessive compulsive disorder
* Depression
* Panic disorder, and
* Phobias.
* Stress

Like anxiety, stress is a normal physical response to danger. It is this reaction that helps us make decisions and react quickly in circumstances needing attention. Your body releases cortisol and adrenaline hormones to help you do this as part of your "fight or flight" response.

Problems dealing with stress however are increasingly common in modern lives. Troublesome stress is when the body has difficulty distinguishing between the normal physiological occurrence and a lingering irrational reaction causing an overload of chemicals and hormones. It is important to differentiate between these.

Depression Information
Causes

The main causes of depression and anxiety are due to nutritional insufficiency.

Your internal nutritional status (your chemical and hormonal balance) is a major factor in how depression may affect you. A consistency in both dietary and nutritional (natural chemical) balances is essential to keep your body and mind healthy.

About Causes

Diagnosis

You should not be afraid to approach your healthcare provider regarding problems with depression, anxiety or stress. Today these problems are common and are recognised as disease states as much as any other medical condition.

About Diagnosis

Statistics

* Women experience depression twice as often as men, BUT suicide rates are 4 times greater in men than in women. * From 70+ the rate of male suicide rises, reaching a peak at 85 and over. (This may be because men are less likely to admit depression and doctors are less likely to suspect it.

About Statistics

Signs & Symptoms

Because of their overlapping areas of cause and effect, the symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress can all be quite similar. However, some individualism does occur.

About Signs & Symptoms

Treatments

Medications, along with sessions of psychotherapy or other types of counselling, can relieve symptoms of depression.

About Treatments

The medications referred to below are commonly used to treat the noted conditions at some level. It should be noted that anti-anxiety medications and anti-depressants have been linked to addiction, severe withdrawal, weight gain, vertigo and even suicide and death.

Examples of common stress triggers include:
* The death of someone close
* Divorce
* Separation
* Injury or illness
* Job loss
* A major change in life circumstance.

Depression Information
Excess stress has been proven to raise your cholesterol levels! It can also cause increased nerve growth factor (NGF) release, which inhibits the activity of disease-fighting cells, leading to chronic illness.

Hypertension, heart attacks, gout, diabetes, asthma, chronic pain, allergies,headache, backache, various skin disorders and immune system weakness can all occur as a result of stress.

There are a number of specific natural nutrients that have been discovered that may help with the issues raised above. Some of them play a relatively small role but an important one nonetheless, but need to be combined with other co-factors and nutrients to bring out their true potential.

The most potent 'stand alone' ingredient is SAMe which is even more natural than a herbal extract as it is present in every cell in our bodies...but often there is a deficiency which contributes greatly to feelings of depression.

A state of the art natural supplement Neuro-Natural Serenity can help people with the depression concerns. It contains all the nutrients as outlined in natural treatments. Because it contains SAMe which is the most important nutrient it is enteric coated. Without enteric coating the SAMe will be destroyed by stomach acids and become inactive.

Recommended Products For Depression
Neuro-Natural Serenity
Omega 3 DHA/Fish oil

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