Stone Press

It’s All In the Mind

How you feel, your state of mind and your humour is at any given moment a result of chemical and biologic processes in your mind. Psychological Science is the science of the affective brain but is closely related to brain surgery and aesculapian science. “Love at first sight” is specified as a condition in which someone feels romantic love for a alien instantly upon meeting them. Brain understanding indicates that when this encounters areas of the brain involved with Dopamine, a hormone and neurotransmitter are sparked. The reverse is the case with depression and anxiousness where the status of neurotransmitters is low. Cipralex acts to increase the neurotransmitter Serotonin.

Cognitive psychological science is a manner to pressure the brain to make more Serotonin by training individuals to intend optimistic, to look ahead to the better instead than perpetually revere the hardest. Cognitive behavioural intervention do have an impression on social media, humour and minor clinical depressions. Studies even indicates that it may be achievable to train people to alter the way in which the pain centers of the brain action painful stimuli, making the sensing of pain less strong. Hypnotherapy is some other hypothesis as one well recognized guest tells: “I?m more or less insightful as he assures me to lie back and close my eyes, keen not to wake up neighing like a sheep, or worse still: incapable ever to relish food or drink coffee again. ?SEO? he tells me, his voice halfway ‘tween a seductive mutter and a gentle imperative”.

Insurance Companies are beginning to reimburse for vagus nerve stimulation therapy for depression. Insurance companies are giant bureacracies who have layers of people to whose only job is to say “no”.

Reimbursement decisions are being made on a case-by-by case basis. According to the manufacturer of the vagus nerve stimulator “the first 90 days of the planned year-long launch of this medical device, the numbers of physicians and patients actively pursuing VNS Therapy more than doubled,” stated Mr. Cummins, Chairman of Cyberonics. For vagus nerve stimulation, 1,239 MDs submitted 3,234 prescriptions.

“The more than doubling in the numbers of physicians and patients actively moving towards VNS Therapy in the first 90 days after TRD launch is a testament to psychiatrists’ positive response to Cyberonics’ medical education programs,” continued Mr. Cummins. “With over 2,000 psychiatrists and 250 new VNS Therapy surgeons educated and trained in Q2, we are ahead of our original plan to educate and train over 5,000 psychiatrists and some 1,000 new VNS surgeons in the year 2006.

The manufacturer continued its statement by explaining that in terms of national and regional coverage policies, it had made made good progress with all the major technology assessment organizations and all the major payers to obtain favorable national coverage policy more quickly relative to launch than Cyberonics did in epilepsy. Four factors are important in accomplishing.

1) A rapidly growing list of psychiatrists, patients and patient advocacy groups are becoming increasingly vocal advocates for parity for TRD patients in terms of VNS Therapy coverage and access relative to epilepsy patients.

2)Existing treatment-resistant depressed assessments and coverage policies are based on extremely limited pre-FDA approval, publicly-available information.

3)All of the data and analyses that compelled FDA to approve VNS Therapy as the first and only treatment for TRD are now readily available from multiple public sources, including the product’s labeling, FDA’s Summary of Safety and Effectiveness and a growing list of peer-reviewed publications in well-respected psychiatric journals.

4)Payment rates for VNS Therapy services, such as the 2006 Medicare payment rates that were posted in the CMS website last week, continue to increase indicating that VNS Therapy is widely regarded as a safe, effective and cost-effective therapy.

In the first 90 days after the launch of vagus nerve stimulation therapy, 22 different payers, including large payers such as:

• Aetna
• Alliance
• Seven different Blue Cross or Blue Shield organizations
• Cigna
• Healthnet
• Medicare
• Medicaid
• and United Healthcare have approved or reimbursed between one and 12 VNS Therapy TRD implants

You can learn more about this remarkable treatment at http://www.VagusNerveStimulator.com

Charles Donovan was a patient in the FDA investigational trial of vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment for chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression. He was implanted with the vagus nerve stimulator in April of 2001. He chronicles his journey from the grips of depression thanks to vagus nerve stimulation therapy in his book:

Out of the Black Hole: The Patient’s Guide to Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Depression with Forwards by John M. Zajecka, M.D. and Nancy Williger, Ph.D.

The book was exhibited at the U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress in November 2005. It is available on his web site, 24 hours a day/7 days a week through the toll free number 1-888-VAGUS-88, and Amazon.com He is founder of the http://www.VagusNerveStimulator.com Web Site and Bulletin.

This Checklist should be used as a guide to assess your workplace health and safety risks. It is intended to assist you identify your ‘risk profile’ and ‘potential exposures’ and with identification to take appropriate action to minimise these risks and exposures.

Please answer the following question honestly by drawing a circle around or shading in the column. If you can only answer part of the question in the affirmative, then you should select ‘No’.

Workplace health and safety is every persons responsibility in the workplace. There are severe penalties for breaches of health and safety.

1. I have a written workplace health and safety policy statement Yes No

2. I have fully documented workplace health and safety procedures for all employees Yes No

3. I have policies for chemical, electrical, manual and ergonomic use and safe handling Yes No

4. I induct all employees into the workplace using a documented process Yes No

5. My staff are trained in safe work processes and procedures Yes No

6. My policies and procedures are available to all employees and are regularly referred to, used and updated Yes No

7. I have identified risks and hazards at the workplace and have appropriate controls in place Yes No

8. All workplace health and safety accidents and incidences are reported and reviewed Yes No

9. We have low accident and injury rate compared to our industry average Yes No

10. I provide my employees with regular constructive feedback and reward them where appropriate for safe working Yes No

11. I conduct regular workplace health and safety updates and audits Yes No

RATINGS

11 from 11 well done

10 from 11 well done, almost there

9 from 11 very good and tie up loose ends

8 from 11 good and you must tighten up these loose ends

7 from 11 you have a high risk profile, take action

6 or less remedial action urgently required to ‘protect’ your business

If you have identified some of your risks and hazards take action today and get professional, timely assistance and training. Your business may be at risk of claims by employees.

Visit www.biz-momentum.com for more information and free articles.

Philip Lye is Director of Biz Momentum providing workplace health and safety and human resource consultation to small business.

Visit http://www.biz-momentum.com for other helpful information and subscribe free to our monthly e-zine.

I had stated in a previous article how Yoga could work as a natural depression treatment based on my own experiences. To add to that information-being a very important limb of Yoga into itself- what you eat also has an effect on your mental health. Consequently, if you’re interested in a drug-free treatment of depression, without the side-effects common to most depression medications, a crucial step will be to make some dietetic changes amongst other factors.

However, what should be the main priority, to avoid adding insult to injury when using depression medications, will ironically be avoiding their use considering the many side effects common to these anti-depression drugs. Effective as they may be for a while, it’s been noted that these substances have several side effects which may include nausea, fatigue, insomnia and some sexual dysfunctions. In some cases on mental side effects, mania has even been reported; so needless to say, a drug free depression treatment might be your best AND safest bet for your health.

Now, when in depression, most of us have the tendency to binge in an effort to mask our feelings or deaden the pain, some of us go as far as soliciting the use of alcohol, drugs or even sex for depression help. Yes, they may give some relief for a while, but when these mere distractions wear off, the symptoms of depression always do come back, and with a vengeance.

This considered, it will be safe to say the first step of a dietetic factor in regards to depression treatment could be refraining from food, at least for a while friends, really.

An observance of nature will show us that when animals are frightened or angered, they refrain from eating until after the passage of considerable time. It is true that under stressful circumstances many civilized people refrain from eating and find in truth that they lack the desire for food, but it is also too often that most will eat large meals under these circumstances, which will be mostly disease forming foods to start with, that as a consequence, complicates or altogether halts an already retarded ongoing digestion. This endless cycle leads to even more toxins and poisons in an already encumbered body.

So what are you saying Foras (that’s my name by the way), I should fast or something? Well, if you can, that will be excellent. At least till your emotional balance returns, which will be the end result as the body is not taxed with the duties of digestion, assimilation and re-building. Your mind clears and all moroseness disappears and consequently, we tend to find the answers to the problems warranting a treatment for depression in the first place.

Now for many, I agree it might be asking for too much to fast during a stressful time based on old habits, but as an alternative, it will be advisable to steer clear of harmful mucus forming foods and partake of body healing ones: Fruits and Vegetables. A restricted diet of one kind of fruit can be considered a camouflaged fasts but you have to be knowledgeable of its season, how it was grown (organically or conventional) and even when to eat as body cleansing and building do occur at specific times of the day.

Now, not to get of the subject of depression treatment, these steps, be they a fast or a healthier diet, will ensure that the body is cleaner and well we all should know by now that a cleaner body equates to a cleaner mind. In fact Yoga sages (this obviously showing my vote of Yoga for anti-depression) suggest that certain foods, which they coin as ‘rajasic’ (stimulating foods including Spices, alcohol, and animal products) foods have a negative stimulating effect on the nervous and endocrine systems, the two main ones that are related to mental health and consequently depression.

Based on their impeccable analysis of the human body, it may be safe to say these old Yoga Sages are completely right in suggesting we as humans-or at least those of us seeking the use of Yoga for depression treatment-should abstain from these foods for optimal success.

Is it a co-incidence that these same foods are the ones that have been shown to wreak havoc on our physical health? I think not folks.

This considered, instead of introducing chemical substances into your body in a quest for seeking depression treatment, from the facts above, it will be wise to first make a dietetic change, which again may include a short fast, at least to clear our minds first to tackle our problems, then eat the proper foods for nourishment and of course partake in some physical exercise (my choice being some Yoga) to obtain the inevitable feel-good results.

Depression is something we all may go through at some point, but thankfully relief and a successful treatment of it is not out of reach and this without harmful side-effects.

So empower yourself to a successful depression treatment targeting its root cause with drug-free methods of healing. On the subject of diet and depression treatment, I choose to remind you of this quote: “Let your foods be your medicine and your medicine your foods” (By Hippocrates the ‘Father or Medicine”)

May happiness be yours.

Foras Aje is an independent researcher and author of Fitness: Inside and out, a book on improving physical and mental health naturally. For additional information on depression treatment go to www.bodyhealthsoul.com/depression.htm