Category: depression

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10 Tips for Dealing With Grief Around the Holidays

For many, the holidays are a really hard time. People who have lost loved ones or had other difficult experiences in their lives tend to get depressed around the holiday season, as they reflect on their past and relive old memories.

If you are one of the many people who deals with grief and depression around the holidays, here are 10 tips you should consider to try to alleviate your pain.

1. Time and space.

Loneliness

Give yourself time and space to deal with your emotions. It’s okay to feel pain and loneliness if you’ve experienced loss. Treat yourself well and give yourself a break. You’re only human.

2. Spend time alone.

The holiday season can be very overwhelming for many people, so you need to find time to spend alone so you can work on yourself and get away from it all. Do what you need to do to recharge your batteries: take a walk, sit in a park, and if you want to leave parties or events early, go ahead and do it.

3. Escape route.

Party

Have an escape plan if you attend parties or events that you know might trigger you and make you sad, emotional, or angry. It’s okay if you need to bolt, just be ready and make sure you have all your belongings so you don’t have to make a return appearance.

4. No thanks.

It’s okay to say no to parties, events, or any other kinds of invitations that you think might make you feel uncomfortable or might cause you to lose control. Remember, it’s up to you.

5. Honor their memory.

Thinking

Some people choose to celebrate the traditions that their lost loved ones did to honor their memory. This can help people to remember the good times and to be nostalgic.

6. Start new traditions.

Instead of trying to recreate the traditions that you enjoyed with your departed loved ones, try to create some new ones. This practice can help you deal with the grief.

7. Get out of town.

Road trip near Sykkylven

Go somewhere new or take a road trip. Get your mind off of the familiar and the places that are associated with your loved ones who are no longer with you. A new atmosphere may do you some good.

8. Fulfillment.

Focus on some activities that you know will fulfill you and make you feel good. Volunteer. Read. Exercise. Walk your dog. Try to make some new friends. Whatever makes you feel good, do it.

9. Totally random.

Smile

Practice random acts of kindness. Help out other people and try to better, not bitter. In other words, live your life to honor the people who are gone and do your best. Part of that can be helping out strangers.

10. Remember the good times.

It might sound easy, but it can be tough. Try to remember the positive memories and happy times you spent with your departed loved ones instead of suppressing all thoughts about them. In the long run, it will help.

And while you’re at it, listen to this short but sweet song by the great Willie Nelson.

Enjoy your holidays, everyone.

The post 10 Tips for Dealing With Grief Around the Holidays appeared first on UberFacts.

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15 Very Funny Tweets About CBD

Every time I turn a corner these days, there’s a CBD shop staring me in the face.

Which I guess is a good thing because (apparently )it helps out a lot of people who have to deal with anxiety, depression, and other ailments.

And one thing is for sure: people seem to LOVE it.

Are you one of them? Enjoy these tweets.

1. What is this feeling?

2. Might’ve chilled him out.

3. Not gonna work this time.

4. Chill out, pooch!

5. Thanks, Gramps.

6. Not the greatest side effect.

7. Give it a shot.

8. YOU WILL SEE GOD.

9. I’m sure it’ll be here soon.

10. You’re canceled.

11. Do it together.

12. Listen, I’m gonna fill you in…

13. It’s different, you see…

14. Gonna leave a mark.

15. Yes, pretty much.

I might have to give this CBD thing a shot…all the kids are doing it!

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The Psoas Is the Important Muscle Where Your Body Stores Your Deepest Trauma

This is important information for EVERYONE.

Trauma affects people in different ways—physically and psychologically.

But did you know your body may be storing your trauma in a muscle you’ve probably never heard of?

It’s that pesky psoas (SO-az) .

Photo Credit: Pexels, Burst

Your body is built to react to traumatic experiences physically. Think of it as a basis for survival. Have you ever heard stories of how people acquire superhuman strength and can move a car to save someone? Yeah, like that kind of physical.

Even your very cells react to and store trauma.

If these physical responses remain “stuck,” they begin to cause issues. Animals and babies can easily release stress and trauma by literally shaking it off or by crying. But as adults, we learn to hold in our emotions, thus making the process of release much more drawn out and difficult.

View this post on Instagram

#psoasmuscle

A post shared by Daniele Zanoni (@danielezanonizana) on

How do the psoas muscles come into play?

Your psoas is the strongest muscle in your hip flexors, and it contributes to nearly everything you do— from posture to core strength to moving your legs pretty much at all. Back pain is often related to psoas tightness.

If you’ve ever done yoga, you know that almost everyone has tight hips, even people with flexible hips. Yoga teachers often focus on your hips because they believe, with good reason, that humans “store unexpressed emotions” there.

When you think about it, your hips don’t really move much throughout the day—in the course of normal activity, the rest of your body sort of ends up moving around your hips. That means the moving parts release tension, while the static parts don’t.

Since psoas muscles make up the core of your body, they are most affected by our need to survive (i.e. flight or fight). This is part of why after participating in a yoga or stretching session, we feel calmer and more relieved.

Especially if you spend most of your day sitting down, your psoas is not getting the stretching it needs to release all of the pent up emotion and anxiety of modern life.

Take a look at this video on the proper way to stretch this area.

As you practice, you may find your body shaking on different levels. This is okay, but try not to push too hard. Listen to your body. At times you might feel like a good cry is about to burst through, since your mind and body are open. Allow it to happen. This is the muscle releasing trauma.

The human body is an amazing creation, and we want to keep it that way.

Namaste.

The post The Psoas Is the Important Muscle Where Your Body Stores Your Deepest Trauma appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

The Psoas Is the Important Muscle Where Your Body Stores Your Deepest Trauma

This is important information for EVERYONE.

Trauma affects people in different ways—physically and psychologically.

But did you know your body may be storing your trauma in a muscle you’ve probably never heard of?

It’s that pesky psoas (SO-az) .

Photo Credit: Pexels, Burst

Your body is built to react to traumatic experiences physically. Think of it as a basis for survival. Have you ever heard stories of how people acquire superhuman strength and can move a car to save someone? Yeah, like that kind of physical.

Even your very cells react to and store trauma.

If these physical responses remain “stuck,” they begin to cause issues. Animals and babies can easily release stress and trauma by literally shaking it off or by crying. But as adults, we learn to hold in our emotions, thus making the process of release much more drawn out and difficult.

View this post on Instagram

#psoasmuscle

A post shared by Daniele Zanoni (@danielezanonizana) on

How do the psoas muscles come into play?

Your psoas is the strongest muscle in your hip flexors, and it contributes to nearly everything you do— from posture to core strength to moving your legs pretty much at all. Back pain is often related to psoas tightness.

If you’ve ever done yoga, you know that almost everyone has tight hips, even people with flexible hips. Yoga teachers often focus on your hips because they believe, with good reason, that humans “store unexpressed emotions” there.

When you think about it, your hips don’t really move much throughout the day—in the course of normal activity, the rest of your body sort of ends up moving around your hips. That means the moving parts release tension, while the static parts don’t.

Since psoas muscles make up the core of your body, they are most affected by our need to survive (i.e. flight or fight). This is part of why after participating in a yoga or stretching session, we feel calmer and more relieved.

Especially if you spend most of your day sitting down, your psoas is not getting the stretching it needs to release all of the pent up emotion and anxiety of modern life.

Take a look at this video on the proper way to stretch this area.

As you practice, you may find your body shaking on different levels. This is okay, but try not to push too hard. Listen to your body. At times you might feel like a good cry is about to burst through, since your mind and body are open. Allow it to happen. This is the muscle releasing trauma.

The human body is an amazing creation, and we want to keep it that way.

Namaste.

The post The Psoas Is the Important Muscle Where Your Body Stores Your Deepest Trauma appeared first on UberFacts.

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Studies Show That Children Who Grow up Around Their Grandparents Are Happier and Less Likely to Be Depressed

I’ve always been jealous of people who grew up close to their grandparents and so were able to enjoy that bond. My family moved around so much when I was growing up that my grandparents lived far away, and I was only able to meet them a few times while they were still alive.

Beyond the love, care, and guidance that grandparents give to their grandkids, research shows that this special relationship is even more beneficial than we thought.

Photo Credit: Pexels

A 2016 study shows that children who have close emotional ties with their grandparents have a reduced risk of becoming depressed. The study was conducted by researchers from Boston College who analyzed data collected over a 19-year period.

More good news came out of the study as well. Grandparents also benefit from a close relationship with their grandkids, and the older folks are less likely to show depressive symptoms as well.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Another study, out of the University of Oxford, found that kids who had close relationships with their grandparents coped better with difficult and traumatic life events, such as bullying or going through a divorce. This research also showed that kids with a higher level of involvement from grandparents in their lives had fewer behavioral and emotional problems and that they dealt with life changes in a healthy way.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Kimberly Agresta, of the Agresta Psychotherapy Group, said:

“If parents regularly involve grandparents in their child’s life early on, a child can develop real emotional closeness to the grandparents and begin to see the grandparent as a source of strong social support. So a child will feel that they have other adults, aside from their parents, who love and care about them in the same way, and this adds to their sense of stability and security.”

If you grew up around your grandparents, consider yourself a lucky person.

The post Studies Show That Children Who Grow up Around Their Grandparents Are Happier and Less Likely to Be Depressed appeared first on UberFacts.

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Take a Look at These Mental Health Tips If You Are Struggling with Depression

There’s no magic formula to get through the days and weeks when you’re battling a mental illness like depression.

Some days you’re the one ready and willing to give tips and other days, you’re in desperate need of some new coping mechanisms.

But whatever sort of day you’re having, #HowIFightDepression is here with some real, tested ways to help, so check it out.

12. Quiet resolve.

11. Give yourself a break.

10. Remember that it lies.

9. Don’t wait until you feel like it.

8. Don’t judge yourself by others standards.

7. One small task. You’re not alone.

6. Asking for help is brave.

5. It’s not a win/lose scenario.

4. Don’t stop.

3. Some days, kids help. Others…

2. You’re worth it.

1. Any or all.

 

If you need to hear it today, you matter to people, so keep going.

Tomorrow might be better.

The post Take a Look at These Mental Health Tips If You Are Struggling with Depression appeared first on UberFacts.

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A Woman Leaves Her Boyfriend Sweet Notes to Help His Depression and They Will Make You Feel the Love

It’s so important to be surrounded by positive, compassionate people in your life. And this story perfectly illustrates that fact.

If you or any of your loved ones have ever struggled with depression, you know it can be extremely crippling and can affect your life in a number of negative ways.

A man who suffers from seasonal depression has a lovely girlfriend who helps him through the hard times, even when she can’t be near him. The two are in a long-distance relationship. He lives in North Carolina and she lives in Jamaica. The man shared the series of notes that his girlfriend left him in his apartment to help him work through his depression.

He wrote on Twitter “My gf knows that I suffer from seasonal depression, and in order to help me with it she left me random messages in my apartment to make my smile. It’s been a week since she left and I’m still finding them the most obscure places.”

Here’s the first note he shared on Twitter, and she encouraged him to get out and go to the gym. Always a great idea!

And, of course, some inside jokes were in order.

Some good night notes are always helpful.

She also left some great notes to wake up to in the morning.

Another note included some helpful advice like letting light into his apartment and eating healthy meals.

And he was still finding notes even six days after his girlfriend left.

Her final note looked ahead to a bright future for both of them.

He summed it up pretty good with a final tweet in the thread.

It’s pretty obvious these two love each other a lot, despite the physical distance between them.

The post A Woman Leaves Her Boyfriend Sweet Notes to Help His Depression and They Will Make You Feel the Love appeared first on UberFacts.

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15 Tweets About Mental Health That’ll Definitely Give You a Good Laugh

Mental health issues are no joke. Suffering from anxiety or depression can be absolutely crippling, and can even affect you physically.

Still, laughter is the best medicine and while it might be tough to find much mirth in the midst of a depressive episode, if you can manage to scare up a few chuckles, it really does help a lot.

If you’re having a rough day, week, month, or year, take a look at these funny tweets about mental health.

1. Like this?

2. True

3. Tell us more

4. Hahaha

5. This might catch on

6. LOL

7. Self care

8. That’s not good

9. Sounds healthy

10. That’s a yes

11. #NonStopWorry

12. Finally!

13. Samesies

14. BFF

15. That’s a start

Ahhhhh, now that feels a little bit better, doesn’t it?

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13 Game-Changing Scientific Discoveries Everyone Needs To Know About

I fucking love science. Because science can help us create things that seem like magic, but they’re real and they usually help humanity.

Recently a reddit thread asked the following question: What are some recent scientific breakthroughs/discoveries that aren’t getting enough attention? Of course, reddit users didn’t disappoint with their knowledge of all those things we haven’t heard about, but need to.

So check out these 13 discoveries and have faith in science. Because it’s provable and actually helps us all.

Amen.

1. Carbon Dioxide Flakes?

That we have figured out how to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and now, very recently, how to turn it into solid flakes of carbon again. And not just under higly specific and expensive lab conditions, this process is apparently scalable.

We still need to curb emissions but this does flip the equation quite a bit regarding global warming, allowing us to put some of the toothpaste back into the tube so to speak.

Coupled with wind and solar energy, I predict this will become a major industry by mid-century, and very pure carbon an abundant material.

2. New killer whales?

Don’t know if anyone has pointed this one out… but pretty certain scientists have discovered a new species of orcas that live in sub-Antarctic waters.

They are calling it the “Type-D Orca”… pretty cool looking animals.

More rounded heads… smaller white eye patches… taller, narrower dorsal fins…

Being a soon to be marine biology grad, this excites me!

3. MDMA helping PTSD?

If the final trials go well (they are predicted to and the previous trials have done), MDMA-assisted psychotherapy will soon be an FDA-approved treatment for PTSD.

It is administered in a couple of doses over a few weeks and has lifelong effects.

The group doing this research got FDA Breakthrough Therapy status for it a few years ago and have been carrying out the phase 3 trials since early last year.

They were doing research into the same thing in Israel and it just got approved for compassionate use for PTSD in Israel this month.

Organization is called MAPS and they do some really interesting work.

4. Gluten-free?

There’s a good chance there will be a cure for celiac disease within the next 10 years.

There’s currently an active and ongoing clinical trial where participants (with diagnosed celiac) are getting infusions that will ultimately reverse the autoimmune response a person with celiac has when they consume gluten. It’s still far from complete, but we are closer than we’ve ever been to curing celiac disease.

**The clinical trial is taking place in Cleveland, Ohio. I was asked to be a part of it but unfortunately I just don’t have the extra time. If anybody local wants more information please message me and I can get you in contact with one of the researchers!

5. Skin guns?

Pretty recently they started doing tests for an extremely mobile skin grafting machine. It uses a kind of hydrogel out of the patient’s own skin, and scans the area of the burn then just prints out the skin.

Also, I saw a video a while ago about a guy who had a solution of skin cells airbrushed on the burn (mostly 2nd degree, IIRC). In 3-4 days he was healed with no scarring. The skin gun: https://youtu.be/eXO_ApjKPaI

6. Chemo that doesn’t poison you?

My job is coming came out with a drug that reduces the damage chemotherapy does to the body and helps regenerate blood cells faster, allowing for stronger doses to be administered and treatment scheduled to be reduced heavily.

This allows doctors to treat cancer more aggressively.

7. Bionic parts?

You can get hands and feet that are pretty close to the actual thing that operate by feeling the muscles that remain.

We will soon be long gone from the days of military style hooks and lumps of solid plastic.

8. Mental health issues caused by inflammation?

One of the more recent theories in psychiatry gaining popularity (although it was acknowledged decades ago) is the role of inflammation and the immune system in mental illness. There are studies showing that in schizophrenia and other psychotic conditions, inflammation attacks the brain. Some of the damage by inflammation might be irreversible, so the hope is that early intervention could prevent chronic schizophrenia. Trials have been attempted with anti-inflammatories like fish oil, with mixed success.

The role of inflammation has been extended to multiple mental illnesses, like depression, with raised inflammatory markers and other evidence being a common finding. Ultimately mental illness is multifactorial, and the causes are often biological, psychological, and/or social. So we can’t reduce something so complex and heterogenous to just an action by the immune system. But it has gained some excitement in the field because there could be people out there, for example, with schizophrenia for whom one of the primary causes is immune system dysregulation, and researchers are racing to find a prevention.

9. Diabetes no more?

They’re getting closer to a cure for type 1 diabetes. There’s already multiple people who have been cured with no need for insulin for years now after a clinical study

Here is the man that’s been cured: https://www.cityofhope.org/breakthroughs/rose-parade-diabetes-patient-roger-sparks

Here is a good breakdown of what they found in 2018: https://www.cityofhope.org/breakthroughs/wanek-project-to-cure-type-1-diabetes-18-months-later

And this is the latest new on the study: https://www.cityofhope.org/breakthroughs/study-by-diabetes-expert-describes-promising-type-1-treatments

10. New physics?!

Astronomer here!

Most of you have heard that the universe is expanding. Astrophysicists believe there is a relationship between the distance to faraway galaxies and how fast they are moving from us, called the Hubble constant.

We use the Hubble constant for… just about everything in cosmology, to be honest. This isn’t crazy and has been accepted for many decades.

What is crazy is, if you are paying attention, it appears the Hubble constant is different depending on what you use to measure it!

Specifically, if you use the “standard candle” stars (Cepheids and Type Ia supernovae) to measure how fast galaxies are speeding away from us, you get ~73 +/- 1 km/s/Mpc.

If you study the earliest radiation from the universe (the Cosmic Microwave Background) using the Planck satellite, you get 67 +/- 1 km/s/Mpc. This is a LOT, and both methods have a lot of confidence in that measurement with no obvious errors.

To date, no one has come up with a satisfactory answer for why this might be, and in the past year or so it’s actually a bit concerning. If they truly disagree, well, it frankly means there is some new, basic physics at play.

Exciting stuff! It’s just so neat that whenever you think you know how the universe works, it can throw these new curveballs at you from the most unexpected places!

11. Glad + Metal = ?!

Earlier this month, scientists were able to successfully weld glass and metal together using ultrafast (on the order of picoseconds, which are such a short unit of time that compared to it, a full second might as well be 30,000 years) laser pulses.

This hasn’t been successfully done before due to the very different thermal properties of glass and metal.

This is actually a pretty big breakthrough in manufacturing and could lead to stronger yet lighter materials.

12. Special K treats depression?

The FDA just approved ketamine as an antidepressant for treatment-resistant depression in the form of esketamine as a nasal spray.

It’s of the few unique and hopeful approaches to treatment-resistant depression that we’ve seen in years—some stats put the rate of recovery as high as 80%.

This doesn’t give you full recovery, but alleviation at least.

13. We’re still discovering lost history?

Göbekli Tepe – ruin discovered in Turkey that dates back to 11000 BCE, or further.

This throws a massive wrench into our understanding of what people were capable of at that time, and hints at advanced civilizations having likely existed long before we thought they did.

It has also only been about 10% excavated.

Also…

I’ve actually read some articles over the past few weeks about archaeologists using LIDAR technology to uncover Mayan ruins, and they’ve found that Mayan civilization was much more extensive than originally assumed.

At its height, its now believed that its population may have numbered near 15 million citizens, and that they engaged in extensive trade with their neighbors to the North and South; these LIDAR scans have revealed evidence of vast cities, farmlands and roadways. And this was all without any pack animals or wheeled carts.

Well, look at what science keeps doing for us!

Believe in science, folks. It always comes through eventually.

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