Prevention of Depression and Maintaining Optimal Mental Health

There are several things a person can do to for the brain help to prevent depression and maintain positive thinking.

Music for the Mind. Research has shown that listening to music may improve your mood and reduce symptoms of depression. Music therapy may be the new waive for therapy. In a study, researchers found that music therapy is effective for improving symptoms of depression and anxiety (Maratos, Gold, Wang, & Crawford, 2008). The researchers found that people who received 60 minutes of music intervention reported lower levels of depression just after 15 sessions. Another study on depression and music reported people to have a greater reduction in symptoms compared to people who received psychotherapy (Choe, Lee, & Lim, 2008).

Exercise for the Mind. Exercising is a mood booster. Exercising in the morning will help boost your mood for the day. Endorphins produce a morphine effect. The feeling from endorphins being released in the body has been described as euphoric- the feeling known as runner's high are released in the body. Dr. Blumenthal and colleagues showed that regular exercise (30 minutes three times a week) is as effective as the antidepressant Zoloft.

Nutrition for the Mind. Some things to avoid are a high sugar diet, excessive caffeine, alcohol, empty calories, and going long periods without eating. Instead, eat foods that are rich in nutrition, eat regularly

Sleep for the Mind. Eight hours of sleep is generally the rule of thumb for the amount of sleep required to feel rested and reenergized. However, eight hours of sleep is not necessary for everyone This not only happens among humans, but all mammals need different average of hours sleeping per day. For instance, the roe deer only needs 2 hours of sleep while the giant sloth needs an average of 20 hours (Pinel, 2006).

There are short-sleepers and long-sleepers. Some people can make it on as little as five and half hours or need up to nine and a half hours (Breus, 2004). How much sleep an individual needs depends largely on (1) that individuals inherited genetic need. Scientists found two variants of the Period 3 gene with either long or short versions. People have two copies of the gene. The researchers found that people with only the longer gene variant performed more poorly on tests for attention and working memory between the hours of 4 and 8 am. The researchers also found that same type of participants when allowed to sleep normally spent about 50 percent more time in slow-wave sleep, which indicates that the individual needs more sleep (BBC, 2007). (2) lifestyle such as daily activities, amount of caffeine or alcohol, and exercise (3) the quality of sleep an individual gets, and (4) that person’s circadian rhythm (Breus).

One way to determine how much sleep an individual needs is to do a simple test. Sleep routinely for seven nights. Go to bed roughly the same time and get the same amount of sleep each night for six nights. On the seventh night, sleep in and see how long your body will let you sleep. If you sleep longer that seventh night, you may not be getting enough sleep hours per night (Breus, 2004).

Another factor that alters the amount of sleep an individual needs is age. For instance, newborns will sleep more times throughout the day and total around 16 hours of sleep a day. REM sleep declines over time. An infant obtains about 50 percent of sleep in REM sleep whereas 50 year olds spend 20-23 percent of time asleep in the REM cycle. Non-REM sleep doesn’t decline throughout life as does the REM sleep, but the average amount of total sleep does decline with age. And, older people will sleep lighter, which may contribute to increased frequency of nighttime awakenings (Weiten, 2005).

Enjoy the Great Outdoors for the Mind. People get so busy with work and family that enjoying the great outdoors gets neglected; yet, being outdoors and enjoying the environment can boost your mood.

Develop Good Coping Skills for the Mind. Having a coping strategy can help combat stress. The quicker stress can be relieved, the less damage it does to the mind and body. One way to develop good coping skills is to have a solid problem-solving strategy. Good problem-solving skills act a a barrier for derpession. Coping skills along with other skills are taught in my book and workshop.