“Decades of studies show that people who say their health is poor are likely to die sooner than those who rate their health excellent, even after controlling for how sick people actually are.” What can this mean? It seems we are our own best sources of information…
There is a strong possibility that when a patient goes to the doctor with depression, to be treated within the medical model, they may underplay or not even mention physical symptoms, thinking that “they’re all in the mind” — meaning not real, not worthy of attention. In fact, pain is felt in all kinds of ways, and when doctors and patients alike recognise that, research shows that treatment works better.
It’s official! Or at least one study, the Framingham Offspring Study ‘Marital status, marital strain, and risk of coronary heart disease or total mortality’, shows that women who bottled up their feelings during arguments with their spouse were four times as likely to die during the 10 year study period as those who told their husbands exactly how they felt.
As new government figures show that prescriptions for antidepressants have increased by 33 per cent in the last six years, costing the UK economy over £28 million, a mental health charity today says it has been awarded £95,000 by the Department of Health to promote exercise as an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression.
How useful is exercise for people with severe depression, anxiety, or chronic mental illness? Hundreds of studies suggest it may help, but the actual causal relationships between exercise and mental health remain unclear. The December issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter outlines several possible explanations for the apparent mood-enhancing effect of exercise.
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