We should refuse to be victims. We should be survivors. I would even go further to say we should be victors. As a shepherd boy I have always wondered about the difference between human beings and animals of the African jungle. Animals rely primarily on instinct for survival and they seemingly do better in overcoming or transcending adversity as opposed to the human victims who rely primarily on intellect for survival. A case in point is the African mongoose. For purposes of this article we need to look at the impossible odds faced by the African mongoose when victimized by a snake, moving from victim to survivor and paying tribute to the heavens.
The Impossible Odds
At a certain time in the history of the great struggle for self-preservation, the African mongoose was like an ordinary mouse that constantly fell victim to the ferocious and bellicose cobra. The routine was for the African mongoose to always freeze and get eaten while the unprovoked snake destroyed and destabilized the families of the mongoose society. It seemed impossible to change the status quo.
From Victim to Survivor
One particular mongoose of long ago Manneheng decided that things had to change. This mongoose bargained with her creator for some retrofitting in order to take charge of her destiny. She needed to feed her babies and ensure their survival as well as leave a legacy of an indomitable life to the descendents. As the medicine women narrated the story to me, she did exactly that.
Her first line of attack was to analyze the brutal ways her foremothers and forefathers had been almost wiped out by the cobra in the same way that the great African American boxer Muhammad Ali analyzed the fighting sequences of his opponents before stepping into the ring. She discovered that, despite his fearsome stature and lethal fangs, the cobra was too slow and if she improved on that she could destroy him like a lightening bolt.
On a particular day she was traversing the grasslands of her African motherland when the cobra puffed his hood. This was a different day because she had put herself through the grueling physical and mental training that gave her the necessary preparedness to fight back. One interesting observation is that she seemed unimpressed by the cobra's hood. As the snake made the usual aggressive overtures, the mother mongoose respectfully maneuvered on the treacherous grounds. In a sudden move like a lightening barrage she jumped on his fearful hood and destroyed his crown. The African mongoose had changed the course of history. Not only did she move from victim to survivor, she went a step further to be crowned a victor.
Paying Tribute to the Heavens
She gathered all her babies and members of the extended family around the mountain of Matamong. Interestingly, it was the sentinels of the mongoose tribe that broke the news. At that point the mongoose looked to the heavens and as if to thank the Creator she bowed in what appeared to be a grateful curtsy. She was paying a deserved tribute to the heavens and the Creator.
Conclusion
It seemed outrageous for the ordinary mongoose that got eaten like a mouse victim to ever entertain the idea of fighting back. The impossible odds were stacked against her but trusting her instincts helped change the course of history. Today the cobra wets its pants when it sees the African mongoose. As humans we should take a page from the indomitable African mongoose.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Brain Overload May Trigger Depression
A human organism has been biologically programmed to uphold the supreme laws of self-preservation. To that end, a human being is equipped with natural shock absorbers to help deflect negative thoughts of stressful events and also to gain distance away from pessimism. However a combination of an overkill distress, chemical predisposition, melancholy thoughts and poor diet may prove to be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
An Overkill Distress
Usually a specific incident will set off a depression response in a person. An overkill distress is a situation that drops a firewall between the individual and all forms of dignified exit from a personally embarrassing or catastrophic situation. It creates a feeling of being blocked similar to a perceived sense of being death trapped inside a stuck elevator. A depressed person sees no options. As a result of this extreme case, the brain goes into overdrive to force the individual to disengage. Thus depression is like a tow truck that hauls a person away from a survival damaging situation.
Chemical Disposition
Brain studies show that reduced levels of certain brain chemicals can make an individual susceptible to depression. The mail chemical linked to mood stabilization is serotonin. Brains of both depressed individuals as well as serial killers have been found to be very deficient with respect to the serotonin system. This partly explains the fact that depressed people may lose interest in living to a point of considering suicide as an option. This is a worse case scenario where a depressed person poses a threat to himself or herself as well as others.
Melancholy Thoughts
Facing a situation that create funks in the mind can lead to the processing of melancholy thoughts. Scholars have established that depressed individuals usually entertain negative thoughts which reinforce their depressed state vis-vis the never depressed individuals. The difference between the two is that the never depressed persons have the mental skills or some kind of mental rehearsal that helps them to protect them against succumbing to depression.
Poor Diet
The brain chemicals that stabilize mood like serotonin are indirectly found in natural foods like carbohydrates as well as fowl meats like duck, turkey, and chicken to name a few. Other food sources include wall nuts, almonds, tuna and others. Now I need to explain something here. I qualified the food sources of serotonin with the adverb "indirectly". This is because if you were to take serotonin by way of pills or somehow ingest it, it would not boost your brain levels of serotonin. Why? This is because serotonin cannot cross a blood brain barrier.
A precursor of serotonin, known as tryptophan, is capable of crossing the above mentioned barrier. Thus you need foods with high levels of tryptophan. However there is a caveat. Even if you had enough tryptophan it would still not boost your brain's happy hormones if you are low in vitamin B6. Tryptophan, like other brain chemicals, needs vitamin B6 in order to manufacture serotonin. If your diet was lacking in terms of tryptophan and Vitamin B6 you would be more likely to suffer depression.
Experts in mental health have experimentally shown that when an individual is deprived of food for longer periods it can induce a depressed or aggressive state. This is due to the brain chemical levels being at their low point
Conclusion
We have shown that the causes of depression include a variety of factors like an overkill distress, a chemical disposition, melancholy thoughts, and diet lacking in tryptophan among others. Failure to trust your instincts and heed some of these salient points may make it easy for depression to catch you off guard. Finally your current or next stressful experience does not have to be the last straw that broke the camel's back.
An Overkill Distress
Usually a specific incident will set off a depression response in a person. An overkill distress is a situation that drops a firewall between the individual and all forms of dignified exit from a personally embarrassing or catastrophic situation. It creates a feeling of being blocked similar to a perceived sense of being death trapped inside a stuck elevator. A depressed person sees no options. As a result of this extreme case, the brain goes into overdrive to force the individual to disengage. Thus depression is like a tow truck that hauls a person away from a survival damaging situation.
Chemical Disposition
Brain studies show that reduced levels of certain brain chemicals can make an individual susceptible to depression. The mail chemical linked to mood stabilization is serotonin. Brains of both depressed individuals as well as serial killers have been found to be very deficient with respect to the serotonin system. This partly explains the fact that depressed people may lose interest in living to a point of considering suicide as an option. This is a worse case scenario where a depressed person poses a threat to himself or herself as well as others.
Melancholy Thoughts
Facing a situation that create funks in the mind can lead to the processing of melancholy thoughts. Scholars have established that depressed individuals usually entertain negative thoughts which reinforce their depressed state vis-vis the never depressed individuals. The difference between the two is that the never depressed persons have the mental skills or some kind of mental rehearsal that helps them to protect them against succumbing to depression.
Poor Diet
The brain chemicals that stabilize mood like serotonin are indirectly found in natural foods like carbohydrates as well as fowl meats like duck, turkey, and chicken to name a few. Other food sources include wall nuts, almonds, tuna and others. Now I need to explain something here. I qualified the food sources of serotonin with the adverb "indirectly". This is because if you were to take serotonin by way of pills or somehow ingest it, it would not boost your brain levels of serotonin. Why? This is because serotonin cannot cross a blood brain barrier.
A precursor of serotonin, known as tryptophan, is capable of crossing the above mentioned barrier. Thus you need foods with high levels of tryptophan. However there is a caveat. Even if you had enough tryptophan it would still not boost your brain's happy hormones if you are low in vitamin B6. Tryptophan, like other brain chemicals, needs vitamin B6 in order to manufacture serotonin. If your diet was lacking in terms of tryptophan and Vitamin B6 you would be more likely to suffer depression.
Experts in mental health have experimentally shown that when an individual is deprived of food for longer periods it can induce a depressed or aggressive state. This is due to the brain chemical levels being at their low point
Conclusion
We have shown that the causes of depression include a variety of factors like an overkill distress, a chemical disposition, melancholy thoughts, and diet lacking in tryptophan among others. Failure to trust your instincts and heed some of these salient points may make it easy for depression to catch you off guard. Finally your current or next stressful experience does not have to be the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Yes Hypnosis Can Relieve Depression
It's a well known fact that most treatments for depression provide a temporary relief and not a permanent cure. For this reason, any treatment for depression must be used as a means to an end and not an end by itself. For example, we can use hypnosis to build mental skills. Hypnosis can provide the necessary relief provided we understand depression and its function, needed mental skills, hypnosis and the front brain and the serotonin system.
Depression and its Function
Depression is a natural progression for the brain in the face of an inescapable overpowering distress. Normally a person would have been previously subjected to a series of overwhelming or stressful events and eventually some overpowering distress may trigger a depression response. Depression is a message from the brain that it has reached a point of saturation and can no longer effectively cope with the situation. The brain therefore goes into a mode of retreat. This explains why depressed people lose interest in things that they used to like to do. I explain more about this in my Youtube Channel Colormedicine.
Needed Mental Skills
The first order of business is to disengage from a distressing situation or environment. This is a prerequisite mental skill needed to bounce out of depression. Other necessary skills include the ability to relax and not be too hard on oneself. Depressed people are usually hard on themselves and show some form of mental inflexibility. Hypnosis can be used as both a relief as well as a way to equip a depressed individual with the correct mental skills.
Hypnosis and the Brain Activity
The Nobel Prize winning Russian scientist Dr. Ivan Pavlov declared that a hypnotic state put the brain in a form of half-sleep. Moreover fMRI studies show that depressed people bias their frontal brain activity of their PFC towards the right side whereas the Tibetan monks' brain activity, during intense meditation, is biased towards the left side of the same bilateral brain region. Hypnosis has been shown to achieve this as well, particularly among suggestible persons. Obviously, the qualitative outcome is a function of the hypnotist in terms of the repertoire of his or her skills. In other words hypnosis is your second best if you are not capable of engaging in efficacious meditation like the great Tibetan monks or the Sangomas of South Africa who also show the same mental discipline during situational extremes as explained in my book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles.
The Serotonin System
Brain chemistry is a factor in depression since it has been scientifically demonstrated that mood is governed by brain chemistry. This article is not the right place to talk about the esoteric biochemistry of depression but I will make a few points. Serotonin is an important brain chemical in terms of stabilizing mood. The lack of or malfunctioning of serotonin has been scientifically linked to depression among others. Hypnosis can induce the right cortical activities to facilitate the normal activities of the serotonin system.
Conclusion
We have shown that depression is a necessary mechanism when the brain is attempting to disengage from an overpowering situation. For this reason, hypnosis can be used as a temporary tool to relieve depression.
Depression and its Function
Depression is a natural progression for the brain in the face of an inescapable overpowering distress. Normally a person would have been previously subjected to a series of overwhelming or stressful events and eventually some overpowering distress may trigger a depression response. Depression is a message from the brain that it has reached a point of saturation and can no longer effectively cope with the situation. The brain therefore goes into a mode of retreat. This explains why depressed people lose interest in things that they used to like to do. I explain more about this in my Youtube Channel Colormedicine.
Needed Mental Skills
The first order of business is to disengage from a distressing situation or environment. This is a prerequisite mental skill needed to bounce out of depression. Other necessary skills include the ability to relax and not be too hard on oneself. Depressed people are usually hard on themselves and show some form of mental inflexibility. Hypnosis can be used as both a relief as well as a way to equip a depressed individual with the correct mental skills.
Hypnosis and the Brain Activity
The Nobel Prize winning Russian scientist Dr. Ivan Pavlov declared that a hypnotic state put the brain in a form of half-sleep. Moreover fMRI studies show that depressed people bias their frontal brain activity of their PFC towards the right side whereas the Tibetan monks' brain activity, during intense meditation, is biased towards the left side of the same bilateral brain region. Hypnosis has been shown to achieve this as well, particularly among suggestible persons. Obviously, the qualitative outcome is a function of the hypnotist in terms of the repertoire of his or her skills. In other words hypnosis is your second best if you are not capable of engaging in efficacious meditation like the great Tibetan monks or the Sangomas of South Africa who also show the same mental discipline during situational extremes as explained in my book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles.
The Serotonin System
Brain chemistry is a factor in depression since it has been scientifically demonstrated that mood is governed by brain chemistry. This article is not the right place to talk about the esoteric biochemistry of depression but I will make a few points. Serotonin is an important brain chemical in terms of stabilizing mood. The lack of or malfunctioning of serotonin has been scientifically linked to depression among others. Hypnosis can induce the right cortical activities to facilitate the normal activities of the serotonin system.
Conclusion
We have shown that depression is a necessary mechanism when the brain is attempting to disengage from an overpowering situation. For this reason, hypnosis can be used as a temporary tool to relieve depression.
The New Colormedicine Blog on Mood
Yippee!
This is a new blog committed to the topics related to mood like anxiety, depression, aggression, eating disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and much much more. This is a breakthrough after starting this project on Thekwini more than ten years ago at Carleton University in Ottawa Canada.
This is a second blog the first one being theYoutube channel Colormedicine. In that blog or vlog we cover the same topics but using video format. Now this blob allows for the written word on the same topics. In the meanwhile all the written articles pertaining to this subject can be found in the Colormedicine Yahoo Groups, рдеे colormedicine website http://www.colormedicine.net/, the Thekwini website http://www.thekwini.com/ as well as the Helium website http://www.helium.com/ and by entering my names there Vusi Moloi you will be able to access the articles I have written on that website.
It gives me great pleasure and excitement to be consistently working on this long haul project. So you can expect some of those previously published articles to re-published here and newer articles being commissioned. Off course I commission myself since I am the engine behind the project. Someday when this takes off it will be possible to commission others to research and write high quality articles on mood.
Why am I doing all this? Why am I going into such great trouble as to establish a blog dedicated to mood? This is a topic I am passionate about. This is a topic I care about. This is a topic I have built lots of expert knowledge around. From the humble days as a computer science student and where I consulted a lot with my professor Dr. Jensen Sedgwick of the School of Computer Science at Carleton University to the point where I successfully demonstrated a working and advanced prototype of Thekwini at the Royal Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa it has been a rewarding journey of great challenge. Eventually the NRC (National Research Council) in Ottawa funded the Thekwini project for further development and that was an icing on the cake. Since then we are working hard on proving the efficacy of this innovative project hence the importance of establishing a blog where I can interact directly with people whose interest it is to find ways and means of overcoming their mood disorder in a non-invasive way.
I am excited about this blog as it allow for the streamlining of this project as well as communicating with others about the issues they care about. So you are encouraged to check this site, to book mark it and also to check out Youtube channel as well. The link will be posted on this main site.
You can expect the same high quality articles here. You are encourage to subscribe and post your comments. By so doing you are injecting good vibes into this blog.
Many thanks to everyone for dropping by to check out the new Colormedicine Blog.
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