Community Based Therapy May Alleviate Depression and Anxiety

Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health concerns in today’s society. They are often experienced as a complex set of emotional and functional challenges. Anxiety and depression are not the same, but they often occur together. It is not uncommon for people with depression to experience anxiety and people with anxiety to become depressed. A community-based mental health care programme can significantly improve the lives of millions of people suffering from mental illness, researchers have found. The study showed that six months after undergoing the six…

Read More

Depression May Up Risk of Arthritis, Stomach Problems: Study

Arthritis and diseases of the digestive system are more common after depression, while anxiety disorders tend to be followed by skin diseases, a new study has warned. Mental disorders and physical diseases frequently go hand in hand. For the first time, psychologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland and Ruhr University Bochum in Germany have identified temporal patterns in young people. Physical diseases and mental disorders affect a person’s quality of life and present a huge challenge for the healthcare system. If physical and mental disorders systematically co-occur from…

Read More

Yogic Breathing May Help Fight Major Depression: Study

A breathing-based yogic meditation practice may help alleviate severe depression in people who do not fully respond to antidepressant treatments, according to a new study led by an Indian-origin scientist. Researchers found significant improvement in symptoms of depression and anxiety in medicated patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who participated in the breathing technique known as Sudarshan Kriya yoga. The meditation technique, which is practiced in both a group setting and at home, includes a series of sequential, rhythm-specific breathing exercises that bring people into a deep, restful and meditative…

Read More

Mother’s Depression May Affect Kid’s Brain Development

Depressive symptoms in women during and after pregnancy are linked to reduced thickness of the cortex — the outer layer of the brain responsible for complex thought and behaviour — in preschool-age kids, says a new study. “Our findings underscore the importance of monitoring and supporting mental health in mothers not just in the post-partum period, but also during pregnancy,” said lead researcher Catherine Lebel of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. The findings, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, suggest that a mother’s mood may affect her child’s…

Read More

Past Depression Tied to Worse Breast Cancer Survival Odds

Women with a history of depression may have lower survival odds with breast cancer than patients without past mental health problems, research in Denmark suggests. In the study of more than 45,000 women with early-stage breast malignancies, 13 percent of patients previously treated with antidepressants died within five years of their cancer diagnosis, compared with 11 percent of women who hadn’t ever taken medication for depression. “We did not find that women with depression were diagnosed at later stages,” said lead study author Dr. Nis Palm Suppli of the Danish…

Read More

Depression Becoming More Common Among U.S. Teens

The number of U.S. adolescents and young adults with untreated depression may be on the rise, a recent study suggests. For youth ages 12 to 17, the prevalence of depression increased from 8.7 percent in 2005 to 11.3 percent in 2014, the study found. Among adults aged 18 to 25, the prevalence climbed from 8.8 percent to 9.6 percent during the study period. But there hasn’t been much change in the proportion of teens and young adults seeking mental health treatment, the study also found. “We already know that teens…

Read More