Aromatherapy for Mental Health Concerns
Dr. Kaitlyn Zorn, HBSc., ND. Essential Oils and More for the Winter Blues Feeling blue or irritable with the change of seasons and sunlight? There are many interventions that have been known to help with mood disorders such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), as well as depression, anxiety and stress. Interventions such as light therapy, […]
Prescriptive treatment for mental illness: exercise
Dr. Christina Bjorndal, ND The Mood Disorders Society of Canada put out a startling statistic in 2009: 1 in 5 Canadians will experience a mental illness in their lifetime1, including depression, mood disorder, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactive disorders and dementia (with anxiety and depression being the most common by far). If […]
Harvesting Health and Wellbeing From Your Relationship
Dr. Katie Hendricks, PhD Dr. Gay Hendricks, PhD When you declared “in sickness or in health” when you committed in your own style or ceremony, you probably weren’t thinking very much about actuarial tables. You may have discounted how much your relationship dynamics actually can increase your health or make you sick. In fact, your […]
10 Reasons to Keep Your Landline
Publisher Razi Berry In a technology based world, landlines are almost becoming extinct. Our cell phones not only call, but text, email, write documents, video chat, shop and so much more. If our cell phones do it all, why keep a landline? Here are 10 reasons you and your family could greatly benefit from keeping […]
Affectionate Mothering Can Combat Maternal Depression
(NaturalPath) According to a study out of the University of Utah, certain parenting strategies can combat the negative impacts of maternal depression on an infant. Depression in reaction to stressors can be passed to the child and negatively impact them in ways that manifest after birth such as birth weight, brain development and an increased susceptibility […]
Controlling Parents Create Mean College Kids
(NaturalPath) According to a study out of the University of Vermont, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, college students who have parents that lay a guilt-trip or manipulate them transfer that stress into mean behavior on their friends. That way they responded to stress was carried out – either immediately and impulsively or in […]
Depression and Heart Disease
(NaturalPath) New research emerging from the Cleveland Heart Lab is showing a medical link between sadness, depression, anxiety, and heart attacks. What is interesting is that depression is proving to be a higher risk factor for heart attacks than smoking is. The connection may be with one major neurotransmitter serotonin. When serotonin is low there is […]
Inflammation May Worsen Depression
(NaturalPath) A recently published review in the American Journal of Psychiatry examined roughly 200 studies done on depression and inflammation. Researchers were interested in the relationship between the levels of inflammatory markers and depression. They examined the two inflammatory markers CRP and IL-6, and found that in patients with depression, levels were elevated by up to […]
Antidepressant Drug Linked to Risk of Birth Defects in Early Pregnancy
(NaturalPath) In an analysis by the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, researchers caution against the use of an anti-depressant drug called paroxetine in early pregnancy—the first trimester. This drug, used to treat depression, OCD, anxiety and PTSD can increase the risk of congenital and cardiac malformations in newborns. Depression is common in women of child-bearing age […]
Link Between Inflammation and Depression
A study in the American Journal of Psychiatry studied the link between inflammation and depression. “One thing that we’re particularly interested in is how stress affects the immune system, which in turn affects diseases and mental health outcomes,” said one of the co-authors of the paper. The authors found that in addition to being linked […]