Mental health news: Depression rising among teens

A recent story in the Tulsa World reported the results of a new study:

8.2 percent of American youths ages 12 to 17 experienced at least one major depressive episode in the last year.

Of the nearly 2 million kids who did, only about 39 percent received treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The report defined a “major depressive episode” as a period of two weeks or longer with a depressive mood, loss of interest or pleasure, and at least four other symptoms in areas including sleep, self-image, eating, energy and concentration.

These kids aren’t just having a “bad day.” These are serious problems they are facing…and they’re simply not getting the help they need.

…40 percent needing mental health and 80 percent needing substance abuse help are not receiving treatment.

“Part of it is the stigma. Part of it is physical health and mental health aren’t looked at on the same level. A lot of it is parents don’t see the problem until it reaches a crisis.”

Many parents aren’t giving permission for their children to be screened for mental health disorders or substance abuse, even though the screenings are offered through the school system.  According to experts, a big reason why the kids don’t receive treatment is the stigma associated with depression and other types of mental illness.

Mike Brose, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Tulsa, suggested some reasons why parents might not spot these problems in their teens:

“Parents tend to err on the side of minimizing or denial. They don’t seem to err on the side of ‘What’s going on? Maybe I need to talk to someone,’ ” Brose said. “In our culture, it’s because of the stigma or the human nature of parents not wanting to think anything is wrong with children.”

But parents need to be aware of the difference between normal teen behavior and serious issues. It is far better to err on the side of caution, because if untreated, depressive episodes can lead to chronic depression, alcohol or substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts.

The point the article hammers home – and this blog agrees with – is that parents need to be aware of what their teens are feeling, and seek the appropriate help or treatment when issues arise.

The depths of depression

I’ve been seeing several billboards around town lately that are designed to build awareness of depression as a real, honest-to-goodness medical condition. They say things like “No one ever says, ‘It’s just cancer – you’ll get over it.” Which does a great job of hammering home the point: depression is serious enough that often people who suffer from it can’t overcome it without treatment.

Dan Gottlieb, a Philadelphia-area psychologist, hosts a radio show and writes a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. A recent column he wrote focused on depression – what it really feels like, in the words of some people who suffer from depression. Here are a few excerpts:

A young woman I treated years ago said she felt like a diamond inside a malignant tumor and didn’t know whether she would live or die.

A recent colleague said he felt as if his brain were oatmeal and couldn’t think properly.

When I suffered clinical depression, I felt like a frightened, confused child pretending to be a psychologist. And feeling like a sham made the anxiety, depression, and shame so much worse.

Steve Newman had his first episode of depression when he was in seventh grade. A good student, he experienced a precipitous drop in grades and felt lost for much of his youth. Although his IQ was measured in the top 10 percent nationally, he graduated from high school in the bottom 5 percent of his class…

He said his depression felt like climbing a mountain when a storm hit. Any thoughts of going upward were beaten down by cold rain and wind. Going down also was impossible because of the same elements. He said his goal in life was just hanging on.

Depression is a serious illness that requires expert help and treatment in many cases. If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of depression, you need to get help. Your local physician can refer you to specialists in your area – and for questions or advice about dealing with depression, the MyExpertSolution experts are right here to help.

Seven Tips for Cheering Yourself Up

Psychology Today had a great article that included seven ways to “brighten your mood.” These tips are great for everyone who wants to feel happier, not just those who may suffer from depression. There are seven tips listed; here are two of my favorites:

3. A Day at the Beach: Put on those board shorts and catch some sun-dappled waves. Although you should use sunscreen, research from Australia shows that spending time in sunlight boosts your serotonin production. Yes, many of us do get depressed without sunlight. The brighter the forecast, the higher serotonin levels rise. A low serotonin level has long been a primary indicator of depression and other mood disorders, so naturally a spike in this neurotransmitter could help you beat the blues. Besides, you can enjoy a little eye-candy, too…

6. Hit the Seafood Buffet: Tie on that plastic bib and enjoy a meal fit for a king. Make sure your plate is lined with salmon steak or other foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. Not consuming enough Omega-3 can contribute to depression, and because we cannot synthesize these special fatty acids in our own bodies, they must come from our diet. Animal studies show that deficiencies in Omega-3s lead to a 50 percent depletion of serotonin and dopamine levels. The health benefits of fish abound. As Jerry Seinfeld said, “Why are fish so thin? They eat fish.”

Although I live far from the beach – about 12 hours to the closest, give or take – I feel like tip #3 can be applied to any outdoor activity. Whenever I start feeling a little down or lacking energy, heading outside on a sunny day never fails to recharge me.

And for tip #6, I don’t need any encouragement to eat seafood; it’s my favorite. But now I’ve got another way to convince my wife to go to Red Lobster instead of Good Wood – fish helps keep you happier J

What cheers you up when you’re feeling down in the dumps?

Kristen Lamb to appear on “Aging Outside the Box”

Kristen Lamb, our CEO, has been invited to appear as a guest on the Internet talk radio show “Aging Outside the Box.” She will discuss the topic of  “Social Innovations for Total Health” with host Shirley W. Mitchell, an author, syndicated columnist, and inspirational speaker. Kristen will talk about MyExpertSolution as a resource for answers; strategies for personal empowerment; and Relationship Radio.

The show will air live tonight at 5 pm Mountain Time (4 pm Pacific, 6 pm Central, 7 pm Eastern, etc.) online on the Aging Outside the Box website and the ArtistFirst World Radio Network website.

Tune in tonight to hear Kristen talk about strategies for personal empowerment and how MyExpertSolution can help you find expert answers to your unique challenges.

Parents: Just Show Up

I saw this post on Dr. Laura Markham’s Aha! Parenting blog, and once again it stuck me as a great tip for dealing with many common parenting situations. When children are expressing raw emotion – crying, yelling, etc. – most parents try to get them to stop as quickly as possible without addressing or validating the child’s feelings.

Here’s what Dr. Markham says about that:

Our job is to manage our own feelings so we can tolerate being present with our child’s raw emotions.  Just having mom or dad acknowledge her disappointment or hurt gives our child the courage to go under her anger, feel the pain, and begin to heal. Only then can we help her brainstorm a win-win solution, if indeed that’s appropriate.

I think this is such a good point: kids need to know that their emotions and feelings have merit, and that their parents acknowledge their feelings as real. Minimizing or ignoring these feelings is not the way to help a child, and could lead to a lack of communication later on because the child feels the parent doesn’t care about how he/she feels.

Once again, great advice from Dr. Markham. For more parenting information, visit her Aha! Parenting blog.

“Slow Parenting”

I had never heard of “slow parenting” before, but after reading this post on the NY Times “Motherlode” blog, I think it’s something worth considering. It’s well-documented that many parents these days fill their kids’ days completely up with school, tutors, music, sports, dance, languages, ad nauseum…and in the process have arrived at an odd balance where they put their kids on wait-lists for preschool before they can eat solid foods, but at the same time (quoting from the post) “not letting them walk to school alone until they’re 23.”

I especially liked this paragraph from the post:

To me, Slow parenting is about bringing balance into the home. Children need to strive and struggle and stretch themselves, but that does not mean childhood should be a race. Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms. They keep the family schedule under control so that everyone has enough downtime to rest, reflect and just hang out together. They accept that bending over backwards to give children the best of everything may not always be the best policy. Slow parenting means allowing our children to work out who they are rather than what we want them to be.

You may have heard the term “helicopter parents” that describes hyper-involved parents who do things like call their college-graduate-kid’s boss to protest perceived mistreatment. I think this post (and the author interviewed, Carl Honoré) are heading in the right direction by encouraging parents to have the “right amount” of involvement in their childrens’ lives: not too much, not too little.

Why Do You Punish Your Child? (from Dr. Laura Markham’s Aha! Parenting blog)

I noticed this post on Dr. Laura Markham’s blog a few days ago, and I thought it had some great information. So with her permission, I’m reposting it here. The original is available at her Aha! Parenting blog. Be sure to bookmark it for great parenting tips and insight.

“Children misbehave when they feel discouraged or powerless.  When you use discipline methods that overpower them or make them feel bad about themselves, you lower their self-esteem.  It doesn’t make sense to punish a child who is already feeling badly about herself and heap more discouragement on top of her.” — Kathryn J. Kvols

Do you need to punish your children to “teach a lesson?”
No. Research shows that punishing kids creates more misbehavior.  Being punished makes kids angry and defensive.  It launches adrenalin and the other fight, flight or freeze hormones, and turns off the reasoning, cooperative impulses.  It disconnects us from our kids so we have less influence on them.

So why do parents punish?  Quite simply, because we’re frightened or angry.  We want revenge. We want the behavior to stop.  But when we punish, we’re unwittingly reinforcing the bad behavior.

So what can you do to encourage good behavior?  Win-Win parenting!
1. Stay calm and positive.  If you can’t get in touch with your love for your child, act as if you can.  What would a really fantastic parent do right now?  Do that.
2. Empathize.  He has a reason, even if you don’t think it’s a good one.  See it from his point of view, even while you’re setting limits.
3. Stay connected.  Kids only behave because they feel our love and support for them to be their best selves.
4. Resist the impulse to be punitive and exact revenge.  It always backfires.
5. Expect age appropriate behavior and meet basic needs (don’t take a tired kid shopping!)
6. Give yourself a big hug.

Don’t believe it?  Try it this weekend and see what kind of miracle you can make.  Please let me know how your experiment goes.

It’s great to have Dr. Markham as one of our experts. She has tons of great parenting tips and advice at her website – check it out at http://ahaparenting.com.

Radio Roundup, 3-27

Another great week in the MyExpertSolution studio! This week, we were very lucky to have some amazing experts on our “My Expert Solution” shows. On Monday, Dr. Kevin Skinner talked with Thom Rutledge, author of the book “Embracing the Fear,” about tackling life changes and asking yourself what you can learn from them.

Author Jenni Schaefer joined us on Tuesday.  Jenni is an expert on eating disorders and author of the book “Life without ED,” which talks about her own struggle with eating disorders. She discussed how eating disorders are common among men as well as women and gave some symptoms to look for in people who we think might have a problem.

On Wednesday, Chris Dunn, president of MyExpertSolution, talked with Jared Maloff. Jared is a licensed clinical psychologist from Beverly Hills who specializes in depression.  He and Chris talked about some of his experiences working with clients who are facing depression.  It was really interesting, and Jared offered a lot of great insight into a really sensitive subject that many of us might not understand much about.

As always I learned a lot this week and am looking forward to next week’s shows!

Until next week!

Brenda’s Brain Vacation

Hey, guys!

Long time no blog.  Things have been super busy here while we get some new products ready and continue to perfect our site. I’m also taking some design classes at a local university, so between school projects, work projects, and things happening in my personal life, I was getting pretty overwhelmed.  My dad always says that you can’t put ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack, and my brain was feeling way too small for everything I was trying to cram into it.  I started to feel like I was spread way too thin, and I wasn’t able to focus my attention on what I needed to.  So instead of panicking and feeling like a failure because I couldn’t focus on any of the things I needed to, I took a few days off.  Not from work, but from life in general.

I took a brain vacation.

Friday, after work, I packed up my little clunker of a car and drove down south to Zion National Park, which, for those of you who haven’t gotten a chance to see it, is pretty much the most beautiful place on the planet.  I call it my happy place.  I don’t even know the words to describe the feeling I get when I’m in that place.  It’s so unbelievably beautiful—but even “beautiful” doesn’t get close to describing it.

Besides basking in the beauty of the canyon, I spoiled myself with a few really good meals and a really gorgeous hotel room and just unwound.  I pulled out the stitches on my five-pound sack of a brain and let everything spill out and scatter.  There’s plenty of room down there to let thoughts stretch out, and because I was on my own and didn’t have anything else to distract me or add any pressure, I really got a chance to think about things.  I picked out the things that I really needed to focus on, and then got rid of all of the stuff I didn’t need to think about or worry about anymore.  I threw some stuff out, consolidated other things, and got everything all sorted out before I put it back in my head, all newly-organized and aired out.

Now, I wish I could escape to Zion every weekend, but unfortunately I can’t.  But I can take time out to just take some deep breaths and reorganize things a little and get things sorted out again.  I can learn how to hold on to that feeling of peace and clarity that I had while I was on vacation.  And when things get a little too overwhelming, maybe I can take a little time to escape again.  In the meantime, I’m a new Brenda—refreshed and feeling capable and ready to take on the world.

What do you do to unwind when things get overwhelming?  Do you have somewhere like Zion that you like to escape to?  Let me know!  I’m always looking for new ideas and new adventures.

Plan for Tomorrow, but Live Today

There are so many exciting things going on right now.  I feel like my life is a whirlwind of motherhood and career hyper-drive.  While work rolls forward at hyper speed, full of new and exciting thoughts and ideas, my children seem to be having a race to see who can grow up the fastest.

Balancing work and family while keeping my sanity has become a top priority for me lately, so when I saw an article in “Psychology Today” entitled “The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment.”

For days after reading the article I found my mind thinking about the concept of “now.”  What is “now”?

I have come to the conclusion that what “now” means comes down to choice.  Every moment comes down to choices we make. Tomorrow is a by-product of the choices we make today, and mistakes of yesterday can be corrected by today’s choices as well. If you pay attention to the choices you make now, in this moment, you won’t have to worry about tomorrow or the next day or the next, because each choice we make now is a series of stepping stones that leads us to the unfolding tomorrow.

As this thought rolled over and over in my mind, like riding the same roller coaster time and time again, I realized that finding a balance and leading a happy life can really be that simple. It takes so much stress away to live in the moment.  If I live each moment to the fullest, I can balance my family life and work.  I can accomplish everything there is to accomplish.  I no longer have to scatter my mental energies to be whirled around in the winds of stress and “what ifs”. Living now allows me to make the very best choices that need to be made to allow for the very best outcome that I want to have.

So what’s one way we can do that? One of the very first things the article discussed was to remember to breathe.  If you focus on breathing, you are focusing on the moment.  It might sound too simple, but trust me… it helps. When life whirls into a stressful juggling act between work and family, breathing calms the mind.

Plan for tomorrow, but live today. When stress starts to pull you down, breathe deeply and trust that tomorrow will be a wonderful, natural by-product of great choices made today.

(Psychology Today article available here)