Category Archives: Depression

Tracy Morgan Busts the Black Suicide Myth

28 Mar 2016
Written by Goldie Taylor / The Daily Beast

Sixteen months after the horrific, near-fatal accident that claimed the life of of one of his closest friends, funnyman Tracy Morgan made a triumphant return to Studio 8F in Rockefeller Plaza. Fellow comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair died in the multi-car pileup on a rain-soaked highway in New Jersey, and Morgan was lucky to be alive, he told the Saturday Night Live audience. “I’m back. It feels so good to be here,” Morgan exclaimed from center stage. “You may have seen on the news I was in a terrible car accident a year ago. It was awful. But it also showed me how much love and support I have in this world.” What he did not say as he opened the show that night—and what the audience could not have possibly known—is that after eight days in a coma and amid months in a hospital bed, Morgan suffered a debilitating mental collapse and contemplated taking his own life. “I was in a very dark place,” Morgan told Rolling Stone. “I was sitting right here, contemplating suicide.” His path to recovery was as much about the rigors of physical therapy as it was about making peace with himself and embracing the road ahead.

Morgan battled what is known as “survivor’s guilt.” As he spiraled into depression, trapped in a fog of grief, Morgan blamed himself for the tragic collision that killed McNair.

The Complex Link Between Social Media and Depression

27 Mar 2016
Written by Health Editor / Health News & Views

The more time young adults spend using popular social media, the greater the link to depression, new research suggests. The finding stems from research—which involved nearly 1,800 men and women between the ages of 19 and 32—that tried to get a handle on how depression and social media habits may interact. But does greater involvement with social media actually promote depression? Or, are people who are already depressed simply more likely to gravitate to social media? The jury, according to the study authors, is still out. “One strong possibility is that people who are already having mental illness symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy or drive to engage as many in direct social relationships,” said senior study author Dr. Brian Primack. He is the director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health at the University of Pittsburgh. “However, there are also a few reasons why increased social media use may lead to more depressive thoughts,” Primack added. “For example, people who engage in a lot of social media use may feel they are not living up to the idealized portraits of life that other people tend to present in their profiles. This phenomenon has sometimes been called ‘Facebook depression.’ ”

How Running and Meditation Change the Brains of the Depressed

26 Mar 2016
Written by Melissa Dahl / Science of Us

In 2007, writer Jen A. Miller went through a terrible breakup. (Her ex’s parting words: “I’ll keep you in the top eight of my Myspace friends.”) Soon afterward, her grandfather died. Soon after that, she bought a house and signed the paperwork just months before the recession hit. “I did not handle this well,” Miller wrote in a widely shared 2014 column headlined “Running As Therapy” for the New York Times. “As I was helping my mother pack up her parents’ house, I found myself too drained to move and lay down on the floor and sobbed. My mother suggested I try therapy. I signed up for a 10-mile race instead.”

That column could be seen as an early draft of Miller’s memoir, Running: A Love Story, which is out this week. In it, she details her lifelong relationship with the sport and how the simple act of putting one foot in front of another over 10, 15, or 26.2 miles brought back her mental clarity. In her book, Miller distances herself from the Times headline, writing that she “probably should have sought professional help,” and that she doesn’t mean to suggest self-care is an adequate treatment for the depressed. And it’s true that many severely depressed people are so ill that physical activity becomes impossible; it is also true that seeking professional help is crucial for those who struggle with mental-health issues.

Overcoming the Stigmas of Mental Illness

25 Mar 2016
Written by Rachel Fradette / The State News

Each year, MSU hosts a Mental Health Awareness Week with help from the Associate Students of Michigan State University, or ASMSU. The week aims to highlight resources, generate discussions, and ultimately lessen the stigma surrounding mental illness.

These four students share their own battles with mental health in hopes that it will shine a light on what it is like to live with a mental illness. A simple act — walking to class or sitting in lecture — can spiral into a terrifying event for microbiology-environental biology senior Mirijam Garske.

Garske was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and a panic disorder in addition to her phobias, which can cause problems especially with her anxiety.

What Everyone Should Know About Men and Depression

23 Mar 2016
Written by Elahe Izadi / Washington Post

Struggling with clinical depression can be especially challenging for people who don’t have strong support from loved ones. But having that kind of social support may end up discouraging some men from seeking out professional help, according to a study published this month in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry. That’s a dynamic that doesn’t appear to play out for depressed women, the study found. “Social support is, generally speaking, a good thing. In many ways, it buffers against depression in the first place. You have a confidant — someone to reach out and talk to is really helpful for all different aspects of your mental health, depression or otherwise,” said study author Alan Teo, an assistant psychiatry professor at Oregon Health and Science University and researcher at the VA Portland Health Care System.

For 80 Years, Young Americans Have Been Getting Anxious and Depressed, and No One is Quite Sure Why

21 Mar 2016
Written by Jesse Singal / Science of Us

Generally speaking, sweepingly pessimistic statements about society should be taken with a grain of salt. When someone claims pop music is getting much dumber, or college kids are much more prone to mental illness, odds are pretty good the claim in question is a bit overblown. Overall, we’re often more attuned to the negative stories and anecdotes than positive ones, meaning that news coverage of terrible events, for example, can cause us to develop a distorted view of things.

Sometimes, though, there are exceptions. And an interesting, under-discussed one involves young people and mental health. In short: Ever since the 1930s, young people in America have reported feeling increasingly anxious and depressed. And no one knows exactly why.

One of the researchers who has done the most work on this subject is Dr. Jean Twenge, a social psychologist at San Diego State University who is the author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before.She’s published a handful of articles on this trajectory, and the underlying story, she thinks, is a rather negative one. “I think the research tells us that modern life is not good for mental health,” she said.

A key thing to understand before diving into her argument is that there are important methodological obstacles to accurately gauging how the prevalence of anxiety and depression wax and wane over time. The words “depression” and “anxiety” themselves, after all, mean very different things to someone asked about them in 1935 as compared to 1995, so surveys that invoke these concepts directly only have limited utility for longitudinal study. To get around this, Twenge prefers to rely on surveys and inventories in which respondents are asked about specific symptoms which are frequently correlated with anxiety and depression (she said that there’s a lot of symptomological overlap between the two). Questions like “Do you have trouble falling asleep?” mean similar things in 1935 as compared to 1995.

For Pro Sports Leagues, Addressing Mental Illness Crucial

20 Mar 2016
Written by James A. / The Cauldron

Over the next six to seven weeks, NFL team executives and scouts will make their annual cross-country trips for pro days in an effort to evaluate this year’s draftees. Given the billion-dollar stakes at play, the pre-draft process is as grueling and exhaustive as possible, covering everything from a player’s skill set to his underlying biomechanics and overall next-level preparedness.

Players undergo a gamut of tests designed to help teams identify their strengths and weaknesses, physical and otherwise. Some prospects receive greater scrutiny, but in the end, each will find his deficiencies — both on and off the field — identified and quantified. All to manage risk and increase the team’s chance of finding an impact player.

Still, despite all the resources allocated to ensure draft success, there is one area of concern that professional football doesn’t seem ready to invest in: The mental health of its prospective players.

The Facts

According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, 20 percent of the nation’s population deals with some form of mental illness — nearly half of which have an onset average of 14 years old. The most commonly diagnosed type of mental illness, anxiety disorders, affect an estimated 42 million people.

Former NBA first-round pick Royce White is one of them.

To better understand how mental illness can affect a professional athlete in transition, White offered to illustrate a clearer picture on what the NBA is currently doing (and not doing) to address the mental health of prospects and players.

In a 2013 interview with Huffington Post Live, White reiterated his commitment to being his own advocate as it concerned receiving support from the NBA and the Houston Rockets, the team that drafted him. Out of the gate, both the Rockets’ general manager and head coach were aware of White’s anxiety disorder. As the first player to be properly and publicly classified, White, his representatives, and the Rockets negotiated several accommodations over the course of his contract. Sadly, with White’s condition preventing him from logging much in the way of court time, and with no precedent to follow, the relationship came to an abrupt end.

All these years later, the NBA still lacks concrete policies for handling mental health and illnesses. The reason being, perhaps, that it simply doesn’t fully understand it as a disease. Without acknowledging it as such, the criticism goes, how can you expect players to feel comfortable talking about it?

7 Ways You Could Be Wrecking Your Mental Health

17 Mar 2016
Written by JR Thorpe / Bustle

There are obvious things in life that will drag down your mental health: being in an abusive relationship, for instance, or dealing with the death of a loved one. Beyond that, however, there are factors that you may not realize play a role in keeping mental health on the up, and are letting slide in the belief that they don’t matter. News flash: they do. You need to get enough sleep, get moving, stop smoking, and stop ignoring the seriously stressful parts of your life if you want to avoid heading for a mental health crash.

The mental health disorders I’m addressing here are predominantly the ones that are most affected by environmental factors: the mood disorders, anxiety, depression, and to a lesser extent, bipolar disorder. Others do pop up, though, so it’s not just one size fits all. This isn’t about blame, either: every mental illness is a cocktail of unique factors, and you can’t in all honesty be thought to have “brought it on yourself”. But if you do want to keep your head on the smooth and narrow, there are certain activities to avoid and behaviors to stop, as they’re high-risk when it comes to mental health.

What If Physical Illness Were Treated Like Mental Illness?

12 Mar 2016
Written by Robert J. Szczerba / Forbes

What if you were sick in bed for three days? You’re popping Advil like candy to keep your fever down. You feel like you are going to die. Well-meaning friends offer to swing by the store if you need anything. Your mother brings over chicken soup and tells you to rest up and take it easy. Everyone says “get well soon!”  But what if they didn’t? What if, instead, they told you, “Have you tried … you know … just not having the flu? C’mon, shake it off!”

Or imagine you just cut yourself. Or threw out your back. Or had an asthma attack. Or were diagnosed with diabetes. And the response to your malady was “You just need to change your frame of mind, then you’ll feel better.”

These responses seem heartless and insensitive, not to mention socially inept. Yet because mental illness is so misunderstood, this is the type of “helpful advice” that people diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorders and other mental illnesses confront on a daily basis. Talk about adding insult to injury.