Tag: mental health

  • Can You Exercise Your Way Out of Depression?

    Can You Exercise Your Way Out of Depression?

    When a person becomes clinically depressed, the typical treatment is to prescribe anti-depressants to provide short-term symptom relief and to enroll the patient in psychotherapy to address the underlying issues that cause depression. However, prescribed medications can have unpleasant side effects, and psychotherapy can be expensive and takes time to get results. For these reasons,…

  • Can Gaming Enhance Mental Health?

    Can Gaming Enhance Mental Health?

    Games available on a variety of platforms, including mobile devices, game consoles, and computers, have been developed to address some mental health outcomes. What is “mental health”? According to the World Health Organization, mental health “is a state of affective and cognitive wellness, and an absence of mental problems or psychological symptoms.” Cheng and Ebrahimi…

  • Are Anxiety and Depression Truly Different Disorders?

    Are Anxiety and Depression Truly Different Disorders?

    This question was raised in a book I am currently reading titled “Lost Connections” by Johann Hari (2018). In addition to many surprising insights about what really causes depression, he asserts that anxiety and depression typically co-occur in many individuals. Think about it: if you had severe, debilitating anxiety, wouldn’t that make you depressed? Or,…

  • “Deaths from despair?” What are they and why do they matter?

    “Deaths from despair?” What are they and why do they matter?

    The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) publish mortality data, “Multiple Cause of Death” files, for all deaths in the U.S. (beginning in 1969) based on death certificates filed in each US county.  Deaths of middle-aged White Americans (ages 45-64) steadily declined through the 1980s. However, beginning in the 1990s there was a sharp up-surge in…