
Shining a Light on Depression: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment
Ketamine Health Centers facilitates a holistic approach to the mental health landscape, offering alternative paths to healing by highlighting an integrative (whole person) development of the Self. We provide support and cutting-edge treatment for mental illness and a wide range of mental health challenges. This space helps support ways to expand overall wellness and modes of creating a healthy daily life. A doorway really, through which to explore a variety of methods of engagement with yourself and the larger world that can help bring balance or create fulfillment through insight and increased self-awareness.
As a team, we help you establish effective ways to incorporate wellness practices for emotional and mental strength as a preventative measure against mental illness. We broaden the therapeutic landscape of mental healthcare by offering cutting-edge treatment options for depression, PTSD, chronic pain, migraines, and other debilitating conditions, and deepen it by together exploring our mindscapes from ideas to practice, and ultimately to community building through personal growth. Provided with the necessary professional support when needed, you will find that you can live your best life, even amidst the hardships that you face.
In October, we focus on the importance of mental health screening as a preventative measure to curb mental illness, addressing the rapid rise of depression and anxiety in our society. We also nationally promote awareness to destigmatize mental illness in general, by designating Mental Illness Awareness Week in early October, 2nd-8th.
I encourage you to visit NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, for ideas on how to get involved this month. Contact your local health department for ways to support activities in your community that promotes mental illness awareness and prevention. Or simply reach out to a neighbor, coworker, or family member for a friendly, loving “checking-in” visit. Reach out to a trusted friend if you need some “pick-me-up” energy to get you through a difficult time.
A helpful place to begin a review of resources to screen for depression is the National Library of Medicine. This page begins with a breakdown of the most common types of depression illnesses, with signs to indicate who would benefit from depression screening, as well as details of what to expect during a screening (which should include a physical exam to identify – and possibly rule out – physiological issues).
Reach out to your primary care physician, or contact Ketamine Health Centers (1-833-542-3040) to schedule a screening if you experience one (or a combination of) these symptoms:
- Loss of interest or lack of pleasure in daily living or in any number of activities
- Feelings of guilt or worthlessness
- Quick to anger, flashes of frustration, or increased irritability
- Trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep (insomnia) or sleeping too much
- Fatigue and lack of energy or restlessness
- Trouble concentrating or making decisions
- Losing or gaining a lot of weight
Reach out immediately to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) if you are experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm.
So many varieties of activities can help in the prevention of depression. Just about any activity done outside in a peaceful, or nature-rich environment can provide a holistic energy boost, with activities undertaken in water providing even more deeply felt healing properties. Movement-based activities such as swimming, walking, dancing, or any sport or cardio work will release endorphins and increase serotonin levels at the physiological level, and provide joy and connection within us (radiating out as well) at the energetic level. These activities help connect us with the vibrational ground that supports us. Some activities, such as walking barefoot on the beach, or other types of direct connection with the earth, can literally energize us from the ground up.
Creating any form of art, or specific art or music therapy can engage you deeply and on a spiritual and sublime level that resonates through your whole being and provides a healing flow state. These deeply felt moments of creativity and expression help us reach heights of our human condition that are ineffable and deeply moving, as ways to craft meaning and purpose.
Building momentum within us and around us creates a cognitive and emotional state that helps establish that overall feeling of connection that signals our mental wellness. Engaging in group activities brings you in direct connection with other individuals and can create a much-needed sense of community and engagement with others. These relationships form the basis of friendships that provide support and social ties that buoy us during stormy weather. Of course, these activities are important for the mitigation of depression as well.
A recent suggestion to help us connect with our surroundings more intimately is the practice of field sketching, which can bring fulfillment to an otherwise detached mode of living if there is often a screen mediating our reality. I love this idea, and I see it as a holistic practice to bring perspective and grounding to one’s life. This practice forces you to slow down and take in your space at a more detailed level of seeing, hearing, feeling, and provides a window into new perspectives that then ask of you to move in these spaces with greater awareness, and hopefully with more intentionality. I plan to add this practice, and more art therapy in general, to my depression prevention toolbox. I too have had to learn to manage my depression (an illness that runs in my family) throughout my entire life. Finding new techniques helps the long-term process of building resilience and working through the inevitable hard times.
Reflective work has been an important aspect of my self-development. At moments in life you may find it necessary to let go of ideas crafted in your past in order to move forward with your future self. That requires a certain amount of internal dialogue that is a necessary part of Self-development. I share a light read on the heavy topic of ‘the midlife crisis’. A period in one’s life when depression may creep in and find unique and often destabilizing expressions!
Alternative treatments for depression exist that potentially provide immediate relief of symptoms, especially for individuals who have tried a combination of life-style changes, talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and/or medication and experience little to no relief. Depression is a complex illness that requires a wide range of treatment approaches. Ketamine infusion therapy provides a lifeline for individuals suffering from treatment-resistant depression. Learn more about this cutting-edge therapeutic method available at Ketamine Health Centers throughout Florida and Mexico. Schedule your mental health screening today. Together we can shine a light on depression and help lift you or a loved one out of darkness.