Postpartum Depression Overwhelms New Moms
Postpartum depression interferes with a new mother’s ability to care for her baby. Despite the joy that accompanies their child’s birth, 10% to 15% of new moms feel overwhelmed by the stress and responsibility of caring for their child. They may experience negative emotions and anxiety, have trouble sleeping or lose their appetite. Depression can result with negative repercussions for the mother and her newborn.
Postpartum depression affects the entire family. Poor understanding of the condition by the woman’s spouse and family members can add to the stress, straining the marital relationship and in some instances leading to divorce. A $423,500 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health will fund a new study into the causes and a potential new treatment for postpartum depression by scientists at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, according to information posted on the Science Blog.
Working with researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, Kinsey scientists hope their research will lead to better understanding of postpartum depression and possibly development of a preventive treatment for new mothers. The study will compare three groups: new mothers with postpartum depression, new mothers with no depression, and women who have never given birth. MRI technology will be used to study brain activity in the prefrontal-limbic system that scientists believe controls maternal behavior. New mothers show heightened activity in this area of the brain when responding to their infants. Depressed women who have not recently given birth also show greater brain activity in the prefrontal limbic system.
Researchers wonder if stress might be a trigger for postpartum depression. After giving birth, new mothers appear to be less sensitive to stress from the outside world. Concentration on their newborn seems to make them less responsive to negative pressures. The hormone oxytocin, which occurs at high levels in new moms, may play a role in this ability to screen out stress. It is stress that appears to trigger prefrontal-limbic brain activity in depressed women who have not recently given birth. While researchers expect to find a brain link between maternal behavior and depression, they don’t know whether the link will include postpartum depression.
Can Insomnia Be Inherited?
A new study presented at Sleep 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Studies, suggests that insomnia may be inheritable. The study of 1,436 eight- to 16-year-old twins found that the same genes that impact depression and anxiety affect adolescent insomnia. Study results are consistent with the results of similar studies connecting insomnia to depression and anxiety in adults. Shared genetic effects suggest a probable genetic link between the three disorders.
According to an online article posted on the Science Blog, lead author Phillip Gehrman, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said researchers had expected to find a sleep-specific genetic indicator and were surprised to instead find a shared indicator with depression and anxiety. A number of previous studies have indicated a causal connection between insomnia and depression/anxiety. Chronic insomnia can lead to the development of depression or anxiety, and depression or anxiety can cause insomnia. The discovery that the same genetic effect links all three conditions sheds new light on their interconnectedness.
Periodic sleeplessness is normal, generally lasting only a few days and going away on its own without treatment. However, more intense levels of insomnia lasting several weeks can be triggered by stress. Such chronic insomnia will not go away without treatment and can cause serious short- and long-term health problems when left untreated. If you or your child exhibit chronic insomnia — sleep problems that last for more than a week — you should be screened for depression and anxiety. Likewise, those diagnosed with depression or anxiety may also need to be treated for insomnia.
In another study reported at Sleep 2009, cognitive behavioral therapy was shown to help alleviate chronic insomnia. By learning to identify thoughts and patterns that interfered with sleep, nearly 60% of study participants aged 14 to 81 were able to alleviate insomnia and decrease or stop using sleep medication. Even when depression and anxiety exacerbate insomnia, researchers found cognitive behavioral therapy to be an effective method of treating chronic insomnia. To find out more about cognitive behavioral therapy, visit the Marks Psychiatry website.
Combating Dangerous Pattern Perceptions
Perceiving patterns where none exist, a psychological phenomenon called pattern perception, is a mental coping mechanism used by many people to combat uncertainty when events spin their lives out of control (see our June 10 post). It’s a phenomenon that’s on the rise in these times of economic uncertainty where rising unemployment, catastrophic investment losses, mortgage foreclosures, and a host of other worrisome factors have shattered people’s faith in their ability to control their future.
That loss of control generates an extreme anxiety that can impel people to create and act on connections and associations between innocuous, unrelated events, according to research published in the journal Science. In a series of experiments conducted by Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, researchers found that people can trick themselves into seeing nefarious conspiracies behind government pronouncements or business announcements.
Structure and order have a calming effect on our psyches while chaos generates anxiety that can lead to panic or depression. The desire for order can become so overwhelming that people fantasize connections between events to bring order to a world that they feel has become dangerously chaotic.
“Feelings of control are so important to people that a lack of control is inherently threatening,” Galinsky explained. “While some misperceptions can be bad or lead one astray, they’re extremely common and most likely satisfy a deep and enduring psychological need.”
The danger comes when people believe in or act on the imaginary patterns they have created. Illusory stock market trends can lead to poor investment decisions and increased financial anxiety. Imagined conspiracies between co-workers can increase job stress to intolerable levels. Delusional thinking can cause marital stress and jeopardize personal relationships. Fantasized government agendas can lead to paranoia and panic.
Exerting phantom control over chaotic events in our lives through pattern perception can hide a very real need for psychiatric help in coping with anxiety, panic disorders or depression. The combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy practiced by Atlanta psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks is effective in helping people find healthy ways to cope with and mitigate the uncertainties that pervade life today without resorting to harmful pattern perception.
Economic Recession Means Back to Basics
A prosperous economy and everything is good. An economic recession and everything is bad.
This is the case if your happiness depends on material things. Of course, everyone feels better when there are no kinks in the system and you don’t have to think about money (because you have enough of it). And most people would feel stressed from losing their job. However, what I’m referring to is the utter devastation this economy has brought many people and the hopelessness that prevails.
One way to get out of the hopeless mindset is to focus on the things you haven’t lost. For example, suppose you are upside down on your mortgage and because of lost wages have to lose your home to the bank. Yes that is bad. But do you still have your family? Are you still going to bed with a full stomach every night? If the recession means living in an apartment, isn’t that still a roof over your head?
Some may say, “that’s easy for you to say if this hasn’t happened to you.” Yes, that’s true. But this isn’t about everyone else, it’s about you and focusing on the things you still have and making the best of your resources. Times of loss are also times of appreciating what we do have and realizing what we really need to get by in life. It’s hard to appreciate the little things when The Jones’ flaunt their excesses. But you don’t know how well the Jones’ really are doing when they get inside their home. America’s overspending and subsequent crash and burn should show us that things aren’t always what they seem.
So it’s time to get back to basics. Stop measuring success by how much you’ve acquired compared to the next guy. Nurture the things that are more long lasting like your health, friends and family. Pick yourself up with what you have left and start reformulating yourself. You may come to prefer the new path your life has taken.
Stress, Depression Plague Collegiates
College students are feeling the pressure, and they’re not just worrying about grades. Money and relationships are creating as much stress and depression on college campuses as schoolwork, according to a recent Associated Press-mtvU poll of college students on 40 campuses. Of the collegiates polled, 85% reported daily feelings of stress, the Associated Press reported. In addition, 42% said they had felt depressed or hopeless within the past two weeks, 13% showed signs of mild depression, and 11% said they’d had suicidal thoughts.
While 74% of the students were stressed about grades, concern over financial matters ran a close second, worrying 67% of the survey group. Half of the students (52%) were stressed about the economy, many saying that financial problems brought about by the recession could impact their ability to register for fall classes. Fifty-four percent of the students surveyed were stressed about family issues, and nearly half (47%) were worried about finding a job after graduation. Across the board, collegiates felt they were under more stress this year than last year. In all categories, collegiates surveyed in 2009 expressed a 3% to 6% increase in stress levels over their 2008 peers.
Students experiencing high levels of stress said they lacked energy, were having trouble sleeping and/or felt hopeless; but few said they had sought professional help. At the University of Maryland in College Park, two student suicides within two weeks shocked students last semester, but didn’t seem to change students’ views about seeking help.
“It was pretty scary,” admitted UM junior Aimee Mayer, a psychology major. While she said the university provides students with plenty of information and help with mental disorders, Mayer told the Associated Press, “there’s still a stigma associated with mental health issues and so a lot of people don’t want to go to those services. They feel like they’re less cool or something like that it they go. It’s like a sign of vulnerability.”
That’s an unfortunate attitude because depression can be successfully treated using a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy and sometimes medications. When given the opportunity to intervene, psychiatrists can also identify potential suicide victims and help them before they act. Many mental health disorders begin early in life, so it is not unusual for symptoms to emerge under the stress of college life. Parents should talk to their children regularly to gauge their mental health.
Army Suicides Increase Each Year
The US Army recently released the statistics for 2008 of numbers of army suicides. Since 2004 the numbers have been increasing to now 128 active duty soldiers and 43 non-active duty soldiers. These 2008 numbers correspond to a suicide rate of 20 per 100,000 personnel. If you look at the suicide rate of the US population, it works out to roughly 19.2 per 100,000 people in 2005. Here are the numbers for the past five years.
These figures do not include soldiers who left service, however the Department of Veterans Affairs reported 254 suicides of veterans across all military services between 2001 and 2005. The Army has responded to the increase in suicide with suicide prevention training programs. They also developed a Battlemind program which helps prepare soldiers for the psychological stresses of combat. The Army has recently focused on decreasing the stigma of mental health problems with the hope that more soldiers will seek help when needed.
Although the numbers of army suicides don’t seem to vary much from the overall suicide rate for civilians in the US, it is still disturbing that the numbers continue to increase each year to nearly double from 2004. Additionally, it’s bad enough to lose soldiers in combat to enemy actions, but it seems worse to lose soldiers to suicide. What’s happening? Are they becoming so hopeless that death seems to be the only relief? Are they being exposed to images or experiences that they don’t think they can live with?
The National Institute of Mental Health is underway to research this issue. Hopefully they will be able to develop ways to reduce the risk of these suicides so that our soldiers can return home safely.
Is Happiness Contagious?
Happiness has the same ripple effect as dropping a pebble in a pond. Its effect radiates outward in ever-greater rings, affecting everyone it touches, brightening each person’s life in turn. Surrounding yourself with happy people, just being near a happy person, even knowing someone who knows a happy person, makes you happier. Happiness is contagious, says Harvard University physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis.
Using study data that tracked 5,000 people over 20 years, Christakis tracked the path of happiness. He found that being around happy people makes us happier but that contact didn’t need to be direct for happiness to be transferred. The model worked both with social ties, such being around family and friends who were happy, and with simple physical proximity. Just being in the same room or check-out line with a happy person or passing a smiling person on the street allowed enough contact to “catch” happiness.
It’s easy to understand how the happiness of family and close friends can make us happier. The surprise in Christakis’ analysis came in finding that happiness is able to transcend direct links. We become happier not only when our friends are happy; but when the friend of a friend is happy, even if we don’t know or have any direct contact with that person. The bottom line is that surrounding ourselves with happy people makes us happy, makes the people we love happy, and makes the people they love happy.
In addition to spending time with happy people, what can you do to become happier? Try some of these ideas to brighten your day:
- Read a funny book. Dave Barry and Janet Evanovich are tw0 authors who make me laugh out loud.
- Watch a funny movie or a video of your favorite comedian. Tim Allen, Robin Williams and Jeff Foxworthy tickle my funny bone.
- Create your own happiness ripple. Smile at strangers as you walk down the street or through the mall. You’ll be surprised how many smile back.
- Look for the little things in life that give you pleasure and make you smile: leaves blowing in the breeze, birds on a wire, rosy sunsets, a shining sliver of moon.
Happiness is all around if we just look for it. Grab some and pass it along.
June Bride, July Blues
There’s something about June and brides. Surpassed only by Valentine’s Day as America’s most popular wedding date, thousands of brides choose to be married in June. For the typical year it takes to plan a modern American wedding, these women, and often their mothers (and to a slightly lesser extent their intended and both families), immerse themselves in the myriad details necessary to plan the perfect wedding.
Of course, weddings are exciting; and today’s typical wedding includes scores of intricate details and “crucial” decisions. It’s easy to get so caught up in the details of planning the wedding that brides and grooms forget to focus on the importance of the life change they are making. Though it often becomes an all-consuming event, in reality the wedding is just a small moment in a marriage. Moving from the autonomy of being single to the shared decision-making and compromise necessary to build a successful marriage is a major life change. Unfortunately, the cultural pressure to create the perfect wedding often overshadows the true meaning and challenges of this life-changing event.
Some women become so immersed in the bride role that the return to normalcy is such a let-down that it triggers a type of depression called “wedding withdrawal” or “post-wedding blues.” Once the big day is over and the honeymoon ended, the humdrum reality of newlywed life sets in. In a short week, brides go from being the center of attention with a full planning calendar and social agenda to the ho-hum daily reality of fixing meals, going back to work, and adjusting to married life. From sharing the bathroom to pooling money and making decisions together, marriage is filled with new challenges. Many newlyweds, however, find the role of wife less glamorous and exciting than the role of bride and depression can set in.
If you find yourself feeling sad after the wedding is over, talk to your spouse. Talk about the reasons you chose to get married, your commitment to each other, and your love for each other. Seek help from a psychiatrist skilled in cognitive-behavioral therapy if your depression lasts. As you plan your wedding, work to keep the event in its greater perspective. Your wedding day is just the first step in a lifelong celebration of your life together with your new spouse.
