Spirituality and religion offer protection against major depression

[caption id="attachment_16648" align="alignleft" width="322"] Virginia Woolf - renowned author with severe depression[/caption]

Carol Forsloff---People who are religious often tout the specific religious benefits of following Christ or someone's prophet or guru, but it turns out that spirituality and religion both offer benefits specific to the support of healthy brain function and protection against major depression.

Such practices as praying and meditation have been found by researchers to thicken the cortex of the brain.  Consequently this leads to presenting a guard against depression.

A study conducted by a research team led by Lisa Miller, professor and director of Clinical Psychology and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute associated with Teachers College of Columbia University examined 103 male and female adult subjects with high or low risk of depression that was assessed by examining their family histories.  Brain MRI's showed the cortical area of the brains were thicker on those who said they valued religion or spirituality than those who did not place significance in these areas.

The study is published by JAMA Psychiatry online.  The results indicate the necessity for more research on the subject, but do suggest that spirituality and religion may protect against major depression by thickening the brain cortex and reducing the cortical thinning that is normally associated with major depression.

This information reinforces other information about the benefits of spirituality found in meditation, which has concluded that  those who meditate regularly find psychological benefits in working in a negative environment.

 

Workplace seen as potentially risky for development of depression

[caption id="attachment_18422" align="alignleft" width="300"] Social workers have long hours and stress[/caption]

Editor--What are the risk factors for depression?  According to recent scientific findings, what happens at work can lead to depression, and these are some of the risk factors at your job.

Americans are working longer at their jobs, and the long hours and high job demands are taking their toll on the mood of Americans at work.

As employers demand more, after cutting back on numbers of employees, the extra work falls on the remaining employees.  These employees feel the pressure and with many workers the stress becomes a trigger for depression.  Targeting the problem means reducing those risks , according to a report by Drs. Takahashi Amagasa and Takeo Nakayama of Kyoto University School of Public Health.

Researchers also found that the more workers remained in the long hour-overworked status, the worse the risk of depression.  Scientists tell us in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine,  "By targeting LHO, especially changes in LHO status, mental health measures that effectively reduce the occurrence of major depressive disorder will become possible by controlling factors in the occupational environment."

The Mayo Clinic provides a listing of additional risk factors, which combined with those at work can create major influences on the rate of depression in the population as well as individual risks.  That’s particularly true given the numbers of people with diabetes and hypertension that continue to grow in the normal population.  Some of these risk factors include:

• Having biological relatives with depression

• Being a woman


• Having traumatic experiences as a child


• Having family members or friends who have been depressed


• Experiencing stressful life events, such as the death of a loved one


• Having few friends or other personal relationships


• Recently having given birth (postpartum depression)


• Having been depressed previously


• Having a serious illness, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's or HIV/AIDS


• Having certain personality traits, such as having low self-esteem and being overly dependent, self-critical or pessimistic


• Abusing alcohol, nicotine or illicit drugs


• Taking certain high blood pressure medications, sleeping pills or certain other medications (Talk to your doctor before stopping any medication you think could be affecting your mood.)

According to the National Institute of Mental Health depression is the most prevalent mental illness in the general population.