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It Is Written Canada

Depression, A Way Out

Chris Holland

What Is Depression?

God's book, the Bible, still relevant in today's complex world.

It is written, sharing messages of hope around the world.

Thank you so much for watching It Is Written.

On today's program, along with the next few programs, we are going to be addressing an issue that touches almost every family around the world.

We're gonna be addressing the issue of mental health, specifically the area of depression.

And to help me as we have that discussion, I am happy to have Dr.

Nedley has been an internal medicine doctor for the last 27 years.

He's a graduate of Loma Linda University.

He specializes in gastroenterology, mental health, and the difficult to diagnose patient.

He's actually authored 3 books, proof positive, depression, the way out, and the lost art of thinking, along with numerous journal articles.

And he is now the president of Weimar Institute.

Dently, tell me a little bit about Weimar Institute.

Well, Weimar Institute is a higher education institute, and so we have a college and educational institution, but the motto of Weimar is to heal a hurting world, physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.

And so part of our educational institution involves a lifestyle center where people come with bad diabetes or heart disease or even cancer.

And they stay for 19 days and get a new start on life.

It's actually an acronym that Wiemar coined years ago.

And we also have a mental health facility that actually runs a depression and anxiety recovery program.

This is where we take people with severe depression and anxiety that may not have responded to traditional treatments or actually have side effects of traditional treatments and it's amazing what will happen in just 10 days at that center.

Wow and over the course of the next few shows, we're gonna be talking about some of the research actually and some of the findings you've had in actually dealing with patients and addressing this issue of depression.

Now before we get there though, where is Weimar Institute located?

Weimar Institute is right outside of Sacramento, California.

That's northern California where the capital is.

And as we talk about this issue of depression, how big of a problem is depression really?

In fact, 1 of the most prestigious medical, actually scientific journals, not just a medical journal, it's a journal Nature, highlighted this just a few weeks ago with a journal that had the entire issue dedicated to depression.

And they mentioned there that we have 400 million people, as we are speaking here today, with major depression worldwide.

It's the number 1 cause of disability in the entire world.

More people miss work due to depression than any other condition or even groups of conditions.

How big of a problem is depression in Canada?

And in fact, the complications of depression, even suicide, is a big problem in Canada.

And so Canada actually is a little worse than the worldwide statistic.

It's actually very similar to the United States as far as its depression incidence, which is up there in the top 35 countries in the world as far as depression is concerned.

So, let's back up just a little bit and just simply ask the question, what is depression?

Depression actually is not just being sad.

A lot of people think depression is just this deep sadness.

That's 1 symptom, but you actually don't have to have that symptom.

You could have emptiness and also qualify for symptom number 1.

But actually it's a constellation of having at least 5 of 9 symptoms.

This is when you wake up in the morning and you're not excited about the day.

You wake up and get up out of a sense of duty and responsibility, but not real interest.

They can have hypersomnia, where they're wanting to sleep all the time, but most commonly, they go to sleep okay, but then they wake up too early and can't get back to sleep.

Fourth symptom is you're more irritable than you used to be, or you've had a slowing of your muscle movements.

Either 1 of those would qualify for symptom number 4.

Symptom number 5 is weight or appetite changes, and that can occur either way.

A lot of people self-medicate with food, you know, to get comfort food, so they have the weight gain, and then severe sudden onset depression often has anorexia and weight loss.

And with that symptom, they'll be reading a newspaper and they get to the bottom of the column and they can't remember now what they read at the top of the column.

And so they have to go back up and re-read.

And it can get so significant that it can affect academic performance.

And so That tends to be a prominent symptom.

Seventh symptom is when it gets more severe, feelings of worthlessness.

Beyond that, it's just preoccupation with death or symbols of death.

People will be tattooing symbols of death on themselves or buying symbols of death.

And then the ninth symptom is energy, fatigue.

And so you'll run out of energy too early or you'll wake up in the morning without energy.

Now you don't have to have all of those symptoms.

You just have to have 5 of 9, and you don't have to have them all the time.

The majority of the time for the last 2 weeks.

But if that's the case, then you actually have major depression.

And a lot of people have it and don't even realize it because they may not have the sadness.

So about half of the people with major depression in the world are Undiagnosed.

And so as you're talking about those different systems 5 of 9 and you've had them regularly over the last 2 weeks and that means that you are symptomatic of having some type of major depression.

Now, for our viewer who might be watching right now saying, okay, okay, and they're counting them off and saying, okay, I've got 567 of these things, we're gonna talk over the next few shows on how to address those issues with some very practical, hands-on ways that through watching It Is Written and our dialogue together, they'll actually be able to sense some relief from some of those symptoms.

Okay, Now, for the person who is actually counting those off, you know, 12345, that person is going to find hope.

Now, if there's somebody watching right now that is in those categories of morbid feelings, suicidal thoughts, there's probably some direct, more direct intervention that they need right now.

And we're gonna talk about suicide, but somebody who's watching, feeling like this is it, like I'm watching this show and after this show is done, I'm going to end my life.

That individual, what should they do as they're watching?

Well, there's suicide hotlines that they can call and talk.

But in reality, if the individual actually has a plan to end their own life and they have the means to do it and they're going to do it soon, they really need to check themselves in to an institution.

Studies actually show that even if you don't do anything to a person except make sure that they don't do it, you know, they're in an environment where they can be watched, in 72 hours those feelings will often pass.

What is The Treatment?

Thank you so much for choosing to watch It Is Written.

You know, we are in the second part of a series on depression, the way out.

You know, almost every family around the world is touched by depression or some type of mental health disorder.

At It Is Written, we are committed to providing a message of hope and wholeness.

And part of that wholeness is experiencing life to its fullest in the area of health.

And I am thrilled to have with me in studio, Dr.

Neil Nedley to help us address this subject of depression.

Nedley, thank you so much for joining us.

Nedley, you've spent 27 years as an internal medicine doctor and specializing in mental health.

As we talk about depression, as we have this discussion about depression, what are the common treatments for depression?

Well the most common treatment is actually medicating it.

But The unfortunate part about medication is that it has its limitations.

Nature magazine just came out with a whole issue on depression and they stated that we really haven't made any major advancements in medicine in the last 50 years in treating this disease as far as how effective it is.

Only about 28% of people actually go into remission while taking a medicine as its sole treatment.

And if they do go into a remission while taking a medicine, it's much more likely they're using additional modalities such as we'll be speaking about today.

But medications are not the cure-all for this condition.

So I want to be careful to be too critical but I think I heard you say 28% experience remission of depression by going the traditional route of medication.

Now, you've been a medical doctor for a long time.

If only 28% of orthopedic surgeon surgeries were successful in the medical community, how would that be looked upon?

And that's why Nature Magazine dedicated this whole issue to depression, Chris.

They actually stated that we are doing better with the treatment of cancer than we are with the treatment of depression.

In other words, you are more likely to be cured from cancer than you are from depression today with the traditional treatments that are available.

And that, plain and simply, is not acceptable.

So traditional medicine, or the typical Course that is used to treat depression is working in a small percentage of people and and we want to be very careful here We're not telling someone to drop all their medication or anything like that.

And we'll have more conversations about that.

We're just trying to look at the statistical reality that only about 25%, 28% of the people are having success with traditional medicine.

So if only 28% are experiencing success of having remission of depression through medication, is there any hope, is there anything else that we can do to treat depression?

What we should be doing is looking for the causes of depression and then reversing those causes and that's going to work far better than the traditional approaches.

Now I know some of our viewers are going to be very happy because you just said the causes of depression and in our last show together and by the way if you missed that last show you can go to the YouTube channel for It Is Written, youtube.com forward slash IIW Canada, and there you can find our previous show.

Nedley, in that show we talked about the causes and we were running out of time and you went over them real briefly and I know some people were left wanting more.

Well there's genetic causes, There are developmental causes, how we were raised.

And then there's lifestyle causes, not being on a regular exercise program, not regularly being exposed to bright enough light every day, not regularly being exposed to fresh air.

This has to do with our sleep-wake cycles.

Depressed people tend to be late night people and they go to bed late and they normally have sleep issues and then they get up late and they feel like a zombie and in reality that can be corrected by our body clocks are set by light therapy so light therapy at about 6 a.m.

And then switching over to early to bed, early to rise.

It actually is called the new Prozac in 1 of the recent studies, showing it'll decrease negative thoughts and you can actually phase shift yourself within 7 days to be an early to bed, early to rise person.

Then addiction hits, whether you're addicted to gambling or a substance addiction like alcohol or tobacco or whatever the addiction is, pornography, technology addictions are pretty common.

What we put into our body actually gets turned into neurotransmitters, and so nutrition plays a crucial role.

And I'm going to hit the pause button there.

You know, 1 of the things we're committed to, Here It Is Written Canada, is a message of hope and wholeness, and every week we feature a Live Healthy segment with Bev Haines, and today on our Live Healthy segment, I actually, several weeks ago, joined Bev in the kitchen to make a healthy recipe, and so you can look back at those live healthy segments to find some healthy recipes.

Nedley and I are gonna talk more about nutrition as it relates to depression in both this show and some later shows, so you won't wanna miss that.

And so I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but you were talking about those causes.

So After nutrition, what's another cause?

Too much mercury, too much lead, too much pesticides can be a cause.

And these normally are social isolation causes.

Things that tend to produce isolation socially can be a cause.

That's to differentiate social complications of the disease.

Depression always has social complications, but not always a social cause.

Then there are medical conditions, like thyroid conditions, post-traumatic head injury.

There's even viral conditions, like hepatitis C that can bring it about.

The frontal lobe is the seat of spirituality, morality, the will, it's the analytical portion of our brain.

Certain forms of entertainment, certain forms of music can suppress the frontal lobe of the brain.

If we're not actually thinking on the abstract level on proverbs or reading spiritual material that can suppress the frontal lobe of the brain and So it turns out 4 categories of causes and you'll have depression or anxiety Essentially, it's not just 1 It's usually a combination of 4 out of those 10.

Those were 10 categories of causes that we just mentioned.

And if we find out what the categories are in the patient and get them down to 2 or less their depression is gone and they actually don't have to medicate it necessarily.

Okay, so I wanna review that just a little bit because I'm sure our viewers just caught this.

There are 10 causes, generalized causes of depression.

Now, of those 10 causes, how many of them are able to be addressed without medication?

So practically speaking, someone at home viewing right now experiencing depression, 7 to 8 of those causes can be addressed without the use of medication.

And we're gonna be talking about how to address some of those issues, but that's real hope, Dr.

Nedley, that you can provide by saying 7 to 8 of these can be addressed without any medication at all.

Can just be reversed by making some simple changes in our life.

And there are a couple of words there that you used that I really like to hear, reversed and simple.

We're not talking about complicated formulas and things like that.

We're talking about simple things that will actually help reverse our symptoms of depression or our causes of depression rather, that will actually help us feel better about our life.

Now, you have treated scores of patients with severe depression and anxiety and many of them were cured.

And I'm going to ask you this question and we could go for hours by asking this question, but maybe talk generally speaking, how did some of them experience or how was this accomplished that they experienced actual reversal of depression?

Well, essentially they became educated on how the brain works.

Of course, we provided that education through 2 different ways.

1, we have a community-based program where it's just simply a mental health education program that you can go and watch DVDs and go through a workbook exercise and have a facilitator group coach the the participants and many have been cured simply through that approach but then the more severe cases that you know of someone who's so dysfunctional that even a community-based program would not work, those actually come to our center.

And they will then actually have a mentally healthy lifestyle imposed on them because they're living with us.

And so we'll actually have them go through those simple changes in just 10 days and we'll see a dramatic difference in many of those individuals in just 10 days will walk away cured from their depression and anxiety.

So you have the onsite where people can come, but then the community-based program, and at the end of the show we're going to make an offer where people can get an introductory DVD and actually learn more about that community-based program as well as that residence program.

And you talked about, as you were talking about the causes, 1 of the things you mentioned was physical exercise.

Stress and Anxiety

This is the third part in a series that we've been doing on mental health, on depression specifically.

You know, depression touches almost every family in the world, but it's often not talked about because it brings shame and embarrassment.

But what we've been finding is that there's nothing to be shamed about.

That there is a way out of depression and it affects so many people.

And with some simple steps, we can find that way out.

Our commitment at It Is Written is to bring a message of hope and wholeness.

And I am so glad to have in studio with me today, Dr.

Neil Nedley, who's been helping us bring that message of hope and wholeness and the fact that there is a way out of depression.

He is an internal medicine doctor, and he has specialized in mental health and diagnosing the difficult patient.

He is also the president of Weimar Institute, an institute that helps people experience health and wholeness through a lifestyle program that addresses general lifestyle issues and also a residential depression recovery program.

Nedley, you have brought a great deal of expertise through our first 2 programs.

And to our viewer who has missed any of those programs, they can go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash IIW Canada, and you can watch the first 2 of these programs.

Nedley, 1 of the things we've been talking about is the causes of depression.

And just as a point of review, can you review those 10 causes for depression?

Yeah, we call them categories of causes, but genetics, developmental, lifestyle, circadian rhythm, addiction, nutrition, toxic, social, medical, and frontal lobe causes.

And Of those 10 categories of causes, how many of them can be addressed without the use of medication?

Well, normally 8, 7 to 8 of them can, and as can be reversed through lifestyle measures, most often.

And in our last show, so I'd encourage our viewers to go to that show, in our last show we covered 4 of those ways in which you, by some simple lifestyle changes, you can experience relief from depression.

Now, 1 of the areas we weren't able to address is areas of the frontal lobe.

Now, first tell me, what is the frontal lobe?

The frontal lobe is the seat of spirituality, morality, and the will.

It's our decision-making portion of our brain.

And our brain is designed to actually have this be the control center of our brain.

But with depression, we will see the frontal lobe go down, also with anxiety, and we'll see the limbic system, where the amygdala is, that's where all our emotions are stored up, be in overdrive.

And so the brain becomes imbalanced from that.

And in order to balance it out, we need to enhance the frontal lobe function and circulation.

So, we can talk about a lot of issues that affect the frontal lobe, and for example, addictions, alcohol, drugs, both legal and illegal drugs, impede the use of the frontal lobe.

We're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about that right now, but there's 1 issue that I wanna address a little bit, and you and I have talked about this before, entertainment.

Can entertainment affect the frontal lobe?

Actually, 1 of the advantages of your viewer right now is they're not watching Rapid Scene of Reference Entertainment Television, which suppresses the frontal lobe of the brain.

It turns out the average entertainment television program changes its scene of reference every 3 seconds.

And After you watch it for 90 seconds to at most 3 minutes, we'll see in the EEG the frontal lobe become dormant and go down.

And it's why it can have a profound adverse effect on human behavior.

And of course there's been a lot of studies showing entertainment television, whenever it's introduced to the community, murder rates are going to double, rape rates are going to double.

You know, morality does go down as a result.

But when you're watching television that doesn't have that rapid scene of reference change, it can be very educational and you can still get an enhanced frontal lobe.

So just simply changing our form of entertainment Can actually have a powerful effect in getting the frontal lobe to revive again Okay, so just to review that for a moment to make sure we caught that the average entertainment television is changing scenes every 3 seconds now.

Let's just get into the the physiology of that what's happening when that frame of reference is switching every 3 seconds?

What's actually, you said our frontal lobe lowers, what's actually happening when our frontal lobe lowers?

Well because of that rapid scene of reference change, the frontal lobe being the analytical portion of the brain can't keep up with all of those scene of reference changes.

And it actually enters somewhat of a hypnotic trance.

You're in alpha wave rhythm at this point.

So your memory is working, you are actually able to have your emotions work, you can laugh and cry with the scenes, but you're no longer critically analyzing what's coming in.

And so hideous things can happen that you would be diametrically opposed to, but in this trance, you'll actually laugh and not be really opposed to it per se.

And so once that frame of reference change has happened, our frontal lobe is lowered, then we're bombarded with commercials.

And we talked about this in a previous show, and now our analytical mind cannot judge between what is a want and a need.

And is that kind of the path to how entertainment itself can actually lead to depression?

What other forms of entertainment are going to have an effect on a frontal lobe and begin to lower that frontal lobe?

You know, Heavy metal music, for instance, where the rhythm is very prominent and it's syncopated, actually will cause the same type of phenomena where after 90 seconds to 3 minutes of this, the frontal lobe will start to go down.

You know, Alvin Toffler talks about constant stimulation of the senses, shutting down the analytical processes.

And so the ironic thing, you know, video games for instance, A lot of these violent, fast-moving video games will actually suppress the frontal lobe of the brain and produce definite changes in emotions and human behavior that are adverse.

And so by some simple changes, and we've talked about simple changes in the previous show.

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Series

Depression, A Way Out

Stress Without Distress #2

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

What Is Depression?

29m

What is The Treatment?

29m

Stress and Anxiety

29m

Stress Without Distress #1

29m

Stress Without Distress #2

29m

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

29m

Emotional Intelligence- A Case Study

29m

Sound Doctrine