Depression, A Way Out

Chris Holland

It Is Written Canada

Stress Without Distress #2

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.

We are in the fifth part of a series on a subject that touches almost every family in the world.

It is a subject that is not often talked about because sometimes people feel ashamed or embarrassed by the subject and that is the subject of depression.

But there's nothing to be embarrassed about.

Because what we have been finding is that there is a way out.

And beyond just discussing depression, we have been discussing principles that can help every single individual have better thinking skills and have a more healthy lifestyle.

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

Nedley, Thank you again for joining us on It Is Written.

Nedley, we have been discussing this issue of mental health and depression.

And just as a point of review, this is the second part of 2 of the series on stress and anxiety.

Actually, this is stress without distress.

Well, stress is our response to stressors.

So we have things from the outside that can cause us to feel stressed, and actually, whether we say we're stressed or not has a lot to do with our coping mechanisms.

Okay, and then anxiety is what as we talk about stress?

Anxiety is when stress gets out of control.

So that's when you start getting symptoms of tingling.

You might get symptoms where you feel like your thoughts are racing and you have trouble sleeping even because your thoughts are continually going and you just feel on edge and so that's more than just stress when you're feeling on edge.

Okay, and then how do those both relate to depression?

Well, they are related in that when we're not coping adequately with stress, we're more likely to experience depression.

But also, most people with depression have a component of anxiety and vice versa.

And so often there's an overlap of these 3 things.

Okay, and we've been talking about this, The whole idea of stress without distress is that we don't often want to eliminate the stress because stress can actually be good for us.

And, you know, if you happened to miss the show on stress without distress, you can go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash IIW Canada, and there you can watch the whole series, and you can get the first part of this, stress without distress.

And instead of eliminating stress, what we've been talking about is how to cope or deal with stress.

And we were ending our discussion in the last show on ways that are probably not the best in dealing with stress.

Okay, and where we ended, and I know it kept a lot of people on edge, hopefully not anxiety, but on edge.

We ended on the, we don't want to be using some of the legal drugs.

When we say legal drugs, what are we referring to as far as categories of legal drugs?

And a lot of people turn to alcohol as a coping resource, so to speak.

I don't know how it is in Canada, but in the US, there's a lot of states that have legalized it, and a lot of people will turn to marijuana.

So I have heard many people say that alcohol actually is a de-stressor.

You know, come home, have a little glass of wine, come home and have a little mixed drink, and it actually de-stresses me.

How do we, if it, but you're saying it actually is not a stress reliever.

What actually happens when we're intaking alcohol and using it as a stress reliever?

Well, the first thing that alcohol does is it suppresses the frontal lobe of the brain.

And so that means our judgment can be off.

Now, we're going to back up a little bit.

Just in case somebody's just tuning in and they haven't been watching on, you use this word frontal lobe.

What are you referring to when you say the frontal lobe?

Well, the front portion of our brain is the seat of spirituality, morality, and the will.

It's also The analytical portion of our brain is the seed of spirituality, morality, and the will.

It's also the analytical portion of our brain where we analyze things and have hopefully good judgment in making a wise decision.

And so if I partake of alcohol, if I drink alcohol, and I've understood if I just have 1 drink of alcohol, it already begins to lower the function of my frontal lobe.

And once that's lowered, it's lowering my judgment and I'm losing my ability to cope or deal with stress actually.

Yeah actually now a lot of people like the relaxation part of things and of course when you drink more not just 1 drink, 1 drink really isn't going to relax you.

It's going to suppress your frontal lobe, and you're going to think you have all of your functions in place, even though your critical thinking and your willpower is down.

But a lot of people drink it to actually have the sedative effect.

And that's when their cerebellum starts being affected and their coordination is way off and at this point they're pretty much out of control of themselves and That's no way to cope with stress.

It might numb some emotional pain Yes, but it's gonna complicate things in the long run.

Yes, and I have found from my own personal experience, before I came into a living and active relationship with Jesus, I found I used to use alcohol as a coping mechanism and here's the interesting thing.

I would partake of alcohol and I would feel better for a moment, but then when I would come back to the right state of mind, first my problems hadn't disappeared, they were still there, and oftentimes, they were even worse now because of the fact that I had done that.

So alcohol's not gonna help us deal with stress.

Yeah, and then you had to deal with a hangover if you overdid it as well.

Now you have a headache and all of those other things.

Yeah, so we've got a whole other things, a whole other group of things that we need to deal with.

We're gonna talk a little bit about marijuana in a show that'll come much later after this series on overcoming addictions.

But let's just briefly address the issue of marijuana.

Why is marijuana not going to be a good de-stressor?

Well, marijuana is going to decrease your motivational ability to achieve your goals.

Stress Without Distress #1

We are in the midst of a series on mental health, specifically on depression.

You know, depression is something that 400 million people worldwide suffer from, but it's a subject not often talked about because people feel embarrassed.

But here at It Is Written, we're committed to bringing hope and wholeness and unveiling the mask of embarrassment from depression and learning that there is actually a way out, practical everyday steps that can lead to peace and joy and coming out of that depression.

Nedley, you have been a physician for 27 years.

Internal medicine is your specialty, but within that specialty, mental health.

And you've actually seen people come out of depression and actually have total reversal from depression.

That's actually the norm when they come to our program.

And that is, you know, it is so good to hear.

In 1 of our previous programs, And to our viewer, if you've missed 1 of these programs, you can go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash IIW Canada, and you can view the archives there.

Nedley, in 1 of our previous shows, we talked about medication for depression.

And just remind me, what are the statistics of people that see complete reversal of depression by taking medication?

So it's a significant minority that are actually remitted by medicine alone.

So 20 to 28 percent right around 1 quarter of those patients actually see reversal in depression and I know I asked you this question a little tongue-in-cheek but if I would go to an ophthalmologist and he was successful in performing LASIK correctional surgery only 25% of the time, How long would that doctor be practicing?

And that's why even the medical community recently has finally caught up with the fact by virtue of that Nature issue in November 2014 when they dedicated an entire issue to depression.

They mentioned that we're not doing well in treating this disease and they called for more research to get back to the drawing board because we're actually doing far better with cancer than we are with depression.

So you have far better chances of being cured of cancer than you have of recovering from depression through traditional means of using medication for that depression.

We've been in this series depression the way out There is a way out and there are some very practical steps that we've already covered now in our last program We were talking about stress and anxiety and just as a point of review.

These are things that, deadlines, heat, cold.

There's all sorts of stressors, relationship stressors.

But anxiety is when stress is out of control.

And that's when you actually get more fear, doom and gloom, tingling.

You can get gastrointestinal problems of nausea, diarrhea.

You can get chest pain, shortness of breath, all sorts of symptoms from anxiety.

And that's when we actually have to go back to the drawing board to improve brain chemistry and improve the way we're coping.

And stress and anxiety, how are they related to depression?

An anxious person will tend to have depression, and a depressed person will have at least some level of anxiety the majority of the time.

Now you can get isolated anxiety and isolated depression, but that's not as common.

Most of the time there's some overlap there.

So stress is what we feel from a stressor.

And as we feel that stress, it can cause anxiety.

And then that anxiety can actually lead to depression or be a part of our anxiety actually having depression.

So it's my understanding that the first step in finding relief to stress is identifying the stressor.

How does 1 go about identifying the stressor?

Well we'll have people just list their top 10 stressors.

These are the things in their life that they think are causing them the most stress.

And just to write it down and have it there so that then we can actually help them analyze that to see how they can cope adequately with it or maybe eliminate the stressor if possible.

There's different ways of dealing with different stressors that are optimal.

Nedley, so we've talked about how to identify a stressor, but let me ask you this question.

In fact, studies have shown even cancer patients, a lot of times cancer patients will actually go into recluse when they're diagnosed with an advanced cancer.

And studies have shown if they don't, in other words if they continue to work, if they continue to have some stress in their life, even relationships, they actually do better than when they go into isolation and try to be stress-free.

And so that also has been shown the immune system actually has benefited by some stress.

And so all of us actually function better with some stress in our life than if we lived a stress-free life.

Where then it starts to suppress the immune system and cause compromise of the brain and the body.

But it's nice to know that actually a certain amount of stress is good for us and we function better physically and mentally and even efficiently in our work.

Okay so There can be stress that's actually good for us.

And so what we're talking about when we're talking about stress without distress is actually not eliminating stress because it's impossible to eliminate stress.

It's impossible to eliminate it, nor would it be good for us if we did.

And so what we're talking about here is actually learning how to deal with stress or manage stress in a healthful way because there are actually benefits to having some stress in our life and our body reacts well to it.

Now, once you identify the stressor in your life and and now we're moving toward maybe an unhealthy stressor, once you identify that stressor and maybe even it's a healthy stressor, when you identify that how do you deal with that stressor?

1 way is if it is a bad stressor, to see if we can eliminate the stressor.

It's Rarely best to ignore the stressor, but sometimes that is the best coping mechanism depending on the situation But often it's good to analyze it to see if that stressor can actually work for us Okay, there might be you know things stressors that we think are bad but if we rearrange our schedule in such a way, it can actually empower us and work for us.

So that requires a little bit of thinking about the stressor.

And again, to make this real hands-on and practical, let's maybe choose 1 example that is a stressor that would be best for us to eliminate.

What's a stressor that we should eliminate from our life?

Well, if it is a bad job, for instance, that is just, there's nothing good about it, we might actually decide to resign from that job.

I think people are gonna get the picture there.

And then, what kind of stressor might be a stressor that we would be best to ignore?

Well, that would be a relationship in maybe a work environment.

That it's probably not our boss, but maybe a workmate that we interface with at times.

Yeah, that would cause another great deal of stress in our life.

Biblical Missionaries

The Ambassador Group

02. Biblical Missionaries: Abraham- the First Missionary

Welcome to another in-depth exploration of biblical missionaries written by Borge Schentz, edited for audio and produced by the Ambassador Group.

So also Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.

Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham.

Galatians chapter 3 verses 6 to 8 New International Version.

It's no coincidence that 3 of the world's major faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are sometimes called the Abrahamic faiths.

That's because all 3, in 1 way or another, trace their roots back to this great man of God.

Though Abraham is admired as the defining example of faithfulness, this exploration will examine this faithfulness from a different angle.

That is, we want to view him as a missionary, as someone called by the Lord to go to another land and witness to the people about the true God, the Creator and Redeemer.

And if you belong to Christ, are in Him who is Abraham's seed, then you are Abraham's offspring and spiritual heirs according to promise.

God gave Abraham and his family after him a threefold purpose.

Purpose 1, to be recipients and guardians of the divine truth of God's kingdom that had been lost in the earlier history of humankind.

Purpose 2, to be the channel through which the Redeemer would enter history.

And purpose 3, to be as God's faithful servants a light to the nations, a light to those who needed to know the Lord.

The Call of Abraham The Lord had said to Abraham, Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.

I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3 New International Version.

Abram, whose name meant, the father is exalted, and whose name was changed to Abraham, the father of multitudes, grew up in Ur, in what is now Iraq.

God called him to separate himself from his familiar social and spiritual context and migrate to an unfamiliar country where God conducted a hundred-year spiritual makeover, turning him into the father of the faithful.

In the midst of personal and family struggles, Abraham became a prototype missionary to several people groups and a respected leader who witnessed to his faith in God.

Listen to Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3.

What principles do you hear that you can apply to your own particular situation?

That is, what did Abraham experience that you might experience in your own way as well?

Now, in Haran, the Lord said to Abraham, Go for yourself, for your own advantage, away from your country, from your relatives and your father's house, to the land that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you with abundant increase of favors, and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing, dispensing good to others.

And I will bless those who bless you who confer prosperity or happiness upon you and curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you in you Will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed and by you they will bless themselves?

Let's compare our listening observations.

He's speaking to you through the Holy Spirit.

Are you willing to leave your comfort zone?

Are you eager to be a blessing to other people?

Let's also compare those verses in Genesis to Hebrews 11 verses 8 to 10.

Urged on by faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went forth to a place which he was destined to receive as an inheritance.

And he went, although he did not know or trouble his mind about where he was to go.

Prompted by faith, he dwelt as a temporary resident in the land which was designated in the promise of God, though he was like a stranger in a strange country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was waiting expectantly and confidently, looking forward to the city which has fixed and a firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

The patriarch was called to leave his past behind him, to step out in faith, to believe what seemed unbelievable, to do what God had called him to do.

And as a result of his faithfulness, all the nations of the world would be blessed.

Of course, you might not hear the voice of God speaking directly to you, but he calls us by the teachings of his word and the events of his providence.

We may be required to abandon a career that promises wealth and honor.

We might have to leave congenial and profitable associations and separate from family.

Indeed, we might have to enter upon what appears only to be a path of self-denial, hardship, and sacrifice.

But if God calls us to, how can we refuse?

In Genesis, the Hebrew reads literally, And God said to Abraham, Go for yourself from your land.

He was told to go for himself, that is, for his own sake.

Abraham's Testimony to the Kings Lot was a relative of Abraham, and accompanied him on some of his travels.

His choice of the well-watered Jordan Valley brought him into the company of the wicked men in Sodom.

He was then rescued first by Abraham, and later by 2 angels.

When Abraham heard that his relative Lot was in trouble, he decided to help him.

In rescuing Lot, Abraham headed a military force of more than 300 men of his own household.

Numerous kings were involved in the battle for Sodom, and Abraham came out to the victor.

Genesis 14, 8-24 says, Then the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bilar, that is, Zoar, went out, and together they joined battle with those kings in the valley of Sidum.

With the kings Chedorlaomer of Elam, Tidal of Goim, Amrephel of Shinar, and Ariok of Elessar, 4 kings against 5.

Now the valley of Sidum was full of slime, or by Tuman pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell, were overthrown there, and the remainder of the kings fled to the mountain.

The victors took all the wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the supply of provisions and departed.

And they also took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods away with them.

Then 1 who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, 1 from the other side, who was living by the oaks or terrabinths of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshcol and of Anar.

When Abram heard that his nephew had been captured, he armed, led forth the 318 trained servants born in his own house and pursued the enemy as far as Dan.

He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and attacked and routed them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.

And he brought forth all the goods, and also brought back his kinsmen lot, and his possessions, the women also, and the people.

After his return from the defeat and slaying of Chedor-Leomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom and went out to meet him at the valley of Shephe, that is, the king's valley.

Melchizedek, king of Salem, later called Jerusalem, brought out bread and wine for their nourishment, and he was the priest of God Most High.

And he blessed him and said, Blessed, favored with blessings, made blissful, joyful, be Abraham by God most high, possessor and maker of heaven and earth.

And blessed, praised, and glorified be God most high, who has given your foes into your hand.' And Abram gave him a tenth of all he had taken.

And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, and keep the goods for yourself.

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand and sworn to the Lord, God most high, the possessor and maker of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a shoelace or anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich.

Take all except only what my young men have eaten, and the share of the men, allies, who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre.

Let them take their portion." What did Abraham's actions say about his character and as a result about his faith and his God?

To the kings he conquered, Abraham revealed the power of God.

Even during this rescue mission, the father of the faithful did not lose his divine call to be a blessing to the nations.

The worshiper of Jehovah had not only rendered a great service to the country, but had proved himself a man of valor.

It was seen that righteousness is not cowardice, and that Abraham's religion made him courageous in maintaining the right and defending the oppressed.

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Stress Without Distress #2

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Stress Without Distress #1

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02. Biblical Missionaries: Abraham- the First Missionary

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01. Biblical Missionaries: The Missionary Nature of God

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