{"id":1652,"date":"2010-05-24T11:09:06","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T15:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/?p=1652"},"modified":"2010-08-03T21:31:53","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T01:31:53","slug":"addressing-the-root-cause-of-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/people\/addressing-the-root-cause-of-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"Addressing the root cause of depression"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women suffer from depression<\/a> twice as often as men.\u00a0 This statistic has been shown to be true, not only for American women, but for women in eleven other countries as well.\u00a0 This high statistic for depression among women exists regardless of racial and ethnic background or economic status.<\/p>\n

Can depression<\/a> in women be prevented and treated?\u00a0 Of course it can, but we need to shift our thinking away from medications and talk therapy toward more workable solutions.\u00a0 We need to make this shift because approximately half of all people treated for depression with only the conventional treatment methods (medications and talk therapy) show virtually no improvement. In addition, of all Americans who experience a major depressive episode during their lifetime and use only medications and talk therapy to deal with them 50 percent will have a recurrent episode.\u00a0 Seventy percent of those who experience a second episode are likely to have a third.<\/p>\n

It seems that pills and talk do not address the root cause of depression.<\/p>\n

In order to prevent and treat depression we need to utilize a technique which tugs and pulls at the intertwined roots of the disorder.\u00a0 These roots are created by stress which can be triggered through genetic predisposition, individual situations and the difficulties incurred in everyday living.<\/p>\n

Stress is basically \u201cgunk\u201d in the nervous system which blocks the flow of life energy.\u00a0 It is like weeds in the garden.\u00a0 Just as we remove weeds to allow flowers the freedom to flourish we must weed out the stress which blocks the free flow of our energy, intelligence and creativity.<\/p>\n

\"Healing-Depression-mind-body-way\"<\/a>Weeding out these deep-rooted stresses requires profound rest.\u00a0 The Transcendental Meditation technique has been shown to offer this opportunity by giving the kind of rest which removes stress from the mind, body, and spirit.<\/p>\n

During meditation, the physiology is in a deep state of rest—much deeper than it is during ordinary sleep.\u00a0 This deep state of rest purifies stress from the nervous system and creates stability and balance.\u00a0 The changes continue after the meditation session ends.<\/p>\n

Purification of stress from the nervous system positively affects the mind.\u00a0 People who practice meditation begin to shed negativity, they make room for positive thoughts and emotions.\u00a0 Meditation practitioners experience an increase in self-confidence, tolerance, orderliness of thinking, and self-esteem.\u00a0 This is partly because the Transcendental Meditation technique also reverses the effects of anxiety, which is associated with the impairment of functioning in almost all areas of life:\u00a0 physiological, perceptual-motor, intellectual, and emotional.<\/p>\n

In the past 50 years women have come a long way toward equality.\u00a0 With the regular practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique we can, in very short order, close the gap on the statistics on our higher rate of depression.<\/p>\n

Nancy Leibler, Ph.D<\/span>.<\/a> is a psychotherapist, teacher, and writer who lives in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of \u201cHealing Depression the Mind-Body Way,\u201d which is available at Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women suffer from depression twice as often as men. This statistic has been shown to be true, not only for American women, but for women in eleven other countries as well. This high statistic for depression among women exists regardless of racial and ethnic background or economic status. Can depression in women be prevented and treated? Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-1652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","tag-depression"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}