Handling Depression!!

However, there are lots of people who have to face disappointments while handling certain things. These disappointments can easily lead to depression which is a tough thing to deal with. But, if you will keep few things in mind, you will become able to come out of the depression without much ado.

First of all, you must understand that depression is not just a feeling as it can hurt you mentally and physically. When you feel depressed, you body starts to release certain hormones. For instance, the level of cortisol gets increased in times of depression which can eventually affect neurotransmitter serotonin. This is something that can lead to clinical depression. So, you must never take things lightly as this can create a lot of problem if you will show carelessness.

In order to handle depression, you must try to go through the causes of depression. Although, it is difficult to find exact causes, but, there will surely be few things which will be triggering your depression. If you will become able to find those, it will become relatively easier for you to handle depression.

However, when someone will be under depression, he will never be able to think about the causes and that’s what complicates the whole situation. Here, it is the job of the friends and family members to heal a depressed person. One thing that can be done to help someone getting out of depression is to talk with him.

If you are having a friend suffering with depression, then you must get in touch with him. Try to talk with him over certain things. Here, you can always talk about his favorite topics as this will entice him to take part in conversation. But, you must keep in mind that you may have to face a harsh response from a depressed friend which should be understandable. You must always tell yourself that your help can really work wonders for your friend.

After getting out of this first phase, things will be a bit easier to handle. You must try to take him along with you for an outing. Once the other person will start to feel that the life is beautiful, then your job will be over. This will be the time when a person can take control over his emotions by changing his routines. Exercising, running and walking can really help in order to get back on track.

However, taking a sufficient amount of sleep is of utmost importance and that’s where all types of stimulants should be avoided.

As a whole, it can easily be deduced that if you want to get out of depression, then you will have to keep yourself busy. You can talk with other people, join a gym or take part in certain house chores. All these activities will keep you away from negative thoughts and you will become able to beat depression.

Spotting Medical Problems!!

Some medical symptoms are warnings that you need immediate care. Health, Body and Mind shows you how to recognise them

Courtsey:Jeanie Lerche Davis

Like red-light warnings on the dashboard, the human body sends out a flare when something's awry. Chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness - those are some familiar medical symptoms. But other problems can creep up on you, too - aches and pains, lumps and bumps. It's necessary to know when they are important and when they are not.

Neil Shulman, MD and a professor of internal medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, calls it a serious and likens to "terrorists inside our bodies." The symptoms are "killing way too many people. There's tremendous suffering and horrible death which could be avoided, but people don't know that something's wrong."

In fact, it happens all the time, a symptom is missed and it leads to a tragic ending. Or it's caught just in time, and a life is saved. Quite literally, it's that dramatic, Shulman tells.
Here are "five flags" - five medical symptoms - you should keep in mind:

1. If you have unexplained weight loss and/or loss of appetite , you may have a serious underlying medical illness.

"If you're on a diet, you're expecting this to happen. But if you're eating the same way - and now have to adjust your belt a few notches tighter - you could have a serious problem, so you should see a doctor." Shulman says.

2. Slurred speech, paralysis, weakness, tingling, burning pains, numbness, and confusion are signs of a stroke, and you should get to an appropriate emergency centre immediately. Early treatment may prevent permanent damage to the brain or even save your life.

3. Black, tarry stools may indicate a haemorrhage from an ulcer of the stomach or the small intestine. It is important to stop the bleeding and to rule out cancer as a cause.What you eat changes the colour of stools. But black, tarry stools mean there may be bleeding higher in the digestive tract, says Shulman. It could be a sign of a bleeding ulcer or cancer.

4. A headache accompanied by a stiff neck and fever is an indicator of a serious infection called meningitis. In fact, if you can't put your chin on your chest, that's a sign you may have bacterial meningitis, says Shulman. With bacterial meningitis, you need antibiotics immediately to kill the bacteria before it infects and scars the brain.

5. A sudden, agonizing headache, more severe than any you have felt before, could mean you are bleeding in the brain. Go to an emergency room immediately. A brain aneurysm is rare, but it can happen - even in people under 40. If you have a severe, crushing headache, you may have an aneurysm, which is a blood-filled pouch bulging out from a weak spot in the wall of a brain artery. If treated before it bursts, it could save your life.

Brain's Communication Infrastructure!!

Brain signal never switches off and also supports many cognitive functions. Researcher's look at one of the human brain's most fundamental "foundations" is an important step forward in understanding the functional architecture of the brain …

Courtsey: Kate Melville

Washington University School of Medicine researchers are taking the first direct look at one of the human brain's most fundamental "foundations": a brain signal that never switches off and may support many cognitive functions. Their findings, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are an important step forward in understanding the functional architecture of the brain.

Washington University School of Medicine researchers are taking the first direct look at one of the human brain's most fundamental "foundations": a brain signal that never switches off and may support many cognitive functions. Their findings, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are an important step forward in understanding the functional architecture of the brain.

In the past decade, however, scientists have realised that deeper structures underlie goal-oriented mental processes. These underlying brain processes continue to occur even when subjects aren't consciously using their brain to do anything, and the energies that the brain puts into them seem to be much greater than those used for goal-oriented tasks.

"The brain consumes a tremendous amount of the body's energy resources -- it's only two percent of body weight, but it uses about 20 percent of the energy we take in," says Raichle. "When we started to ask where all those resources were being spent, we found that the goal-oriented tasks we had studied previously only accounted for a tiny portion of that energy budget. The rest appears to go into activities and processes that maintain a state of readiness in the brain."

To explore this deeper level of the brain's functional architecture, Raichle and others have been using fMRI to conduct detailed analyses of brain activity in subjects asked to do nothing. However, a nagging question has dogged those and other fMRI studies: Scientists assumed that increased blood flow to a part of the brain indicates that part has contributed to a mental task, but they wanted more direct evidence linking increased blood flow to stepped-up activity in brain cells.

In the new study, the researchers took fMRI scans of five patients with intractable epilepsy. The scans, during which the subjects did nothing, were taken prior to the temporary installation of grids of electrodes on the surfaces of the patients' brains. The level of detail provided by the grids is essential clinically for pinpointing the source of the seizures for possible surgical removal, a last resort employed only when other treatments failed.

The results confirmed that the fMRI data she had gathered earlier reflected changes in brain cell activity exhibited in the gamma frequency signal. But she also noticed the persistent low-frequency signal, which also corresponded to the fMRI data. "When we looked back in the literature, we found that a similar signal had been the subject of a great deal of animal research using implanted electrodes in the 1960s through the 1980s," she says. "There were suggestions, for example, that when this low-frequency signal, which fluctuates persistently, is in a low trough, the brain may handle mental tasks more effectively."

"What we've shown provides a bridge between the fMRI work many scientists are doing now and the earlier work involving electrical recordings from the brain that emphasised slow activity," says he. "Bringing those two fields together may give us some very interesting insights into the brain's organisation and function."

22 Reasons Why You Should be a Vegeterian!!

Stacks of studies confirm that a diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables and grains is your best bet for living a longer, healthier and more enjoyable life. There are literally hundreds of great reasons to switch to a plant-based diet; here are 22 of the best:

1.You'll live a lot longer.
Vegetarians live about seven years longer, and vegans (who eat no animal products) about 15 years longer than meat eaters, according to a study from Loma Linda University. These findings are backed up by the China Health Project (the largest population study on diet and health to date), which found that Chinese people who eat the least amount of fat and animal products have the lowest risks of cancer, heart attack and other chronic degenerative diseases.

2.You'll save your heart.
Cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer in the United States, and the standard American diet (SAD) that's laden with saturated fat and cholesterol from meat and dairy is largely to blame. Plus, produce contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. Incidentally, cholesterol levels for vegetarians are 14 percent lower than meat eaters.

3.You can put more money in your mutual fund.
Replacing meat, chicken and fish with vegetables and fruits is estimated to cut food bills.

4.You'll reduce your risk of cancer.
Studies done at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg suggest that this is because vegetarians' immune systems are more effective in killing off tumour cells than meat eaters'. Studies have also found a plant based diet helps protect against prostate, colon and skin cancers.

5.You'll add color to your plate.
Meat, chicken and fish tend to come in boring shades of brown and beige, but fruits and vegetables come in all colours of the rainbow. Disease fighting phytochemicals are responsible for giving produce their rich, varied hues. So cooking by colour is a good way to ensure you re eating a variety of naturally occurring substances that boost immunity and prevent a range of illnesses.

6.You'll fit into your old jeans.
On average, vegetarians are slimmer than meat eaters, and when we diet, we keep the weight off up to seven years longer. That's because diets that are higher in vegetable proteins are much lower in fat and calories than the SAD. Vegetarians are also less likely to fall victim to weight-related disorders like heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

7.You'll give your body a spring cleaning.
Giving up meat helps purge the body of toxins (pesticides, environmental pollutants, preservatives) that overload our systems and cause illness. When people begin formal detoxification programs, their first step is to replace meats and dairy products with fruits and vegetables and juices.

8.You'll make a strong political statement.
It's a wonderful thing to be able to finish a delicious meal, knowing that no beings have suffered to make it..

9.Your meals will taste delicious.
Vegetables are endlessly interesting to cook and a joy to eat. It's an ever-changing parade of flavours and colors and textures and tastes.

10.You'll help reduce waste and air pollution.
Livestock farms creates phenomenal amounts of waste. The tons of manure, a substance that's rated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a top pollutants. And that's not even counting the methane gas released by goats, pigs and poultry (which contributes to the greenhouse effect); the ammonia gases from urine; poison gases that emanate from manure lagoons; toxic chemicals from pesticides; and exhaust from farm equipment used to raise feed for animals.

11.Your bones will last longer.
The average bone loss for a vegetarian woman at age 65 is 18 percent; for non-vegetarian women, it's double that. Researchers attribute this to the consumption of excess protein. Excess protein interferes with the absorption and retention of calcium and actually prompts the body to excrete calcium, laying the ground for the brittle bone disease osteoporosis. Animal proteins, including milk, make the blood acidic, and to balance that condition, the body pulls calcium from bones. So rather than rely on milk for calcium, vegetarians turn to dark green leafy vegetables, such as broccoli and legumes, which, calorie for calorie, are superior sources.

12.You'll help reduce famine.
It takes 15 pounds of feed to get one pound of meat. But if the grain were given directly to people, there'd be enough food to feed the entire planet. In addition, using land for animal agriculture is inefficient in terms of maximizing food production. According to the journal Soil and Water, one acre of land could produce 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, 40,000 pounds of potatoes, 30,000 pounds of carrots or just 250 pounds of beef.

13.You'll avoid toxic chemicals.
The EPA estimates that nearly 95 per cent of pesticide residue in our diet comes from meat, fish and dairy products. Fish, in particular, contain carcinogens (PCBs, DDT) and heavy metals (mercury, arsenic; lead, cadmium) that cannot be removed through cooking or freezing. Meat and dairy products are also laced with steroids and hormones.

14.You'll protect yourself from foodborne illnesses.
According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest in the US, which has stringent food standards, 25 per cent of all chicken sold in the United States carries salmonella bacteria and, the CDC estimates, 70 percent to 90 percent of chickens contain the bacteria campy-lobacter (some strains of which are antibiotic-resistant t), approximately 5 percent of cows carry the lethal strain of E. coli O157:H7 (which causes virulent diseases and death), and 30 percent of pigs slaughtered each year for food are infected with toxoplasmosis (caused by parasites).

15.You may get rid of your back problems.
Back pain appears to begin, not in the back, but in the arteries. The degeneration of discs, for instance, which leads to nerves being pinched, starts with the arteries leading to the back. Eating a plant-based diet keeps these arteries clear of cholesterol- causing blockages to help maintain a healthy back.

16.You'll be more 'regular.'
Eating a lot of vegetables necessarily means consuming fiber, which pushes waste out of the body. Meat contains no fibre. Studies done at Harvard and Brigham Women's Hospital found that people who ate a high-fiber diet had a 42 percent lower risk of diverticulitis. People who eat lower on the food chain also tend to have fewer incidences of constipation, hemorrhoids and spastic colon.

17.You'll cool those hot flashes.
Plants, grains and legumes contain phytoestrogens that are believed to balance fluctuating hormones, so vegetarian women tend to go through menopause with fewer complaints of sleep problems, hot flashes, fatigue, mood swings, weight gain, depression and a diminished sex drive.

18.You'll help to bring down the national debt.
We spend large amounts annually to treat the heart disease, cancer, obesity, and food poisoning that are byproducts of a diet heavy on animal products.

19.You'll preserve our fish population.
Because of our voracious appetite for fish, 39 per cent of the oceans' fish species are overharvested, and the Food & Agriculture Organization reports that 11 of 15 of the world's major fishing grounds have become depleted.

20.You'll help protect the purity of water.
It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of mutton, but just 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat. Not only is this wasteful, but it contributes to rampant water pollution.

21.You'll provide a great role model for your kids.
If you set a good example and feed your children good food, chances are they'll live a longer and healthier life. You're also providing a market for vegetarian products and making it more likely that they'll be available for the children.

22.Going vegetarian is easy!
Vegetarian cooking has never been so simple. We live in a country that has been vegetarian by default. Our traditional dishes are loaded with the goodness of vegetarian food. Switching over it very simple indeed.