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The Mind-Body Mood Solution: The Breakthrough Drug-Free Program for Lasting Relief from Depression
The Mind-Body Mood Solution: The Breakthrough Drug-Free Program for Lasting Relief from Depression
The Mind-Body Mood Solution: The Breakthrough Drug-Free Program for Lasting Relief from Depression
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The Mind-Body Mood Solution: The Breakthrough Drug-Free Program for Lasting Relief from Depression

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Depression is the leading cause of disability in America. The incidence of depression in the United States today is 10 times greater than it was in 1960—and that rate doubles every decade. Changes in the way we live, work, eat, sleep, and interact have made us increasingly vulnerable to this mood disorder. We are living out of sync with nature, our bodies, our spirits, and one another. We are living in an age of depression.

For 30 years, Dr. Jeffrey Rossman has been treating depressed people, many of whom do not want to take medication. Instead, they are looking for practical solutions that will help them get better naturally and permanently.

In The Mind-Body Mood Solution, Dr. Rossman offers a comprehensive, drug-free depression treatment program that fully integrates psychological tools with lifestyle practices such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, breathing, and meditation. In doing so, you will learn to make healthy, sustainable changes that have been proven to improve mood. In treating the mind and body, Dr. Rossman advocates for a new view of depression as not simply an illness, but a call from within to awaken to the possibility of a vital, fulfilling life.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherRodale Books
Release dateDec 21, 2010
ISBN9781609617295
The Mind-Body Mood Solution: The Breakthrough Drug-Free Program for Lasting Relief from Depression

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    The Mind-Body Mood Solution - Jeffrey Rossman

    PROLOGUE

    If you are struggling with feelings of depression now or have experienced bouts of depression in the past, I'm very glad that you've found this book. The Mind-Body Mood Solution offers a powerful set of tools that can help you lift your mood and positively transform your life.

    While you may experience significant improvements right away, the techniques I will share in the coming pages do not offer a quick fix, nor are they a magic pill. You will need to make lifestyle changes and practice skills that will increase your self-awareness, get your energy moving, and lift your mood. If you commit yourself to these processes, they will not only help you feel better now, they will also help you stay physically and emotionally healthy for years to come.

    The techniques I offer in The Mind-Body Mood Solution are strategies I've found to be successful for hundreds of my patients over the past 20 years. I realize that it can be challenging to apply the principles and tools printed on a book page to your own life; I wish that we could sit together so that I could help you through this process in person. However, in this book you will find the same tools and practices I share with my clients. I will guide you through the process of lifting your mood and ask you many of the same questions I pose to them. Because each person is unique and no one experiences the symptoms of depression in the same way, you will be able to customize your program by using the resources that are most useful to you.

    If you are experiencing significant depression now, I suggest you ask for support from someone you trust. This could be a friend, a family member, a therapist, or a coach. Turn to Chapter 14 for specific advice on finding a therapist when professional help is needed.

    Although the prevalence of depression is growing dramatically, most cases go untreated. Only one in three individuals suffering from depression receives treatment. There is still a stigma that prevents many people from seeking help for mental health issues. My hope is that we can move beyond the barriers created by that stigma so that everyone who is suffering can be helped. The earlier depression is treated, the more effectively and rapidly recovery can be achieved.

    Fortunately, we have developed very effective treatments over the past 2 decades. Several types of psychotherapy have proven to be particularly helpful in relieving depression. Physical approaches involving nutrition, exercise, and exposure to bright light have also demonstrated a powerful, positive effect on depression. I have found that combining interventions that address both the mind and the body helps my clients recover more rapidly and durably than utilizing any one approach in isolation. I have been fortunate over the past 18 years to work at Canyon Ranch, a health resort and integrative wellness center in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. In this setting, my clients are able to utilize complementary approaches including exercise, breathing, meditation, and nutrition. Very often, these approaches yield rapid results.

    How to Use the Book and the Program

    As you read through the opening chapters of this book, give some thought to whether these treatment options feel right for you and how much time you think you'll be able to devote to them. Also, be sure to complete the Readiness Assessment on page 13 to learn how you can get the most out of the program.

    As you embark on this program, you may find it helpful to review and assess your progress periodically. To get a baseline measure of how you're feeling now, you can complete the depression assessment test (CES-D) on page 21. I suggest you retake this assessment each week for the next 8 weeks. Benchmarking your progress as you follow the program will help you evaluate its effectiveness.

    The program offers several tools that you can use on a daily basis to enhance your mood. Some of these may be more helpful to you than others. Try them out and see what works best for you. The Readiness Assessment quiz will help you determine which strategies may be most useful for you and which tools you're most inclined to use. For instance, if your low mood is heavily related to nutritional deficiencies or dietary sensitivities, you may find the nutritional component of the program to be very effective. If your unhappiness is more influenced by a negative thought pattern, the attitudinal component may be most helpful to you. Chances are you will find that a combination of treatments is most relevant and useful for you.

    Transforming Energy

    At the heart of the program is the understanding that when we are feeling depressed, our life energy is blocked and we have difficulty moving forward. Life energy is the energy that is present in all living things, including plants, animals, and human beings. It is the energy that powers all the systems of your body and gives you a feeling of vitality. Each component of this program is designed to help you unblock your energy so that it flows naturally.

    The energy blockage in depression is evident in several ways. Physically, most depressed people experience fatigue and lethargy. It is often difficult to get moving and find the energy to accomplish what you need to do each day. Others experience agitation and restlessness, and find that the energy they do have is stuck in a negative, uncomfortable pattern.

    Emotionally, depression blunts life energy. The heaviness of depression weighs down our emotional life with feelings of guilt, despair, fear, regret, and resentment. Some people simply feel numb. The absence of emotion robs them of any joy or pleasure in life. Their emotions and their energy are stuck in a constricted pattern, rather than flowing outward toward others in positive expressions of love, appreciation, and engagement.

    Energy blockage is also evident in the impaired cognitive functioning experienced by many people with depression. Problems with attention and memory are very common. Depressed students have trouble concentrating on their studies, depressed workers have trouble completing tasks, and depressed parents have trouble engaging with their children. For many, the endless cycle of replaying ruminative thoughts keeps their energy stuck in a circuit that prevents constructive, creative thinking. Unwanted rumination also hijacks the mind at night and interferes with sleep patterns.

    When our physical, emotional, and cognitive energy is stuck, we find it impossible to move forward. We withdraw from friends and family, and hold back from initiating new projects, travel, or any other enterprise that requires our full emotional and physical engagement. We sometimes use unhealthy methods of avoiding or numbing our feelings, such as overindulging in alcohol, food, television, or sleep. This avoidant behavior is at the heart of depression.

    Using the Program

    The Mind-Body Mood Solution is designed to work with your body and your mind simultaneously to unblock your energy and get it moving in a positive direction. Each component of the program addresses a vital source of energy. Here is a brief overview of the physical strategies you will find in this book to help you accomplish this goal.

    Nutrition: You will learn ways of eating that enhance your mood by balancing your blood sugar, hormones, and brain chemistry. In addition, you will receive information about vitamins and supplements that support your physical and emotional well-being.

    Exercise: You will learn about the powerful mood-boosting effects of physical exercise: increases in cerebral bloodflow, neurotransmitter production, new brain cells, and new neural pathways. Exercise literally transforms your brain, producing an ongoing feeling of well-being and strengthening your capacity to handle stress.

    Sleep Enhancement: You will learn strategies for improving the quality of your sleep and giving your body the rest it needs to replenish your energy and refresh your mood.

    Bright Light: You will learn how exposure to sunlight and high-intensity light fixtures can boost your mood and improve your sleep.

    Breathing Practices: You will be introduced to a variety of breathing techniques that will calm, balance, and enhance your life energy. These techniques enable you to be more focused and alert, and to tap into a calm, clear state of awareness.

    Other components of the program will help you unblock your energy through mental strategies and exercises. During the past 25 years, I have integrated several approaches to emotional healing into the program presented in this book. A number of the psychological principles and techniques I offer are drawn from a system of healing and personal development known as psychosynthesis, which embraces the spiritual dimension of human experience. Psychosynthesis is designed to help individuals become more self aware and able to direct their actions in accordance with their core values. Other components of this program are drawn from the fields of mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and positive psychology. These strategies include:

    The Practice of Presence: Living in the present helps you connect with a rich source of vitality. It also helps you become aware of your thought processes and allows you to observe your thoughts compassionately, without being ruled by them.

    Overcoming Avoidance: Choosing to experience rather than avoid potentially uncomfortable situations and emotions is another source of vitality that is a key to overcoming depression. You will identify what you have been avoiding and learn strategies for overcoming avoidance.

    Techniques for Transforming Judgment: These techniques will help you identify and transform negative thought patterns and cultivate positive attitudes that dissolve depression and enhance feelings of well-being.

    Forgiveness and Gratitude: Our attitude toward what we experience has a powerful effect on our mood. By cultivating an attitude of forgiveness toward ourselves and others, we free our emotional energy from toxic anger, resentment, shame, and guilt. Choosing to be grateful for what we have and for kindness received is also a powerful antidote to depression.

    The Power of Action: It's crucial to plan for and engage in activities that give you feelings of pleasure and accomplishment. Constructive activity helps support and channel your life energy.

    The Courage to Change What You Can: Connecting with your core values enables you to tap into a powerful source of vitality and helps you address and change the areas of your life that are not working.

    Resilience Strategies: These techniques will help you face significant life challenges by fortifying your capacity to deal with trauma, loss, and transition.

    As you actively engage in the program and your energy becomes unblocked, you will feel yourself gradually becoming more awake and alive. You will develop a greater awareness of what your body needs to function at its peak. You will learn optimal ways of eating, moving, breathing, and sleeping that will give you the raw materials and catalysts to boost your energy and keep it flowing smoothly.

    You will also gain a deeper understanding of how your mind works and how to make it your ally in living a vital, satisfying life. Through the awareness practices, you will become more fully awake to life as it is unfolding moment by moment. You will learn what weighs down your mood and what lifts it, and how to release what you are ready to change or let go of. You will learn to recognize negative thoughts that contribute to depression, and how to access a more constructive thought process. You will learn powerful techniques for strengthening your connection with the wise, compassionate part of your mind that is able to observe your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without becoming caught up in them. From this place you can respond thoughtfully rather than react reflexively to stressful events. Cultivating this awareness is the key to genuine freedom and self-acceptance, regardless of the obstacles you confront in life.

    Techniques for transforming judgment enable you to change limiting, conditioned patterns of thinking and feeling. As you transform judgment, you release yourself from the toxic grip of anger, resentment, shame, guilt, and frustration. Emotional blocks dissolve, and your energy is freed to flow into positive emotions and actions. You become more accepting of yourself and compassionate toward others. In the later chapters of the book, we will explore how this approach can be used to deal with life-altering events.

    In the chapters that follow, you will find effective practices that you can begin to use today. They work more powerfully in combination than alone, and you can design your own program from the wide menu of mental and physical strategies mentioned above.

    The skills and practices you will learn will do more than help you overcome depression: They will enhance your health and wellbeing for the rest of your life.

    My Connection with Depression

    My connection with depression is deeply personal. When I was 7 years old, my maternal grandmother came to live with my family. She was a warm and fun-loving companion who loved me wholeheartedly.

    She had just been discharged from the hospital after one of her many bouts of clinical depression. She had endured several hospitalizations and electroshock treatments, which impaired her memory and weakened her heart.

    I remember the times when she struggled to catch her breath. Sometimes she would grab my arm and ask me to find the bottle of nitroglycerin tablets in her purse and bring it to her. In the middle of the night on September 24, 1960, she awoke gasping for air. My mother called my grandmother's doctor, who got lost trying to find our house. By the time he finally arrived, it was too late. My grandmother had passed away. Filled with sadness and confusion, I struggled to understand what had happened.

    Depression was a frequent visitor in our family. My mother's father had also suffered from clinical depression in the latter part of his life. He was a hard-edged man, whose sharp, critical personality made him a tough customer. He became severely depressed late in his life, and at one point, he and my grandmother were hospitalized for depression in the same hospital. I can barely imagine my mother's anguish, tending to her parents in the hospital while working as a schoolteacher and raising two small children. Both of my maternal grandparents died of heart attacks, she at 60, he at 62, their lives shortened by heavy smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, and the cardiovascular damage caused by chronic depression.

    My father's mother also suffered bouts of clinical depression. She was hospitalized with clinical depression when her husband, my grandfather, sold their corner grocery store and started a new venture with a business partner. She was consumed with fear that the partnership would not work out and the family would become penniless and homeless. My grandfather managed to make the transition successfully, but my grandmother spent a week in the hospital. After seeing that the business wasn't going to fail, she eventually made a full recovery.

    Seeing my grandparents live with depression left a deep and lasting impression on me. I saw how profoundly they suffered, and I wanted to know why. My parents did their best to explain, but I was left wondering how my grandparents could have become so discouraged and hopeless. Most of all, I wished I could have done something to help them.

    I also saw how much my parents' lives were impacted by their parents' depression. I saw their pain and helplessness when my father's mother was hospitalized again for depression later in her life. She became despondent after suffering broken ribs in a fall. She gave up her will to live and passed away within a year.

    My maternal grandmother's long-standing depression had a profound impact on my mother. From the time she was 8 years old, my mother cared for herself, her younger brother, and at times her own mother. She learned at a young age that life could be harsh and she would need to rely on herself. She did well in school, put herself through college with her wages from working for the post office, and became a high school teacher. She was blessed with resilience, and she faced the challenge of her mother's condition with compassion and a sense of responsibility. That is not to say she never became angry or frustrated with my grandmother, because she did. But regardless of her frustration and at times embarrassment, she never stopped taking care of her mother.

    As a teenager I felt a desire to understand and help people who were suffering like my grandparents had. During my freshman year in college, I volunteered in a psychiatric hospital, providing support to patients and their families. Throughout my time in college and in the years immediately following my graduation, I worked in a number of psychiatric hospitals with depressed, suicidal, and psychotic patients. My job was to protect them from harming themselves or others and to support them in becoming well enough to go home. I felt encouraged by seeing many people make excellent recoveries and by being part of the team that helped them get better.

    In these hospitals the primary therapeutic modalities were medication, psychotherapy, and group therapy. For those severely depressed patients whose condition did not respond to medication or talk therapy, electroconvulsive therapy was used with remarkable efficacy. Unfortunately, many patients also suffered permanent memory loss as a result of the treatment. I accompanied some of these patients to their ECT treatments, assisted during the procedure, and reassured them when they regained consciousness. I wheeled them back to their rooms and consoled them when they awoke from the anesthesia, frightened and disoriented. Over time, as they emerged from the dark shadow of depression, I helped them prepare to return to their lives at home.

    As I sat with these patients, I thought about my grandmother and the shock treatments she received, her fear and confusion, and her unending cycle of depression, recovery, and relapse. I wondered how her life might have been different if, early on, she had learned effective ways to care for herself and her mood. I became interested in helping people overcome and stay free of depression.

    At one of these hospitals, I worked the night shift 1 week out of every 3. I'd drive home at 7:30 in the morning after working all night, checking in on patients who were in many cases psychotic, suicidal, or violent. I'd fall into bed exhausted, but I never managed to sleep soundly during the day. I felt continually out of sync with the rest of the world and with my body. Even when I worked a normal daytime shift, I couldn't get into a regular sleep routine. Over time, the experience of rotating between shifts and sleeping poorly took a devastating toll on my mood. I was perpetually tired, depressed, and frustrated with myself. While my experience working in this hospital helped me to understand and respond to suffering, it also brought me to a dark, low place in my own life.

    During this period between college and graduate school, I searched for ways to heal myself. I discovered that a diet of wholesome, nutritious foods improved my energy and clarity. I reconnected with my lifelong love of exercise, getting into a regular jogging routine, playing racquetball, and joining a soccer team. I worked with a therapist and developed a greater awareness of my emotions and inner life. I explored what I wanted to do with my life and how to take steps to move forward. I learned to meditate, which provided relief from feelings of anxiety and depression. Meditation gave me a powerful experience of a deeper, wiser place within myself from which I could observe my thoughts and my feelings without being trapped in them. The practice and the philosophy around it opened up a new world for me. I went on several meditation and yoga retreats that helped me deepen my practice and understanding. All of the changes I made through therapy, diet, exercise, and meditation helped me to feel more energetic and whole. I learned that a mind-body approach was an effective way to overcome my own depression. In the spring of 1978, I made plans to attend graduate school, and I met my future wife.

    That fall I entered graduate school at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York. In my

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