The network is currently working out of a private address as normal premises are in CBD and not accessible. Staff currently offering phone support and have been in contact with all group members, especially those particularly vulnerable. Current focus is on the East side of the city, and staff are helping people with all sorts of issues. Staffing levels are fine however they are aware that at some stage in the future the staff will need a break.

The Earthquake is a stressful event, if you (or your children) have been affected by it, you may find the following information sheets helpful:

Adult Patient Information Sheet Dealing With Stress Symptoms

Parents Information Sheet Dealing With Stress symptoms in Children

I’m curious whether eventually the teenagers would get used the extra half hour, and want another half hour, which would start to get less feasible. But nonetheless, this research reminds us of the important link between sleeping well and mental health. If we’re not getting enough sleep this can negatively effect our wellbeing, so it is important to make sure we’re getting enough sleep to keep us healthy. Teenagers, if you’re not getting enough sleep, maybe you can use this research to try to convince your parents and school to let you sleep in for an extra half hour? Otherwise, you’re stuck in the same boat as the rest of us, and may have to try to get more sleep at the other end of the day.

I liked their discussion of how mental illness can be unique. For them mental illness wasn’t about being boring, looking out of a window, seeing the world in bland colours, with nothing to look forward to. They make the point that people respond in different ways, and for them it was telling jokes, responding with humour. Those of you who have read the comic will be aware of Mike and Jerry’s unique sense of humour.

And related to this, they discuss the fear that medication would have caused them to their lose their creativity, their craziness, fearing that mental illness is what makes them have their ability to write webcomics. Mike tells us that he wouldn’t have stuck with anti-depressants if the drugs took away his creativity and made things different. But, as he found out, through drugs he could feel better, while still retaining his creativity, and was still able to ‘be crazy’.

Near the end there was an interesting discussion involving illegal drugs. Jerry saw illegal drugs as similar to medical drugs, and a legitimate way to deal with life, while Mike, having seen his brother overdose was opposed to illegal drugs. I tend to agree with Mike. People with mental illness sometimes self-medicate recreational drugs (including alcohol) because they seem to help in the short term. However, this can create a dependence on the substance, as the substance can quickly become all that the user knows that will make them feel better. Eventually substances need to be taken just to feel normal, which creates a whole other set of problems. Recreational drugs may seem to help in the short term, but it’s probably better to find a longer term solution to the problem.

Overall I found the video to be heartwarming, a frank and friendly discussion of a difficult topic. It was good to hear how they looked out for each other, and how they want to help others by sharing about a personal topic.

• Follow a Mediterranean diet
• Eat selenium
• Watch your blood sugar
• Boost your serotonin
• Get plenty of fish
• Eat up your greens
• Drink lots of water
• What to avoid: False pick-me-ups

If you’re interested in what effects your diet can have on your health, take a look at the article.

In the future this delay may be minimized. One article on psychcentral describes how brain waves were measured in a study to detect individuals responses to a couple of anti-depressants, with 74% accuracy, much higher than other methods. A recent article in the journal psychophamacology reports that fMRI – a technique using magnetic fields to examine which parts of the brain are active – can be used to predict how likely people with anxiety disorders are to respond to anti-depressants (anxiety disorders and depression are linked, so it’s thought fMRI could be used in a similar way with depression).

If such technologies became widespread it would make finding the right anti-depressant easier. But for now, we have to taking it one day at a time, making sure we have a healthy lifestyle and diet. And as always, it’s good to be supported, to have someone to go when you really need to.

Now, I’d be hesitant to make a judgment call about all of this on the basis of one article, but it does bring out some interesting issues.

For a start, it looks like the company may not have a clear understanding of what depression is. While ‘anhedonia’ – a diminished capacity to experience pleasure – is one of the symptoms of depression, there is a lot more to depression than ‘never going out and having fun’. People with depression may have more difficulty doing enjoyable things, and ‘having fun’ may be a part of recovery for some with depression, but to boil down depression to not looking happy – and specifically not having happy looking Facebook photos – is just crazy.

And I guess what is worries me about this story is that it looks like the insurance company is effectively discouraging proper recovery. One can imagine the poor woman struggling with depression, managing to find the energy to enjoy a few good evenings, and perhaps starting to feel like life is good. Suddenly in swoops an insurance company and ruins it all, and tells her to stop enjoying life, to stop doing what she needs to do to get through depression.

Of course, this is all based on a news report, and may be a little on the sensationalist side. However, this story highlights the importance of understanding depression – and an individual’s own experience – before anyone can decide whether someone fits their model of depression.

The main part of the book is divided up into a variety of exercises that one can do to improve one’s happiness, which I may go into a little in later posts, but for now I’m going to deal with the earlier section of the book, which deals with what it is that makes us happy, and what doesn’t make us happy (in the long term).

People, myself included, can be tempted think that our happiness depends on what happens to us. It comes down to the statement; “If … I’d be happy”. If I had a boy/girlfriend I’d be happy. If I was rich I’d be happy. If I was able to loose weight I’d be happy. If I got on with my family I’d be happy. You’ve probably heard other people express similar sentiments, and perhaps even thought such things yourself.

But Lyubomirsky argues that while happiness may be affected by our circumstances, only about 10% of our overall happiness is because of what happens to us. One reason for this is that changes in circumstances only make us happy for relatively short periods of time. While winning the lotto may make you euphoric in the short term, studies looking at lotto winners a year later have shown that a year later their happiness has returned to normal. Similar things have been shown with marriage, where happiness on the wedding day is rated highly, but happiness returns to normal after a couple of years.

A bigger factor in our happiness is how we deal with circumstances. How we deal with our circumstances accounts for four times as much happiness as the circumstances themselves. For instance, when something goes wrong, say we lose a job, we can treat this as the end of the world, or we can treat it as a difficulty, but one that can be overcome – we might be able to find a far better job, and it was time for a change anyway. Alternatively when something goes our way, when we find that better job, we can treat it as a one off event, the result of chance, or we can treat it as something to be celebrated, that shows that we have skills that an employer might want. Reframing activities, like as those used in CBT, are based on this idea.

How we deal with circumstances is quite a big topic, but the important thing to remember is that while our happiness may be affected by circumstances, our happiness is also affected by how we deal with circumstances. This means we don’t have to be victims of circumstance. When things don’t go our way, which they will, and we are going to feel a degree of unhappiness about them. But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story – how we deal with circumstances has a big effect on how happy we’re going to be.