Get physical: Therapy for depression and anxiety- Mad in America

A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine finds that physical activity (PA) can improve symptoms of depression, anxiety, and overall psychological distress.

According to the review of research, exercise is effective across a wide range of adult populations. It was most effective for people with depression, HIV, kidney disease, pregnant and postpartum women, and healthy individuals. More intense exercise was linked to more significant symptom improvement. However, the effectiveness of physical activity in treating symptoms of depression, anxiety, and distress diminished over time. The authors write:

“Physical activity is highly beneficial for improving symptoms of depression, anxiety, and distress across a wide range of adult populations, including the general population, people with diagnosed mental health disorders, and people with chronic disease. Physical activity should be a mainstay approach in the management of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress.”

Physical Activity Improves Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety

www.madinamerica.com/2023/03/physical-activity-improves-symptoms-of-depression-and-anxiety/

Waking from sleep – Mad in America

Spirituality can take on the DSM , psychiatry view point of mental illness .

I found this true .

Around the Web, from Spirituality and Psychology/Steve Taylor: “A few years ago, feeling serene and exhilarated after a meditation, I decided to go for a walk. It was a beautiful evening – clear blue sky beginning to get dark, orange where the sun was going down, a few stars beginning to shine through. I walked around the field near my house several times, looking at the sky, amazed at how beautiful it was. My mind was quiet and I felt full of vitality. I began to feel as though I was being engulfed in the sky, and my normal sense of space was changing. The sky didn’t seem ‘up there,’ it seem to be around me, a part of me. I felt that the blue-black space around me was alive, that the universe was a living being. Every time I stared at the sky, the feeling grew stronger. It only stopped when my mind started thinking again.

Most of us have experiences like this from time to time, when the world becomes more real and beautiful. Natural phenomena like trees, rocks and the sky become alive, and reveal their inner being to us. An atmosphere of harmony seems to fill our surroundings, which may intensify into a radiant energy or ‘spirit-force’ which pervades all things. We feel a tremendous sense of well-being and the world becomes a benevolent and meaningful place. Our normal sense of separation fades away; all things seem related, as if they’re expression of one essential oneness, and we feel a part of this oneness too.

These experiences are sometimes referred to as ‘higher states of consciousness’ or ‘spiritual experiences.’ However, in my book Waking From Sleep, I suggest that rather seeing them as transcendent or ‘higher,’ we should see them as natural. I believe these experiences represent a way of seeing and relating to the world which was once normal to human beings, but which we have lost.

It’s possible to see ‘normal’ human consciousness as a kind of ‘sleep’ which we wake up from in these moments. Most people are asleep in the sense that their perception of the world is automatic, so that they aren’t able to sense the is-ness and alive-ness of our surroundings. They’re also asleep in the sense that they see all things as separate to each other, and experience themselves as separate entities, as egos enclosed in their mental space with the rest of the world ‘out there.’ Seen through this state of consciousness, life seems meaningless, and the universe may appear an indifferent and even hostile place.

This state of consciousness is extremely dangerous, and can be seen as the root of our species’ reckless disregard for the environment. Since we see the natural world as inanimate and as something other to us, we have no qualms about abusing it. We see it as nothing more than a supply of resources to use for our own for our own devices, without responsibility.

However, I believe that this state of sleep is really a psychological aberration, and that it is actually natural and normal for us to be ‘awake.’”

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/waking-from-sleep-natural-spirituality-steve-taylor-phd/

You Are That Strong

It seems so par for the course to now post and say, ‘The energies are very high…’ But today, they seemed to have gone beyond another level…so here I am posting and saying, ‘The energies are very, very high…’

What does this mean for us?

It means that you may have headaches, feel nausea. It means you can feel very tired, weak, and it means you might be feeling it as a pressure in your forehead, your third-eye region and at the back of your head. It means, like me, you may have felt all day that you were always ‘somewhere else–the past, a particular landscape, a memory known or unknown, all of it suddenly so real, so present–releasing–to feel all the last vestiges of emotional residue that needed to be felt from that timeline. It means your body, your form, is releasing more and more–literally becoming more transparent to carry, express the light. The cells and the spaces between them expanding. Because it is the light of our Being that transforms, that lifts others–not simply our actions.

Believe in yourself. You Are transforming, and mostly, you won’t even recognize how much so until later when you realize you are responding to things much differently than the way you have in the past: you are much more patient, understanding, less judgmental, more compassionate, and not just looking for what to critique or comment on. You are much more willing to wrestle with your own role, your own participation in whatever has arisen so that you may know yourself better. You begin to find each day a curious thing…a thing to know….

The energies are very high, and you may feel scattered. Have difficulty sleeping, feel like the top of your head itches profoundly, feel like the world is simply getting stranger and stranger. This is You really beginning to focus on You and not getting distracted as much by the external world. You feeling you––your experience much more deeply, your presence in a more profound way that makes it feel in stark contrast to the world at large. Know this is Good–because that means when you change, become more sensitive to you, this sensitivity, this awareness will show up in the world too. You’ll see others more deeply, recognize their fellow humanness more profoundly.

Know, all of this is par for the course when the energies are higher than normal. Know, it takes up to three-four days to begin to integrate high incoming energies, so you may notice others being more emotional, sensitive, tired–even yourself–in the next few days.

Love you. Be compassionate to others. Trust you and what you are feeling, though others may not want to or be able to hear it. Just notice it, note it, hold it within yourself and let it move through. You are making room for unimaginable newness–new ways of Being that by the end of the year will startle, will amaze you.

You can’t see it now, but we are in big waves of change, evolutionary change in consciousness. Know what a gift it is to be here now. To change, things have to shift, things have to get a little chaotic, unsettled to loosen their grip on us–and that’s what were in, unsettled times. But know, you chose this, you chose to be here and participate in this. You Chose to participate and contribute to the change. How beautiful is that?

You are that strong.

You are that beautiful, that courageous, that creative. Believe in yourself–because when you do, you more easily extend that generosity to others, and that’s part of what we need right now. To believe in each other. To extend that grace and love to each and ever one of us. So love you.

May the blessings unfold for you. May you know you are loved.

~Allannah Capwell ❤️

Think About it -Mad in America

We’re Obsessed with Labelling Suffering, But Our Power to Think about it Matters More

By Charlotte Beale

A psychiatrist once told me my depression was partly due to low blood sugar. In retrospect, I needed Kierkegaard and Freud; she prescribed cereal bars. My despair, to her, was an imbalance to be corrected, rather than a relationship with the world—a relationship explored in a rich and serious literature, from philosophy to novels, and a relationship which meant I was alive, excruciatingly so.www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/obsessed-labelling-suffering/

Psychodynamic Therapy Study / Effective – Mad in America

An article recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders finds that mounting research evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (STPP) in the treatment of depression.

Using meta-analytic methods – or the analysis of results of multiple previous studies – European psychiatrists led by Ivano Castelli found STPP to be more effective in reducing depressive symptoms than unstructured treatment and supportive therapy. In addition, the researchers found Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and STPP to be similarly effective and did not see increased improvement in patients who combined STPP with antidepressants. The authors write:

“The findings could provide significant data for updating APA guidelines for treating depression. In fact, STPP can be a useful ground for the treatment of patients with mild depression or who do not assume pharmacological therapy or in case of no benefits from cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.”

Psychodynamic Therapy Effective for Depressive Symptoms, Study Finds

www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/psychodynamic-therapy-effective-for-depressive-symptoms-study-finds/

Full Moon – Energetic until August

“Full Moon in Leo” By Samantha Orthlieb

(Senses of the Soul)

Intense and powerful transformation continues in your lower chakras before, during and after this Full Moon Gateway! The Ascension coding of this gateway starts on February 5 and closes during the Full Moon on August 16, 2023.

The power of this gateway shapes your sense of deservingness (1st chakra), your sovereignty (2nd) and the essence of your authentic power. You are being guided by these energies to ask for what you need to have a balanced lifestyle, thus knowing that you deserve abundance in all its forms to lead a joyful and prosperous fulfilled life.

No more sense of drudgery, needing to overwork, perfectionism, control, or lack of faith is necessary (or allowed) to prove your worth in the New Earth paradigm of living! That is an old wounded masculine value system that is dissolving in the collective.

You are allowed to release the past and moving into a whole new way of being. This new sense of yourself is building creative energy inside of you in preparation for a new stage of your Ascension process – one that is filled with freedom and choice. So know that you are capable of creating what you desire, and that the help you need to do so will be there.

You are now attracting better, healthy relationships and bountiful circumstances into your life as your power center, your manifestation skills and your creative juices are coming into ripe alignment!

Infinite potential and possibilities are in the ethers coming to you, miracles are becoming normalcies! So stay committed to what it is you want to create for yourself and others.

This increase in internal vital force may be showing itself as more intense emotions (anger, frustration, crabbiness, fatigue, depression, lethargy), tension and soreness in the muscles, digestive disturbance, sore solar plexus, shoulder blade pain, skin issues such as rashes and hives, poor quality sleep, intense dreams and anxiety.

As you pass through this Moon portal, you will take a deeper dive to release that which is no longer needed. So keep flowing, be committed to transmuting your emotions, to caring for your health, finding more balance and shifting your mindset to release patterns that keep you in a lesser version of yourself.

There is powerful magic in the air, so bravely continue onward and know you are heading in the right direction.

And so it is!

https://www.facebook.com/sensesofthesoul