Tag Archives: Mental Illness

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Depression: Its Causes and Cures, part 3: The Endocrine Connection

Tony pic

WE MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF OUR RESPONSE

Oh, this is too good to not pass on. Just when I’m preparing to write this third post on depression, Spirtual Ecology posted this amazing study on Facebook. No wonder there’s so much depression on the planet.  We’re using up all our oxygen bitching and complaining. 

New Study Finds Most Of Earth’s Oxygen Used For Complaining

NEWS IN BRIEF • Science & Technology • Lifestyle • ISSUE 50•28 • Jul 17, 2014

SEATTLE—Following a multiyear study of atmospheric gases and their role in organic processes on earth, a team of researchers at the University of Washington reported this week that the majority of the oxygen on the planet is used for complaining. “By carefully measuring the processes of gas exchange, the respiratory capacities of living organisms, and resulting metabolic activities, we discovered that most oxygen molecules in Earth’s troposphere are used for the purposes of sighing, whining, and most commonly, complaining,” said the study’s lead author, James Lauderio, who noted that an adult human converts an average of 19 cubic feet of oxygen per day into petty grievances about acquaintances, nitpicking objections about popular media or the weather, criticisms about tasks they are performing, and general fussing with family members. “And while humans are the species most responsible for transforming oxygen into complaints, it’s important to note that other animal life, including mammals, birds, and reptiles, also convert massive amounts of O2 into displeased growls and screeches about their habitats and food sources.” Lauderio added that the research team has not been able to determine a verifiable upper limit to the number of complaints that can be produced from a single inhalation, with many human subjects reportedly producing upwards of 40 or more complaints with each breath.

Chronic complaint can lead not only to oxygen depletion but to clinical depression. It has to do with your hormones. 

DEPRESSION:THE ENDOCRINE CONNECTION

Hormones are designed to convey spirits into and through the body temple. They are produced by spirit and not by the brain. Your endocrine system of seven ductless glands is the sole domain of the spirit– your spirit.  St. John describes them as “lamps of fire” in his Book of Revelation:

And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices; and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. (Rev. 4:5)

The “throne” in your body temple is your Pineal Gland, the seat of  the Spirit of Love. “Fire” is an apt way of depicting the expression of spirit through the human capacity of the heart. The heart is the capacity for expression spirit, which issues forth as a flame at times . . . even as “lightnings and thunderings.” These lightnings and thunderings can be terribly destructive or terribly creative. It’s our choice as to which they will be.

I made a tone-setting statement in the first post of this series on depression which I will bring forward here.  

Depression is fundamentally about the suppression of energy.  In a certain sense, it is a spiritual event. All energy is love. Love is all that IS. Energy expresses through form, and when that expression is thwarted, suppressed or shut down, pressure begins to build behind the dam of resistance to whatever is trying to find expression, which is love or joy.  The expression of love and joy allows for release of this energy. Elation is the result. On the other hand, suppression of love and joy prevents the release of this energy. Depression is then the result.

This is fundamentally and biochemically true.  It’s also bio-energetically true.  The life energy that courses through your body will flow in the direction of your response to environmental events; even if those events are feelings stewing inside your heart and mind.  Your response to those events is what determines the production of hormones in your endocrine glands. (See my first post of this series for how this works.) Those hormones, by design and purpose, will be encoded by the kind of spirit that is brewing in your heart to deliver your message to your world. That spirit will accurately manifest the thought forms and intentions that you project in your expression. The end result will be your creation . . . and your experience.  Look down in complaint and criticism and you will go down. Even your words fall to the ground. And you will become depressed. Your circumstance will deteriorate even further. 

By the same principle of response, look up in praise and thanksgiving and you will go up. Even your words will rise to inspire and uplift your circumstance rather than cast it down in complaint and dissatisfaction. And you will quickly come out of your depression into elation. That’s the way the principle of response works. We move in the direction of our response. It’s a great principle. We can use it to our advantage or disadvantage, especially when we are under pressure. Just like the proverbial bar of soap that will pop up or down depending on the direction in which you point it. Look down and go down. Look up and go up. In this principle lies the cause and cure of depression. All other approaches from without in are but therapies, which have their use. 

IMBALANCE IN BRAIN CHEMISTRY AN EXCUSE

I frequently hear what I will call the excuse that a person’s depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. This can be so and is the case in what is called “clinical depression.”  Brain chemistry imbalance is at the root of such conditions as manic depression and bipolar disorders and paranoid schizophrenia. Well, what system produces brain chemistry? The endocrine system of hormonal glands. Who controls the endocrine system? I do. You do. We control our hormonal output by the spirits and attitudes we harbor and express through our feelings, thoughts words and actions. We are not victims subject to our brain chemistry and hormones.  We are the masters of our brains and hormones.  In the case of depression and all other forms of dis-ease in our body-mind-spirit continuum, we are their perpetrators not their victims. We victimize our endocrine system and brains. By the same token, we are their saviors and redeemers. 

I am reminded of a story my mentor, Dr. Bill Bahan, used in his whole-health symposiums. This Italian fellow came to work with his lunch box every day.  When he opened his lunch box to eat his lunch, he would always complain: “Ugh! Cream-a- cheese sandwiches! I hate-a-cream-a-cheese sandwiches!” Every day, when he sat down with his buddies to eat lunch, he would open his lunch box and exclaim: “Ugh! Cream-a-cheese sandwiches? I hate-a-cream-a-cheese sandwiches!” Well, after several days of hearing the same complaint every day, one of his buddies said: “Every day you bring the same lunch to work and complain about your cream-a-cheese sandwiches. Why don’t you have your wife make you a different sandwich?”  To which this fellow replied: “My wife?!  I’m-a-not-a married. I make-a-them myself!”

Laughter’s the best medicine, especially when we can laugh at ourselves. I’m not suggesting in this series of posts that appropriate medications should not be taken in cases of clinical depression and bipolar disorders of the brain. What I am offering is an opportunity to look more deeply for the cause and cure of depression. While you’re medicating your brain, take time to meditate on cause. If complaint brings you down, then try a little thankfulness. Some say they can’t be thankful and optimistic “under the circumstances” they find themselves.  To that I would say: “Come up above your circumstances by expressing a spirit of joy and appreciation.  Will it work? you ask. You won’t know unless and until you try it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, to use an old cliche.  

The Biblical guidance is: “In all things give thanks.” That would be a constant and continual source of blessing to your body, you brain and your heart. A greatly needed blessing to our world.

Here’s to your health and healing,

Dr. Anthony Palombo

Visit my HealingTones.org blog for inspiring articles on sacred energy.

WELCOME GUAM!  Someone in Guam visited my blogs yesterday (July 28, 2014).  Guam, a United States territory, is the largest of the Micronesian Islands, located just south of the Mariana Islands  in the Pacific Ocean with the Philippine Sea to its east.  This makes 118 countries that have visited my blogs.

 

 

 

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Depression: Its Causes and Cures, part 2: The Gut-Brain Connection

Tony Pics for SA BookIn part 1 of this series on depression, we had a look at blood sugar imbalance as a cause of one kind of depression. In this post we could have a look at the gut-brain connection to find another possible cause, as all diseases seem to start in the gut.  I will kick this consideration off with a short video clip by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD, author or Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), on the importance of a healthy gut flora. Here’s a link to a website on the gut-brain connection. http://www.depressionanxietydiet.com/gut-brain-connection-depression-anxiety/ Dr. Campbell-McBride makes a good case for why there is so much mental illness and depression in increasingly more and more people.  Diet and nutrition obviously play major roles in mental health issues.

There’s a great article in Scientific America, which I will excerpt here just enough to entice you to read the entire article.  I highly recommend this article to my blog followers and visitors. 

Think Twice: How the Gut’s “Second Brain” Influences Mood and Well-Being

The emerging and surprising view of how the enteric nervous system in our bellies goes far beyond just processing the food we eat.
Feb 12, 2010 |By Adam Hadhazy
olympic butterflies gut second brain
ISTOCKPHOTO/ERAXION 

As Olympians go for the gold in Vancouver, eventhe steeliest are likely to experience that familiar feeling of “butterflies” in the stomach. Underlying this sensation is an often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts that is so extensive some scientists have nicknamed it our “second brain”. A deeper understanding of this mass of neural tissue, filled with important neurotransmitters, is revealing that it does much more than merely handle digestion or inflict the occasional nervous pang. The little brain in our innards, in connection with the big one in our skulls, partly determines our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body. . . .

 “The second brain doesn’t help with the great thought processes…religion, philosophy and poetry is left to the brain in the head,” says Michael Gershon, chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, an expert in the nascent field of neurogastroenterology and author of the 1998 book The Second Brain(HarperCollins). . . . 

The second brain informs our state of mind in other more obscure ways, as well. “A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut,” Mayer says. Butterflies in the stomach—signaling in the gut as part of our physiological stress response, Gershon says—is but one example. Although gastrointestinal (GI) turmoil can sour one’s moods, everyday emotional well-being may rely on messages from the brain below to the brain above. For example, electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve—a useful treatment for depression—may mimic these signals, Gershon says. Given the two brains’ commonalities, other depression treatments that target the mind can unintentionally impact the gut.

The enteric nervous system uses more than 30 neurotransmitters, just like the brain, and in fact 95 percent of the body’s serotonin is found in the bowels. Because antidepressant medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) increase serotonin levels, it’s little wonder that meds meant to cause chemical changes in the mind often provoke GI issues as a side effect. Irritable bowel syndrome—which afflicts more than two million Americans—also arises in part from too much serotonin in our entrails, and could perhaps be regarded as a “mental illness” of the second brain.

Scientists are learning that the serotonin made by the enteric nervous system might also play a role in more surprising diseases: In a new Nature Medicine study published online February 7, a drug that inhibited the release of serotonin from the gut counteracted the bone-deteriorating disease osteoporosis in postmenopausal rodents. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) “It was totally unexpected that the gut would regulate bone mass to the extent that one could use this regulation to cure—at least in rodents—osteoporosis,” says Gerard Karsenty, lead author of the study and chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Medical Center.

Serotonin seeping from the second brain might even play some part in autism, the developmental disorder often first noticed in early childhood. Gershon has discovered that the same genes involved in synapse formation between neurons in the brain are involved in the alimentary synapse formation. “If these genes are affected in autism,” he says, “it could explain why so many kids with autism have GI motor abnormalities” in addition to elevated levels of gut-produced serotonin in their blood.

This may give us a new appreciation and meaningful insight into the adage “Listen to your gut feeling.” This article leaves little doubt about the importance of a healthy gut flora.  There are numerous health products out there to help clean up your alimentary canal and keep it well supplied with friendly bacteria.  Fasting is one way to give the gut a reprieve from its primary duty of digesting the seventy tons of food we pass through it over an average lifespan.  

Dr. Depak Chopra recommends a one-day fast every week to foster the production of growth hormones and thereby add years to one’s life.  I haven’t personally heeded his advice, but I have fasted for as much as seven days, and I can attest to the incredible impact fasting has on one’s mental and visual acuity and function.

Fasting is safer under the supervision of a health practitioner or physician and should not be done without proper preparation and professional guidance.   I’m not going to spend time here on all the ways to help keep a healthy intestinal tract.  That is readily available on the web and in health related books.  I will only tout and highly recommend the 21-day total body cleanse put out by Standard Process Labs in their Purification Kit at a moderate cost of $250. That I make my readers aware of the gut-brain connection in mental health and illness issues, such as depression, is sufficient for this post. Until my next post in this series,

Here’s to your mental health and healing,

Anthony Palombo, DC

Visit my second blog at HealingTones.org for inspired writing on the spiritual and energetic aspects of health and life.