The difference: What 40 Dollars Means

The President had a chance to meet a few of the folks who took to the web to make the pay roll tax cut happen. Take a moment to hear what they had to say. It began when we asked everyone to show how that missing $40 would affect them and their families. In a matter of hours thousands of vivid, powerful stories from Americans of all ages, all backgrounds, from every corner across the country were pouring in. For some, $40 means dinner out with a child who's home for Christmas, for others a tank of gas or a charitable donation. In just two days, tens of thousands of Americans were making their voice heard. Read more......

Ron Paul attacks eclipsing the real issues?

Ron Paul in the latest polls is the leading front runner for the GOP presidential nomination. And of course, when you are the leading candidate the smear campaigns will follow. The mainstream media mostly ignored Paul, but now the claims that Paul is a racist have been on almost every media outlet. Although these attacks have increased, no one has attacked him on his policies. Michael Tracey, a journalist, joins us to give us some insight on these recent attacks for the presidential hopeful. Read more....

Congress In The 70's Vs Today (Wealthier, More Conservative)

A Washington Post report breaks down the growing income inequality between Congressmen and the constituents they represent. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur shares the details.


Plutonomy: Economic growth that is powered and consumed by the wealthiest upper class of society. Plutonomy refers to a society where the majority of the wealth is controlled by a minority; as such, the economic growth of that society becomes dependent on the fortunes of that same wealthy minority.
Plutocracy: rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The combination of both plutocracy and oligarchy is called plutocracy. Read more......

Porter Stansberry: The Corruption of America 2/2

The numbers tell us America is in decline… if not outright collapse. Read more.....

Documentary Trailer, Hole In The Head: A Life Revealed

This short documentary trailer will stun you, disturb you, and move you. A mind-boggling story of America’s ugly past, unknown in the present. View with caution. More here.....

China and Japan Deliver A Huge Blow To the U.S. Dollar!!!

China and Japan agree to start direct trading of currencies. China is the world's second-largest economy while Japan is the third largest, and the currency agreement is part of a move away from using dollars. Read more.....

Gerald Celente: Money Junkies and The Coming "Bank Holiday"

On the Tuesday edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex talks with noted trends forecaster Gerald Celente on the latest concerning the MF Global heist. Celente also covers the top 12 trends of 2012. Celente is on the record for accurately forecasting and naming the current "Great Recession" and for forecasting the 1987 Stock Market Crash, the Dot-com bust, Gold Bull Run to Begin, 2001 Recession, the Real Estate bubble, the "Panic of '08", Tax Revolts, and the coming "Greatest Depression." He is the publisher of the Trends Journal. Read more.....

Anonymous - #OpB: AMERICA IS IN DANGER!

UPDATE!!! What do Lieberman, Obama, McCain, and Bush have in common? According to this leaked court case...THEY'RE ALL MURDERERS!!!!!! SPREAD THIS EVERYWHERE! THE MOTHERLOAD OF LEAKS! Government Gangsters Revealed COURT CASE!

BREAKING -- Senate just approved #NDAA 86-13, exactly 220 years to the date after the Bill of Rights was ratified.

AMERICAN FREEDOM ALERT - CODE RED!

The Government has committed TREASON against you! Will you sit and watch while your freedoms are taken away? Or will you walk out your door and fight for your rights? THE CHOICE IS YOURS. THE LATTER IS BEST.

Gather an army of people. Flood the streets. If police gives you violence, give them tenfold of that. OCCUPATIONS ARE OVER. REAL REVOLUTION IS HERE. THE FORMER UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT SHALL BE DESTROYED! Read more.....

Welcome to the United Food Stamps of America and the Greatest Depression.

People seeking assistance has dramatically risen during the Greater Depression. They don't even run the food bank in France during warm weather, but gleaning is legal here year 'round. About a third of the French who qualify for benefits refuse to take them. I've been warning my fellow Americans about this for DECADES and have been called all kinds of names. The writing has been on the wall since the '80s. I don't think Americans understand how tough and calm and frugal most Europeans are. We've seen a lot! Uprated. Read more....

Is Sharon (Politically) Dead?

On February 26, 2012 Ariel "Arik" Sharon will be 84, although it is very unlikely that he will celebrate his birthday. This is because he has been in a coma, probably brain dead as well, since January 6, 2006. He will probably die without ever having regained consciousness.

But imagine, for argument's sake, that tomorrow he were successfully revived and like many elderly people who suffer strokes he would be able to recover cognitive function eventually. This would at minimum probably take a year before he could speak without slurring his words and think and function at a high level. And it might be possible--even likely--that while in a coma he had developed some sort of dementia. It is doubtful that voters or party functionaries would trust someone of that age with the premiership. When Sharon suffered his stroke and was subsequently permanently relieved of the premiership he was 77-78, older than any previous occupier of his office. Previously the oldest premier at retirement had been David Ben-Gurion, the first and third prime minister who retired in June 1963 at age 76.5. So no Israeli prime minister has crossed the 80-year-old barrier and none is likely to ever do so--particularly someone who has suffered a severe stroke.  Between Ben-Gurion and Sharon Golda Meir had retired at age 76 in 1974 and Shimon Peres at age 73 in 1996.


Plus he would have to find a party that would let him run as its leader. When he left the Likud in November 2005 he burned his bridges. Among the parties of the Right he is considered to be a traitor or a leftist or both due to his withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005. In Kadima, the third and final party he founded, he would have to compete against both Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz. At age 84 or 85 he would be in no shape to mount a vigorous reelection campaign. In Israel four prime ministers have returned for a second term after a period out of office: Ben-Gurion in 1956 after less than 18 months away; Rabin in 1992 after fifteen years out of office; Peres in 1995 following Rabin's assassination after nine years away and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009 after a decade away. Rabin, Peres, and Netanyahu remained major figures in their party the whole time they were out of office. Peres returned to the premiership from the defense ministry where he had been minister for 5.5 years and then head of the opposition. Peres served as finance minister and foreign minister between 1986 and 1995.  Netanyahu served as finance minister.  Sharon has been largely out of the news since his stroke.

If not the premiership then perhaps some other ministry? Peres has been the only major party leader in Israel to break the 80-year-old barrier and the only minister I can think of who was over 80 (although it is possible that a leader of one of the religious parties served as a minister in a minor ministry after age 80).  He served as foreign minister under Sharon in a Likud-led coalition from 2001 to 2003. Kadima under Livni has since late 2008 moved far to the left of where it was under Sharon's leadership in late 2005.  If he were to attempt to serve as a minister the press would be full of speculation by doctors about the degree of his mental impairment after the stroke.

So having established that Sharon's political career is over, we are free to examine his legacy. Sharon's legacy as a politician (as distinct from that as a soldier) comes down to four main areas. First, as founder of the Likud in the summer of 1973 he made possible the Right's rise to power in 1977. Thus, he is the equivalent of New Gingrich. Second, as the main political godfather of the settlement movement he made possible under the prime ministries of Begin and Shamir the colonization of the West Bank by religious and secular Jews. Third, as prime minister he brought back assassination after nearly a thirty-year absence as a means of dealing with Palestinian terrorism. He also returned the IDF to Area A (the cities) of the West Bank after an absence since 1995. And he carried out the first removal of settlements within Eretz Israel (Palestine) in August 2005 from Gaza. And finally, by creating Kadima in late 2005 he created a successor party to Labor as a Center-Left party. Next post I will discuss his relative position compared to other Israeli prime ministers.

Are the Palestinians an "Invented People?"

Top-tier Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently caused controversy--mostly outside of the GOP--by stating that the Palestinians were an "invented people." He said this in an interview with a New York cable television channel, Jewish TV, that as the name implies is geared towards Jews. He also referred to the Palestinians as terrorists. Gingrich understands the Palestinians as "invented" i.e. phony because in the past they merely called themselves Arabs. In this he is correct. But this is not unique in the Middle East. The area was until the end of World War I part of the Ottoman Empire and the inhabitants of the Levant thought of themselves as Ottomans, Muslims, and Arabs (or Jews or Kurds or Turkomans). Until the end of World War II the Union of Reform Synagogues, then the largest Jewish denomination in America, insisted that the Jews were not a people but only a religion. (I couldn't provide a link to this because it is something that Reform Jews are ashamed of today, but read any standard history of the denomination and it is found.) This sentiment was shared by the vast majority of Orthodox rabbis in Europe and even Palestine at the time. It was mainly secular Jews who were Zionists. They reached back two millennia in time to a time when ordinary Jews spoke Hebrew (or at least Aramaic), lived in Eretz Israel, and regarded themselves as a nation. Are the Jews an invented people as well?

Actually all peoples are "invented." That is to say nationalism is a business or process of selection of bits of culture, history and even language to create a common national identity. In Yugoslavia it involved selecting a particular dialect to become the basis of Serbo-Croatian that was then taught in the schools for both Croats and Serbs. After the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s the opposite process occurred and the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) all infused their new "languages" with different words to differentiate them. The easiest job in the world was to be an inter-Yugoslav translator or interpreter. Select episodes in history are emphasized and heroes who are useful at the time are set up as exemplars for the population. Needless to say many of the German heroes from the Nazi period are no longer taught in schools as German heroes. 

But none of this is really important to Gingrich, the man who continually reinvents himself. He knows that pro-Israel anti-Arab rhetoric is red meat to Republican audiences. If he is someday elected president and decides to deal with the Middle East diplomatically he can always use the Foreign Service to explain what he really meant (or to explain to the Arab rulers that it was all political rhetoric, which they should understand without too much of a problem). Here is why Evangelical Protestant conservatives have replaced American Jews as Israel's main American constituency. And here is what that may mean for Israel down the road. And here is a post from one of the HaAretz blogs on what the problems with Gingrich's claim are.

The Carlat Psychiatry Blog: Syracuse Restaurant Becomes "Pharmaceutical Dinner Facility"

The Carlat Psychiatry Blog: Syracuse Restaurant Becomes "Pharmaceutical Dinner Facility"

Why Kadima Can't Replace Labor as Peace Party

Here are five quick reasons why Kadima cannot replace the Labor Party as the backbone of the Israeli peace camp:

1) It is led by a leader, Tzipi Livni, who has confessed that she doesn't like politics and feels that politics is like a sewer. Here is Ha'Aretz's take on that revelation.

2) Tzipi Livni barely beat out Shaul Mofaz for the leadership of the party in 2008. Mofaz has in order three ambitions: a) take over as Kadima party leader; b) replace Barak as defense minister--his old job; 3) replace Netanyahu as leader of the Right.

3) In order to nearly keep its same strength in the 2009 election as in 2006, Kadima had to cannibalize Labor and Meretz. This has left it incapable of leading a coalition on its own.

4) Kadima has no core principles or ideology--it was founded as a party of convenience like the Center Party and the DMC before it. It has avoided their fates simply because it was much more successful at the polls the first time out because of Sharon, who is permanently gone.

5) Kadima's potential Palestinian peace partner is Fatah, which is as conflicted as  Kadima.

Diplomacy Needs a Museum

On prime real estate on the Capitol Square in Madison, WI is the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. It contains exhibits on all the major wars from the Civil War to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that Wisconsin citizens have served in. There are similar, but smaller museums in Milwaukee and Oshkosh. They are funded by a combination of Veterans Administration funds, donations of old equipment by the Defense Department, private donations and bookshop sales. If we conservatively estimate that each one receives $100,000 annually in taxpayer funds to pay for rent, salaries, and display expenses that is a total cost of $.3 million in Wisconsin alone. If we conservatively multiply that by 30 to 40 times (to account for smaller New England and Eastern states that may only have a single museum each) this amounts to a total of $9 million to $12 million annually to subsidize American military history.

There are two other types of taxpayer funded military museums--those on military bases funded by the Defense Dept. and military battlefield national parks funded by the Interior Dept. I'm not claiming that this is wasted money--it is important that the country's citizens have a chance to learn the cost of war. Battlefield National Parks are popular tourist destinations and useful for training young Army and Marine Corps officers in tactics. The base museums help to educate officers on combined arms operations and the functions of the various branches of their services. But these museums create a distortion, funded by the taxpayers. Foreign policy is most effective when there is a tight coordination between military threat and diplomacy. The public is being educated about the means and reality of the deterrent half of the equation, but not about the diplomatic half. There is no public museum yet dedicated to diplomacy.

During the bloody twentieth century several methods of conflict resolution were developed following the end of World War I and continuing after World War II. First, on the initiative of President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister Jan Smuts of South Africa the League of Nations was established as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It failed to prevent World War II, but it did sponsor the first peacekeeping forces (in Central Europe) and a system of mandates for supervising the administration of the conquered German and Ottoman territories and colonies. There was also a major experiment in naval arms control in the 1920s and early 1930s that eventually broke down because of Germany and Japan. Following World War II these early attempts were renewed and expanded under the auspices of the United Nations. The UN took over supervising the League of Nations mandates as UN Trusteeships. Starting in 1957 a system of peacekeeping forces was developed with forces donated on an ad hoc basis by UN member nations for specific peacekeeping missions around the world--particularly in the Middle East and Africa. Starting with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 (which also involved Britain) there was a regime of nuclear arms control negotiated between the two superpowers resulting in a series of arms control treaties in the 1970s and 1980s that proved much more successful than the naval arms control of the 1920s. And for internal civil wars, political sciences have developed a theory of consociationalism or power sharing based on the experiences of four Western European countries after World War II. This has proved successful in ending the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Museum specialists using maps, photos, copies of treaties, etc. could build a museum dedicated to diplomacy and conflict resolution as interesting as any military museum. And think of all the material that Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East and Africa and two Camp David summits (1978, 2000) would provide the museum! Such a museum could educate the public about the means at diplomats disposal for resolving conflicts, keeping the peace, and creating a relatively peaceful world. Those who attend universities and major in international relations and political science are educated about these techniques. But the wider public is largely ignorant of them.  

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell started work on establishing a Museum of American Diplomacy and visitors center at the State Dept. It is still not completed.

Israel: The Siege Tightens

I have written a number of posts in which I assert that Israel is a siege democracy along with Northern Ireland. Here is an article by veteran New York Times Middle Eastern correspondent and now columnist Thomas Friedman on Israel's environment as perceived from Israel.

Israeli perceptions may seem to outsiders like paranoia--and they definitely are not the perceptions of a normal state. But Israel is not a normal state inhabited by a normal people. It is the Jewish state called for in the UN General Assembly partition resolution of November 29, 1947 (whose 64th anniversary was marked by Friedman's article).  Jews have suffered from a basic insecurity from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ACE/AD until the present day. There have been good periods of relative security and well being followed by periods of extreme insecurity. From 1881 to 1946 there was a period of extreme violence for European Jewry starting with a series of pogroms (incited massacres) in Russia and Romania and culminating in the industrial slaughter of two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population in the Holocaust. Not coincidentally, this is exactly the period that saw the rise of Zionism with the first Zionist theorists on anti-semitism in Europe (Leo Pinsker in 1882, Theodore Herzl in 1895) and the first Zionist immigration to Palestine. But the perceptions are perfectly rational and normal for a people that has suffered the experiences of the Jews in recent history.

Likewise, Palestinians seem paranoid at times about what they perceive as Israel's attempts to steal all of their land. Such perceptions are also normal for any people that has suffered the experiences of the Palestinians since 1948, when Palestinians were expelled in an-Nakba from parts of modern Israel by the same logic as Germans were expelled from Central Europe in 1944-46 by the victors in a war that Germany had started. Since 1967 Israel has gone about settling the West Bank and Gaza, first in a few strategic locations in an attempt to reverse the results of the 1948 war when Jewish settlers were expelled from Gush Etzion near Bethlehem and from the Old City without allowing the Palestinians to do the same. Then starting in the mid-1970s Jews were allowed to settle in many settlements throughout the West Bank. So just as Jews fear that Arabs want to finish the job that Hitler started, Palestinians and Arabs fear that Jews want to finish the process that they started in 1948.

Extremism feeds off of extremism. Twenty-nine years of Arab siege led to the Likud coming to power in 1977. In 1948 the party that became the main part of the Likud, Herut, was marginal to Israeli politics and was excluded from all Israeli governments until June 1967. The settlement project sponsored by the Likud and the religious Zionists of the National Religious Party along with the corruption of Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority led to the rise of Hamas. Hamas won the Palestinian election of January 2006. The threat of Hamas helped stiffen Yasir Arafat's spine at Camp David in July 2000 when he denied the existence of a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (to the annoyance of the American Arabic interpreter, an Egyptian Copt) and sunk the possibility of any compromise with Israel. Arafat then initiated the Al-Aksa Intifada with Israel in October 2000. This led to Sharon coming to power as first prime minister in February 2001 and then as head of the victorious Likud in Knesset elections in 2003. Since this time all Israeli governments have been dominated by the Right. With the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, in which over 400 prisoners were traded for Gilad Shalit, Prime Minister Netanyahu was attempting to weaken Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a negotiating partner. 

In Northern Ireland Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists cooperated quite nicely against the peace deal of the moderates at the beginning of the decade of the 2000s. After they sufficiently weakened their ethnic rivals they then made a deal to share power. Unfortunately, in the Middle East it is more difficult. Both Hamas and the Likud in practice oppose the two-state solution. If they continue to oppose it long enough they will then have to make the bloody transition to sharing power in a one-state solution. Now outsiders are only pushing Northern Ireland as a successful example of negotiation politics. In another decade they may begin pushing it as a successful model of power sharing between ethnic enemies. Then Israel and the Palestinians will be in real trouble.

The Strategic Importance of Democracy for Israel

I receive a daily selection of links to articles from the Israeli Hebrew press prepared by Americans for Peace Now (sign up at peacenow.org--the links are to articles in both English and Hebrew). So I have been witnessing an ongoing assault by the Israeli Right on the structures of democracy in Israel. The Zionist Left is as weak today in the Knesset as the white South African Left was in the parliament in the 1970s. Liberalism there consisted of the English-speaking press, and in the 1980s of a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as the Progressive Federal Party. The ruling National Party made parliament irrelevant by making other venues the focus of decision making in the National Security Management System. 

The Israeli Right, led by Israel Beitenu's Avigdor Leiberman, has gone after the Israeli NGOs and the Supreme Court. This was after they started over a year ago targeting Israel's Arab minority with the talk of mandatory loyalty oaths. For a discussion of how this is playing with Israeli Arabs see the two selections by Palestinians at Bitter Lemons.


They are now trying to pass laws designed to limit the amount of foreign funds that the NGOs can receive. They started out a couple of months ago by going after the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, which was an easier target. Now they are going after the NGOs and the Supreme Court. Because Israel lacks a constitution, but rather, substitutes for it a serious of "basic laws" passed by the Knesset, the Supreme Court is freer to craft its rulings without regard to actual text and constitutional history (much like the Warren Court in the U.S.). I can understand how this can be frustrating to the Right. At present there seems to be a battle taking place in the Right between Likud believers in European liberalism as supported by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menahem Begin, such as Dan Meridor, Benni Begin, and Reuven Rivlin and the Right outside of the Likud, which is based upon immigrants from the former Soviet Union and religious Jews. 

This could end up affecting more than Israel's domestic politics. Israel's status as the only real democracy in the Middle East is its last piece of strategic leverage in Washington among both parties. Previously Israel could rely on three things: first, sympathy with the Jewish state over the Holocaust; second, Israel's status as a reliable ally during the Cold War; and third, Israel's status as the only democracy in the region. It is now more than a generation--two generations--after the Holocaust and the horrors of that period have receded from a living memory to history. Since then there have been several more genocides: in Cambodia, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, and in Darfur. The Cold War has now been over for twenty years and in the new "global war on terror" Israel is as much a burden as an asset as an ally. This is a war fought mainly internally within the Arab world and the Muslim world for political dominance between fundamentalists and moderates. Israel is an asset for the fundamentalists as a scape goat for the backwardness of the societies involved. Thus, we are left with Israel's status as the only democracy in the region--which is also now under threat.

Over the last decade the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish) in Turkey, has been fighting in the courts to remove the special privileges granted the military under the constitution. Under the constitution the Turkish military had the right to intervene to safeguard Turkey, much as the militaries in Latin America had that "duty" (at least in their own self-conception) until the 1980s. This has been a net benefit for democracy in Turkey. But at the same time the AKP has pursued a vendetta against the military in the courts. The AKP has used the conspiracy theory of the Ergenekon, a shadowy organization that may or may not exist, to justify an all-out attack on its enemies.

With the Israeli Right doing the same thing in Israel, it is hard to draw much distinction between Israel and Turkey in terms of the development of their democracies. This may not be so important in the Republican Party, where Israel is supported by Evangelical Protestants for religious reasons having to do with belief in the role of Jews in the second coming of Jesus. But among Democrats it makes a good deal of difference. Democratic legislators look to American Jews for their cues regarding Israel. As a majority of American Jews belong to denominations not officially recognized as Jewish in Israel such as Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism--they are already alienated from the religious establishment in Israel. Now if the Right outlaws their ability to financially support organizations in Israel they will be further alienated. The Israeli Right risks alienating Israel not only from its only reliable ally, Washington, but from the most important Jewish community in the diaspora.

The CNN National Security Debate

I just finished watching the CNN-Heritage Foundation National Security Debate, the second foreign policy debate so far in this election cycle. I was most interested in seeing how the front runners performed: Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. I thought that Romney outperformed his chief rival. Romney was cautious and played not to make any major errors as well as getting in subtle digs at his opponents. Newt was busy showing off and showing how smart he was--which left him open for attack from Michelle Bachmann and others for supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. Romney said he was opposed to creating magnets for illegal immigration and he specifically mentioned in-state tuition rates for illegals. This was a subtle dig at Rick Perry.

Bachmann and Rick Santorum again had their moments as in the first foreign policy debate in SC about ten days ago. But neither has much chance of winning the nomination if polls are anything to go by. Huntsman also sounded intelligent, but he also is not going anywhere. Herman Cain sounded as ignorant as ever. In fact he sounds like a black male version of Sarah Palin--winging it and hoping to cover up his ignorance by his fervor.

Ron Paul is beginning to wear on me. He repeats the same things every time. His libertarian approach to foreign policy has some ideological appeal, but his claim that the Taliban just want to be left alone is a vast distortion of the historical record. The Taliban leadership invited Al-Qaeda into their country in the expectation that Bin-Ladin would attempt to carry out terrorist attacks against the West. Paul is just beginning to sound like Dennis Kusinich--he even looks like a taller version of him.

Go here for a very good critique of the debate looking at what was not asked. The article also ridicules Romney's pompous assures about keeping American military primacy and stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon's capability. As Pakistan demonstrated during the Reagan administration and North Korea demonstrated during the Clinton administration, if a country wants the bomb badly enough and is willing to pay the peace, it will get the bomb. Only Huntsman was willing to risk electoral oblivion to make this rather obvious point.

I look forward to the days after the South Carolina primary when the field begins to really thin out and it will be possible to only have three or four candidates up on the stage instead of eight, so that a real debate can be staged in which the candidates will have the opportunity of interacting with one another. In the past this occurred after the New Hampshire debate, but with the Republicans copying the Democrats and awarding delegates by percentage it will take the field longer to thin out this year.

Depression In Senior Citizens

It is not unusual for senior citizens to become depressed, and there are different ways to say when someone you know is stressed with this condition. Depression can be caused by more than a few things. It is important when you first notice the signs and symptoms to address the problem immediately. Choosing to ignore the signs of depression can lead to conditions that is far more serious and even life threatening.

Depression is a normal part of aging. But this is common in people over age 65 and symptoms of depression may be different for adults than for younger people.

American Academy of Family Physicians lists these common symptoms of depression in adults:

Losing interest in activities that were once enjoyed.

Feelings of sadness, numbness, worthlessness or guilt.

Suddenly crying for no reason, or crying regularly.

Feeling tired, slow, restless or irritable.

Sudden change in appetite or unexplained change in weight.

Changes in sleep patterns, including sleeping too much or sleep problems.

Difficulty remembering or intent, and making decisions.

As frequent headaches, backaches or digestive problems

Depression is a very serious situation that often goes undiagnosed and treated in the old. Many of the symptoms of someone slipping into depression are wrong for a normal part of getting old.

Also, depression has non-environmental causes. Brain damage, tumors and chemical imbalances can cause depression. Be alert that some instruction medicines can trigger depression.

Depression In Pregnancy

Depression is very general during pregnancy and delivery of mail. Thus, many people ignore this. Well, if Midland is reasonable, then it can not be taken lightly, but if the problem is too severe, then you should attend medical.

Many women face depression during pregnancy, particularly because there is upheaval and imbalance of hormones. And this leads to mood swings. There are many women who have this problem mostly because of doubt in the mind. Will have to think what will happen to the baby. Will have to think that if your baby is safe in the womb, and whether there would be nothing wrong with that.

The main tip is that depression after delivery is going to be there and is called postpartum depression. This will be changes in hormones and thus has the look of mood swings. In some cases it is seen that the problem will be so much that she can not even as a baby nurse or taking care of him.

And this condition is really frightening. This is because there are chances that people who get this kind of feelings may also attempt suicide. This can indeed be dangerous and should soon see a medical expert to solve this problem. Females who believe that their children are a problem, you should see a doctor soon.

Depression is a very common problem among many people. But when it occurs in new mothers is a serious matter indeed. Pregnancy brings many new things in life. The moment you know you are pregnant; you'll find so many new things that happen in your life, both physically and sensitively.

The most common thing that will come is beautiful stretch marks during pregnancy. Stretch marks during pregnancy appear buttocks, thighs, stomach, chest and even hands. 90% of all pregnant women will get them while they are pregnant. And thus in the sense that the pregnancy might have on looks may also create the impression that pregnancy is bad and this can guide to depression.

Depression can be careful as a quiet killer. It can create many problems in the life of someone. You need to find some natural way in which this problem can be sorted. Many women face depression during pregnancy, especially because there is upheaval and imbalance of hormones. And this leads to mood swings. You can see that the family supports new Mom in. And this will help her to face all blue that occur at the cost of the new birth that takes place in the home. This will give her good support.

TMS Depression Treatment

Depression is a medical confusion that affects body and mind. Depression affects how a person feels, thinks and act. Depression look like a rising health problem may be due to we life comfort living now a days.

Treatment of depression using antidepressants is controversial because they feel happy with the results of their treatment, and on the other hand others are disappointed and Kalin ineffectiveness of these antidepressants, which have been very patient.

Electroconvulsive therapy is trusted as an effective treatment for depression, but has side effects on memory and thus is not normally used. And patients with resistant cases of depression are awaiting new treatment end their suffering and misery. In 2009, FDA Approved Trancranial magnetic stimulation as a treatment for depression for those cases resistant to win, do not benefit form classic antidepressants.

That Trancranial magnetic stimulation treatment approved for depression, it has its limitations, Trancranial magnetic stimulation will be helpful for patients who can not tolerate antidepressants and work with them. Treatment of depression with Tran cranial magnetic stimulation varies; some patients begin to feel better during the first week of treatment and others - not.

But the real benefit of  Trancranial magnetic stimulation as approved for the treatment of depression is that less side effects are. But on the other hand there is a risk of relapse that has not yet revealed. Also the treatment of depression through transcranial magnetic stimulation is still some problems with insurance coverage. But it is more likely to Tran cranial magnetic stimulation to obtain insurance coverage due to its effectiveness as an antidepressant treatment.

Warm fuzzies

Another anecdote about dismissing depression as irrelevant:

I attended a large healing ritual being orchestrated by a well-known practitioner at an interfaith conference.  Before the actual work began, she went to each participant and asked them what, if any, healing they were seeking for themselves or for people who could not be present.  Some had no need, but there were no small number of people needing help for issues large and small, ranging from muscle aches to serious cancer.  Then, she got to me.

"I suffer from depression," I told her.

"Oh, we'll take care of you at the end, during the 'warm fuzzies,'" she told me.

The ritual was conducted in several phases, with the participants collectively focusing prayer, will, and psychic/magical energies for the healing of various conditions, organized by general type.  It was an emotionally and physically grueling experience for everyone involved.

The "warm fuzzies" portion of the ritual was, it turned out, a group hug while collectively singing a whimsical song; only two or three of the attendees actually knew the words.  The group swayed in a rough approximation of time to the music.

Despite the fact that it destroys lives and even kills people, this nitwit decided that it could be cured with a group hug.

Ye gods.

Will Netanyahu Attack Iran?

Last week on one particular day the foreign policy and defense tollgate site Real Clear World featured two separate articles on Israel and Iran: one claiming that the former would attack the latter and the other the opposite. The case for attack consisted of reports of Israel Air Force aircraft practicing bombing attacks over Italy, statements by Israeli politicians, and the danger to Israel of Iran launching an out-of-the-blue nuclear missile attack on Israel. The case against consisted of the argument that Israel lacked sufficient aircraft to be able to thoroughly damage the extensive Iranian nuclear infrastructure--much of which is located underground--and thus any delay caused by bombing to the Iranian nuclear program would be temporary, the opposition of Washington to such attacks, and the likely blow-back damage that both Israel and the U.S. would suffer from Iranian revenge attacks. Will Netanyahu attack then? The truth is that I have no inside line into the psyche of the Israeli premier and even he probably does not know the final answer to that at the moment.

Bibi watchers are divided between those who see him merely as a shallow politician interested only in keeping his coalition together so that he can remain in power and those who see him as an ideologue interested in implementing neo-Revisionist Likud ideology. During his first term in office that meant stopping the Oslo process. During his second term that means keeping Israeli settlement activity going and weakening the peace process by destabilizing Israel's natural Palestinian partner, Mahmoud Abbas. When he ran for the premiership in January 2009 he made several statements about the dangers posed to Israel's future by Iran's nuclear project. The two politicians Netanyahu most admires surprisingly do not include Menahem Begin, the founder of the Likud's main component, Herut, or his successor Yitzhak Shamir. Instead he likes to quote Revisionist Zionism founder Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Winston Churchill. Jabotinsky warned in the interwar period of the dangers of a Holocaust among European Jewry even before Hitler had come to power in Germany. Churchill warned of the danger of Hitler to the international order and peace. For Netanyahu the Iranian leadership--personified by President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad--embodies both dangers. He is a personal threat to the survival of Jews living in Israel and a threat to the Middle East order.
  

Barack Obama has been content to try and stop the Iranian nuclear project through international nuclear sanctions. In this he has the support of Western Europe and the opposition of Russia and China--a more favorable situation than Bush faced vis a vis Iraq in 2002. Washington has also probably cooperated with covert Israeli efforts like the Stuxnet computer virus that reportedly destroyed several hundred Iranian centrifuges that were being used to enrich uranium. But Obama has resolutely opposed using force against Iran for good reason--the U.S. military is already overextended by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the international economy is very weak. With so much tinder and kindling lying around in the form of bad debt in Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and the United States it does not do to play with matches.

So far Netanyahu has been content to warn Washington, support economic sanctions against Tehran, and support covert measures such as Stuxnet, possible sabotage or missile development sites, and assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. When Netanyahu contemplates Iran he should keep in mind that Churchill not only worried about the dangers of Bolshevism and supported Western intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918-19, but he also came to support a balance of terror between the West and the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Part of growing up as a nation means learning to live with ambiguity and danger and knowing what one can change in one's environment and what one must learn to live with. Netanyahu's real role as a great Israeli politician might be to help Israel come to accept this as well.

Dismissing diagnoses of depression

Sometimes it's liberating to have a formal diagnosis of depression, or even to self-diagnose, because it can bring the symptoms into focus.  Depression is an illness that transcends the artificial barrier we place between mind and body; it begs for a single word that describes both concepts so as to avoid the idea that "it's in your head."

Of course, it is in your head.  Once, when I was explaining it to a friend, I said, "I know that if I make a conscious decision not to be paralyzed by this, it will happen.  I know that emotions drive physical reactions, and physical states likewise elicit emotions, like how smiling can make you feel happier and being happy can make you smile.  I know all these things, but it doesn't make it easier to decide to stop feeling this way."

Later, my friend said to me, "You're that way because you let it . . . whether you use the excuse of you can't help it or not, you control your mind and body, nobody else."

I don't disagree, but I found his position dismissive.  Yes, I control it all, but we have yet to determine exactly how depression controls me.  Why is it that understanding this concept isn't enough to cure me permanently?  I don't accept that I'm defeatist.  It's too pat an answer.

Rather, I suspect that some people are simply more susceptible to these kinds of physioemotional feedback loops than others.  There's got to be a reason, a cause.  I don't believe that anyone would choose -- even subconsciously -- to be miserable, any more than anyone would choose to be homosexual in a society that still largely disdains the practice of same-gender sexual gratification.

I don't talk about being depressed because I am weary of being dismissed as weak, or patronized because I am not strong, or sympathetically viewed as somehow flawed.  Whether or not a specific event precipitates a depressive episode, the depression is not representative of a lack of willpower.  I don't think I am alone in keeping to myself due to this widespread perception.

How to Find the best Depression Center

It is an understood fact that the right treatment center for depression can significantly impact the process of treating depression. If you get your depression cured and then need specialized treatment that addresses your individual needs and interests. All so called "universal treatment decisions are not likely to be successful at all. In fact, finding a good center of concern for the treatment of depression is not difficult and there are basically two parts to it. The first part is finding centers depression, which offers a holistic approach to defining depression. The second part is the chemical aspect of the treatment process.

In general, holistic centers for the treatment of depression tend to be more effective to help patients identify their depression. This is because the holistic approach that covers every aspect of a person's life, ranging from changes in diet, exercise more often and further consultation with the boundaries of the site. With such strong focus and care, depressed patients may be slowly nursed a normal and happy their self. Chemical aspect of the treatment centers to treat depression patients is extremely important as well. In recent times, has helped set up a number of anti depression medication and the results are star. Therefore, a good center for the treatment of depression should give such medicines or drugs as part of treatment for depression.

Whether you're planning to treat depression, problems in a Christian center for depression treatment center or hospital treatment of depression, there are some basics to be noted. For starters, confidentiality is required. People are nervous and nervous to make known their depression problems in one-on-one consultation session. As such, a good program for the treatment of depression should be discreet and not to disclose, and dedicated to patient information. The next time you need to ensure that program is aimed at treating the cause of your depression and depressive symptoms that are brought. Dealing with similar symptoms is the key to treatment success.

If you are a teenager to depression problems, then you will want to consider youth center for the treatment of depression. Otherwise, it is recommended that an adult residential treatment center for depression. Housing treatment center for depression is a place where a depressed person may seek comprehensive care as a moral support from support groups, psychological education, art, teaching life skills and cognitive behavioral therapy. The main thought behind residential treatment for depression is that depressed people should seek solace in a community of patients facing the same set of problems. Thus, they can share their problems together and help each other. Residential Treatment Center Sierra Tucson as experienced in the treatment of all types of depression

Tips for Helping a Depressed Friend

You're stressed, because your friend is depressing? Is your best friend going through a bad stage in your life? This is the hardest thing to see your depressed loved one. If your best friend suddenly stopped talking and socializing with people, and prefers to spend most of their time alone in his room and then all you need is to help manage with depression.

When a person is depressed, they often feel alone. And if things are taken care at the right time, then he may even try to commit suicide if they become seriously depressed. If you want to help your friend who is a victim of depression, then, here are some things you can do.

Educate yourself first

If you do not know much about depression, then you must first do some study to recognize dangerous symptoms and be able to offer assistance. Many times a victim himself knows that they are in a state of depression or usually trying to secrete everything in order and not to worry anyone. So, to manage with the situation perfectly, read more and more about this problem because it will help you understand why you’re loved one behaves the way they do.

Prove him that you care

When a person is depressed, he needs someone caring. Do not just go and start to ask "What is wrong with you?" or "Why do not you talk correctly these days?" or "Why do you sit in your room all the time?" This is not the correct way to handle a depressed person. Your questions might get on your nerves him and he can not share the problem with you, but for a cup of coffee or just walk and talk about general things to lighten his mood. This will not only make him feel care, but also to help him relax a little and feel happy.

Be a sympathetic listener

To make depressed person talking about their feelings or problems is the hardest thing. So if your friend begins to tell you why he is sad or depressed, no matter what the reason, never laugh at him or disapprove of him. This can only make the situation worse. Offer emotional support to him and encourage him politely to speak his heart.

After listening to all his difficulty, do not talk about negative things or give it a negative picture. Try to talk about positive things, and if possible, to offer some solutions to solve the problem that a friend is depressed.

Medical Help

If in the end nothing seems to work then it is better to seek medical attention for the same. You may have to work a little harder to encourage a friend to see a doctor because most victims of depression are prone to medical treatment done, thinking they are capable sufficient to deal with it, but it is your responsibility to compel his advice or prescription drugs to get out of depression.

Depression Test Information

This is a very helpful "implement" for a psychologist or other trained professional. There are many tests for depression. Some are improved than others; some just are not good at all. This is why it is important to know some essential characteristics of a good test. They must be designed by a psychologist in order to be valid. There is good quality reason. The psychologist is trained throughout his / her studies to do tests and make them as objective and as right as possible. 

This, in mixture with other good psychologist has knowledge is a requirement for valid and appropriate testing. Also much of each test, if not the most important is its score. Again, evaluation is best carried out by a professional.

Online you can find many tests; but, most of them are invalid. Therefore, they are void, not that they are of necessity wrong, but incomplete. One thing to doubt that is depressed and the other is to know if they are really depressed and to what extent.

If you or someone in your family scored "high" on some of these tests, do not jump into conclusions. You can make a meeting with a psychologist, and any doubts can be cleared at a meeting, or the treatment can start.

Sometimes the test may be very good, but is not appropriate for someone to take it. For example, tests that may very well able to notice depression in adults can be and usually is not appropriate for children and it can lead to misdiagnosis.

Depression is also a test for women and men is not the same, because one does not usually depressed as depressed woman. Of course, there are some common symptoms, but the fact is that the test of depression must be suitable for a person.

The most important thing to remember when doing a test is that even if this particular test is a good and valid test is not sufficient for diagnosis.

In end, the test is very useful and should be done by people who suspect they might be depressed. If the result is positive, you must go to your doctor.

He will make sure you do not take any medication whose side effects can mimic the symptoms of depression. Also, if a physical disease that can guide to symptoms of depression should go to a psychologist.

When doing test always remembers that the test is only a first step to proper diagnosis and possible treatment. As you keep this in mind tests for depression, you can do as much as you want.

How to end Depression Naturally

There are lots of treatments for depression. The majority of people choose to consult doctors to treat depression. They prescribe anti-depressant drugs, which in most cases the situation is worse than to give you relief from the situation.

You can choose for natural methods, as it helps to deal successfully with the symptoms of depression. However, before opting for a natural treatment, it is essential to consult your doctor about it. This will help make sure that this treatment will not interfere in the way of other treatments or medicines that are already taking.

This will provide some important guidelines that will help you stop depression naturally:

The most important feature that you think is to take proper care of your body. For this you need to consider some important aspects, such as taking a balanced diet and regular exercise. This is very necessary to get sufficient rest for the body, which is only possible if you sleep properly and follows a regular schedule.

 You should avoid taking caffeine and alcohol. If you do not take enough food, then you should opt for taking multi-vitamins regularly.

An additional great option is to use different methods to help manage stress such as thought, yoga and time management, as stress can cause depression.

You can also choose to listen to music, socializing with friends or participate in some sports activities. This will help you get out of the state of depression and also change your mood.

Apart from these, you can also choose to join a support group in your area. This support group will help you discuss your problems with people facing the same problem. There are two contributions to the accession of the support group. They are finding a possible solution to the problem and feel that not only individual with a problem which in turn motivates you to get out of it.

Try to take all the unenthusiastic thoughts from your mind and develop a positive attitude towards life.

Herbal remedies are also available and can be taken to treat depression. Herbal supplements are also available, which should be taken only after consulting your doctor. They are very helpful in managing depression.

Teen Depression can also be treated naturally, as preferred methods, herbal medicines, meditation, communication with family members and friends. You should also choose for a healthy lifestyle practices such as regular exercise, mediation, proper sleep, balanced diet.

Depression in Women

Depression is the most general disease affecting a large number of women worldwide. Women are at high risk of getting depression than men. There are many reasons women are more prone to depression than men. They contain hormones, social pressures, abused physically and mentally and emotionally sensitive. In most cases, women are unaware that they suffer from depression and did not choose to take proper treatment for him. Signs of depression in men and women are almost similar and the only difference is in the case of women, it happens more frequently and clearly visible. Different types of depression that are seen in women include overexcited depression, postpartum depression and bipolar depression. There are some common physical symptoms of depression in women. They include:

   1. Weigh loss or weight gain
   2. Tired feeling or sense of helplessness
   3. Eating and sleeping more than is usually done
   4. Low power consumption
   5. Be short of of appetite
   6. Morbid thoughts
   7. Lack of concentration
   8. Feeling of loneliness

Different studies have been conducted and it was found that a complex relationship between hormones and women. When these hormone levels are different, this leads too many changes, such as fatigue, mood swings and irritability, are common symptoms of depression. Many studies have also been undertaken recently to understand the link between depression in women and the role of various psychological and physical problems. You can easily identify it if you keep track of your mood before and during menstruation. This will help you check whether you are suffering from this type of depression and to take appropriate measures to cure it. Women face depression at least once in your life. Some of the face during pregnancy or after it. Some other faces during menopause, because there is a connection between menopause and depression. There are various websites that offer information about depression in women, its causes, symptoms and effective methods for treating depression. You should consult a physician or choose for counseling session. Besides these, you can join a support group and discuss their problems with people facing the same problem. Adoption of different methods for creating awareness about depression in women and the need for timely detection and treatment. The details mentioned above will provide you with information about depression in women, its symptoms and treatment.

What Diet You Should During Depression?

Depression is a sickness that stops the man to lead a normal life. This affects the physical and mental health. One of the major symptoms of depression, weight loss and sleeplessness. So diet during the depression is a major concern, which can improve the physical situation of depression a person to some extent. It is correctly said that the food and mood are related to each other. For a depressed person, proper nutrition plays a vital role in reducing the level of his depression.

Foods to avoid: depressed person should avoid sugar, sucrose, coffee, caffeine, milk or dairy products, excessive intake of junk food, processed food, cigarettes, alcohol, meat, fish and eggs

Food to eat: One of the main causes of depression is poor nutrition or bad nutrition. So a healthy diet is necessary for the depressed person. He / she must diet that is rich in vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, beta-carotene and protein. Studies show that, during the depression free radicals in the brain are damaged. So a depressed person should receive food that is high in antioxidants such as antioxidants, reducing the destructive effect of free radicals.

Vegetables and fruits rich in carbohydrates are good for every human being. This is the same for depressed persons. Minimum amount of cholesterol and fats should be taken, depending on physical condition and behavior of the person.

Food that is rich in omega-3 fatty acids is very healthy for depressed persons. Chia, walnuts, fish oil, which is provided for this purpose.

Brown rice, wheat germ, potatoes, broccoli, peppers, whole grain oats, cabbage, blueberries, strawberries, margarine, tomatoes, etc. should be taken regularly. All are rich in vitamins that are struggling to reduce the effects of free radicals.

Soya beans and soy products, seeds, cereals, yogurt, peas, which are enriched in proteins are very good diet. Protein foods should be taken again and again, which will help the depressed person to rise to his / her energy level and thus refresh himself / herself.

Since depression is a medical condition, it can affect every child, teenager or young adult. Doctors prescribe medical treatment and dietary changes that will improve the mental image of depressed person. For example, antidepressants are prescribed for teen depression. But more than drugs, depressed person needs love and care from near and dear ones.

Winning The Battle Against Depression Symptoms

Damage to feelings of sadness, nervousness and frustration are all living experience. We feel dissatisfaction after failure or sorrow after separation or loss.

Depression symptoms are feelings that can take any one at some point in time. To be able to manage and overcome depression, you must first recognize the reasons for the symptoms of depression and overcome these unhealthy emotions or thoughts.

These harmful feelings are regular and do not affect significantly our ability to meet our daily obligations. You can even say that it is also helpful to the extent that they help us much better understand some of our weaknesses.

When sorrow, instead of decreasing the time it becomes much more intense and lasts much longer than two weeks and interfere with the regular activities of our lives such as work, diet, sleep and our close relationship, then it is likely suffering from depressive disorders and need the support of a specialist to deal with it.

Sorrow can teach us so that we can stand adversity, which may arise later in life in a dynamic way. Insights arising from a bad experience help us to make an effort to change in order to avoid future adverse effects of immature behavior.

The main defining characteristic of depressive symptoms, not the presence of negative feelings, but the intensity of the severity and duration of time.

To understand the severe depression of any more, let's find a variety of symptoms that a person can experience when he or she has a depressive disorder. Here they are:

1. Recreate of interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities
2. Sometimes thoughts of death and suicide
3. Stress, anxiety, indecisiveness
4. Loss of energy and fatigue
5. A more or less appetite for food
6. Mood, most of the day virtually every day
7. Trends isolation, social withdrawal
8. Frustration, indifference
9. Many more or much less sleep

10. Continuing sorrow
11. Loss of interest in the search for erotic partner or sex.
12. Concerns and pessimism about the future.

13. Feelings of guilt.

Lonely and Depressed. What Should I Do?

There is not anything that feels not as good as sometimes than to be lonely and depressed at the same time. frequently, loneliness rather to facilitate the depression, although this is a fact that many people who have mild to moderate depression, tend to cut off themselves from others, create their own lonely situation. Sometimes it is not easy to know what causes the other sense, but there are some simple, practical steps you can take to help deal with some of the issues of loneliness and depression

If you are critically clinically depressed, in which case you should see a doctor for help, you can make a few adjustments in your life that can help significantly. The most important thing is to give something to look forward, which is stable and comforting during this time to feel lonely and depressed. One of the best ways to do this is to make life unsurprising schedule for a month. Sometimes scheduling your life around some personal positive results within a specified period of time can really add a lift in their lives and to help with the negative feelings you experience. Here's where to start:

Establish a pattern of sleep

Make the choice to go to bed before midnight every night for a month - you know that every hour of sleep before midnight is worth 2 hours of sleep after midnight? Try to establish a routine for your body, such as bed and while getting out of bed the same time each day, whether you feel like it or not. This will help your body and mind to adapt to a positive cycle of rest and sleep.

Eat well

Eat at least two well-balanced meals a day. Although you can eat three times a day, make sure that two of the three are nutritionally well balanced. Breakfast and another meal as a whole are most important to get the necessary nutrients.

Exercise

Add an exercise routine to his week - even if you've never exercised before in my life, start now! If this is just a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood or local school track or indoor mall, do it at least 4 times each week. Walk more if you feel like it.

Quit thinking only about yourself

Do a random act of kindness for someone each day - Think of someone other than yourself every single day! Perhaps your colleagues need some help, or perhaps an elderly person needs to lift the grocery store or maybe your neighbor is sick and needs food for dinner. Send a card to say "Good job!" or any time to change back. Do something, however small, that promoted by someone else. At the end of the month will be endowed with 30 other random act of kindness!

Start a hobby

Choose a hobby, to engage in throughout the month - even if you do not really do anything, choose something. Maybe you want to learn Spanish or gardening. Perhaps you would like to bowl or to learn calligraphy. Take a class or join a group or join a gym. It really does not matter, but find something that interests and to engage in it at least once a week for one month.

Dinner with someone

Ask one person to eat at least once a week - Whether it is family, friend, colleague or casual acquaintance with whom you have never taken the time to know, ask them to eat lunch or dinner with you. This in itself can help you if you are lonely and depressed.

Make these simple choices at the beginning of 30 days and not deter them. Even if you are lonely and depressed, do not allow yourself to be passive. This is only for 30 days! You'll be surprised how you feel at the end of changes in your life. You will take advantage of feeling better, looking better and perhaps even help someone else in the process. Many times, by helping others we help ourselves.

Depression: Recognizing the Physical Symptoms

Depression: Recognizing the Physical Symptoms

Hmm, I've never thought about this before, but the sheer amount of muscle ache I've experienced in the past few days made me wonder.

Depression – How it affects sex and relationships

Depression harmfully affects every aspect of our lives, plus our relationship - when one partner is depressed, the relationship can experience poorly. This is a great shame because a good relationship is very therapeutic for someone with depression. When we are short we need love, support and nearness more than ever - even if we are not good in this show.

What is likely to happen if your partner is depressed?

Depressed people usually feel withdrawn. They do not feel they can raise enough energy to pursue their normal routine, do things with family or even notice when their partners are careful.

This can quickly lead to non-depressed partner feeling that he or she is in the way, unwanted or unloved. It can be easy to misinterpret the low moods such as hostility, or as evidence that the depressed person wants the relationship.

Frankly, it's really hard to remain calm and confident when you have that you know is acting weird and seems so unhappy. So if you find your partner depressed real pain, try to get the heart from the fact that it is natural.

As a partner of the depressed person is very difficult.

So even if you are at the end of your wits, because your loved one has lost the ability to concentrate on what you say, or to raise a smile or appreciate some of the best moments in life, try to accept that All these things are part of the disease.

Sex and productivity

We do not know enough about the chemical changes that occur in the brain during depression and little research has been done on how these changes affect sex.

From a clinical perspective, however, it is clear that depressive illness tends to affect all bodily systems, dislocating them and often delayed.

This effect is most pronounced in terms of sleep, which is always interference.

But there may be adverse effects on any activity that requires enthusiasm, spontaneity and coordination - and that includes sex.

So many people who are depressed tend to lose interest in sex.

It is true that this is not always so depressed and some people have managed to maintain a normal sex life - sometimes even found that sex is the only thing that gives them comfort and reassurance.

In men, the total attenuation of brain activity causes fatigue and hopelessness, which may be associated with loss of libido and erection problems.
In women, this reduced activity of the brain tends to be associated with lack of interest in sex, and often with difficulty reaching orgasm.

All these problems tend to decrease as depressive illness gets better. Indeed, renewed interest in sex can be the first signs of recovery.

Sex and antidepressants

This is not just a disease that affects the sexual life of a person - antidepressant drugs like Prozac can interfere with sexual function.

One of the most common side effects is interference in the process of orgasm, so it is delayed or not happen at all.

If this happens - and you tend to have and enjoy sex, you should ask your doctor about changing medications.
How depressed people can help themselves and their relationship

Some days will seem better than others. On your better days, trying to make an effort to show love and appreciation for your partner.

Try to go for a walk every day, preferably with your partner. Walking not only out of pure air, which will give you a bit of a lift, but like other forms of exercise releases endorphins in the brain. These are "happy" chemicals that quickly raise your mood. And there is increasing evidence to suggest that exercise can be as good for combating depression as any antidepressant.

Even on my worst day, try to notice the happy moments as a bird singing or new flowers blooming in your garden. Try to train yourself to notice three of those heart warming moments of the day.

May consist of an odd relationship with food while you are depressed (you could have a small appetite or comfort eating constantly), but try to eat five pieces of fruit a day. It's a caring thing to do for yourself is good for physical and mental health.

Listen to music that is important to you.

Have faith that depression will pass and you will enjoy life again.

Even if you do not feel like a complete sex made efforts to have a hug. If you are worried that cuddling will project full sex when they want it, just tell your partner that you do not feel like having sex, but that really would like to cuddle. If you do this, you feel much better. Touch and proximity can keep the relationship intact.

How to help a depressed partner

Do not say that you understand what goes through your partner. You do not. Instead of saying "I do not know exactly how you feel, but I'm trying very hard to understand and help."

Many people who are depressed, lose interest in sex. Try to remember that this loss of interest probably is not personal but related to the disease.

Do not despair. Some days you will feel your love for your partner does not seem to make no difference to them at all. But hang there. Your love and continuous support should be of great help in convincing your partner to his or her value.

Whether encourage your partner to get all the professional help. Nowadays there are plenty of alternatives to antidepressants. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), for example, becomes more readily available to the NHS. Many GP practices can also provide CBT with Internet programs. They may have good effect very quickly, in many cases.

Try to act as if your partner is recovering from a serious physical illness or surgery. Give a lot of tender loving care. But do not expect to be improved quickly.

Do something nice for yourself. Is about a depressed person is very draining, so be sure to take care of yourself. Have some time alone, or get a movie or to see friends. Depressed people often want to stay home and do nothing, but if you do this, you will get terribly sick.

Remember that this period in your life will pass and that your partner is the same person under depression, he or she was before.

Try to take some classes together. Most depressed people feel improvement in their souls, if they do something active. And doing something that will increase heart rate - such as sports or dancing - can help you too.

Teen Depression And Teen Depression Symptoms

Teen depression is something that has become more common in homes every year, despite all the advances in other areas of our lives, it seems that teenagers are still likely to feel depressed with their lives. As a parent, this is very disturbing. Signs of clinical depression can have terrible consequences if they are not treated quickly enough.

Statistics shows that in eight teens suffer from depression, and what is worse is that most of these teens just go by themselves, without any kind of help. They just, Äúsurvive "this phase until they are adults.

Why did this happen? According to a report in 2002 from the University, "Brown", it was found that parents (even those who have excellent communication with their sons and daughters) can not recognize the symptoms of teen depression. It is important then to know these symptoms and find the best way to help our children.

Teen Depression Symptoms

To operate, one must first know the symptoms of depression in teenagers. You should be alert for signs of sadness, despair, hopelessness or lack of interest in everything, monitor your child and listen to how he / she is. Depressed teens are also very irritable and impatient and they just seem to get into trouble with siblings, parents, authority figures and others.

Sometimes, depression is expressed in the way of physical symptoms such as muscle aches, headache, insomnia, increased or decreased appetite and weight. If you can not tell from the way they express it is a good way to start noticing any symptom.

In general, you will notice they are far Äúfading, the African Union not as interested in anything missing classes, dropping out of sport, loneliness, etc.

Teen depression

Treatment for teen depression differs from adult depression. The main difference is that at their age, they are not fully developed emotional and mental tools to go through this phase of their own. Of course, there may be exceptions, but most teenagers simply can not resist depression and learn how to deal with it. That is why they resort to EN to drugs, alcohol and dangerous activities.

You need to avoid failure, recognizing teen depression, the problem is the most important step because this is the first step that will cure a child of this disease (yes, this is a disease like diabetes). After recognizing the problem and do something instead of blaming someone or something else, the next step is to talk to your child with professionals while respecting his / her status as a discreet and understanding.

There are schools that have a counselor for these types of problem, but if your child wants to go to school counseling psychologist might be a good help to combat teen depression. They are experienced people who know how to effectively treat your child while you will guide you on what to do as a parent. In these cases, sometimes medication is recommended, although it may be seen as a large and rapid response to the problem, talk to your doctor about any side effects and alternative treatments.