I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Little Voice Mastery, and it was a very different read than most of my business book reviews. Although author Blair Singer is focused on helping people improve the bottom line, hit sales goals, and the like, this book has some real meat in it for the depressed person.

For example: on page 126, in the middle of a series of very specific techniques Singer suggests for quelling the nagging, doubting voices that echo in all of our heads, he offers a technique for shiftly one's mood quickly. It's a role play, and it will almost make anyone feeling depressed additionally feel stupid, but that's the little voice of the depression talking, so pay attention to me, not it.

In essence, the technique is one of having a dialogue with oneself, just asking questions about mood until one gets an answer. It's surprising how easy it is to get the subconscious to own up to how it feels if you just ask it a direct question or two. After you've identified your real mood (and we all know that sometimes the anger or sadness is masking something else), the exercise helps you pick another mood and try it out.

Emotions do really follow our direction. If you feel powerless to change, it's not because you're not capable - it's because that damned depression has convinced that you're impotent. Instead of dwelling on it, try a role play out. Just walk through the steps and follow the instructions carefully, so you have no choice but to succeed. You may be surprised that it was easier than you expected.

Salt Linked to Depression

I grew up in a family that loved salt - it was always handy in a shaker on the dinner table, and we added it to everything. I can remember the soups my mother made as being particularly salty, and how that made them particularly good. I've since given up adding salt to my foods, but I still enjoy a nice, salty bag of chips from time to time. Salt is an awfully satisfying experience for my tongue.

At the University of Iowa some researchers have posited that salt enhances mood, which certainly fits nicely into my own anecdotal experience. Rats were less likely to engage in pleasurable behaviors, such as drink sugary rat goodness, if their salt levels dropped too low. Between the researchers and me we've come up with a few observations about this:

• Salt is a good conductor and probably affects brain function.
• We evolved in a saline environment (the ocean), and have carried on with the same basic chemistry on land.
  
• Our bodies and minds seek out more salt than we probably need, which could suggest addiction or a system that hasn't adapted to the relative abundance of salt we now have. It's not clear if the reason makes much of a difference in the result.
  
• Mood elevation that's tied to salt consumption could be caused by the salt, but it also could be the other way around. Maybe the lack of salt causes anxiety, which is alleviated by eating salt and giving the body what it wants.

"One sign of addiction is using a substance even when it's known to be harmful. Many people are told to reduce sodium due to health concerns, but they have trouble doing so because they like the taste and find low-sodium foods bland."

Again, it could also be that it takes thousands of years for our bodies to adapt to changing circumstances - two thousand years ago the phrase "common table salt" would have been incomprehensible. The desire for salt could simply be an overexaggeration of a real need.

Depression and Homeopathy

I didn't go to a homeopath to have depression treated. Homeopathy doesn't really work that way, despite what the labels on the remedies at the health food store may lead you to believe.
Homeopathy is based on the principle that like cures like, but the word "like" can be complicated here. Remedies are created out of substances that are known to have effects on healthy humans (ranging from mercury and arsenic to lion's milk and wind flower), diluting them down again and again until they're theoretically unable to do much of anything. However, homeopathic theory states that these dilute forms will trigger an immune response the same as if the actual symptoms are present, and kick start the body into healing the causes of those symptoms.
Remedies are "proven" by being given to healthy adults, who track what symptoms manifest after they take them. This is how a given remedy gets the little bullet points on the bottle, like "runny nose" and "arthritis." In fact, though, a remedy may effect quite a few symptoms, and a trained homeopath will identify the remedy that addresses the largest number of symptoms her or she can.
When a remedy is the correct one for a patient, it will even address symptoms you didn't talk about with the homeopath, or that have been suppressed. You can tell this is happening because you may experience little flare-ups ("aggravations,: in the homeopathic vernacular), generally not as strong as the actual symptom and lasting only a day or two. I had what appeared to be poison ivy show up on my knuckle - it was where I got a really bad case about ten years ago, one that spread all over my body.
So I didn't go to a homeopath for depression, but I discovered a couple weeks later that my remedy was addressing suppressed depression. It was a remedy I was taking daily, and after a couple of days of short temper, lack of focus, and mood swings, I consulted with her and she reduced the frequency. The symptoms went away (thankfully), and I know that the little kernel of depression inside me is being chipped away at by my own immune system.
The real point here is that homeopathy is a powerful medicine, and should not be used by people suffering from depression without professional supervision! Taking a remedy for headaches could lead to a lot of problems for a depressed person. On the other hand, undergoing treatment by a trained homeopath could be the solution after long years of suffering.