Dealing With Depression Naturally - Hardcover

Baumel, Syd

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0879836458 ISBN 13: 9780879836450

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1995

Synopsis

Dealing with Depression Naturally is a comprehensive user's guide to the wide range of natural antidepressant treatments. The author provides a balanced review of the evidence for each approach and detailed information on how to use these supplements and implement these lifestyle changes, psychotherapeutic techniques, etc., safely and effectively. The presentation is casual, but the scholarship is rigorous.

A Doubleday Health Book Club Main Alternate, Dealing with Depression Naturally is a must read for anyone trying to cope with blue moods, severe clinical depression, or anything in between.

About this title

About the Author

Syd Baumel is a writer who specializes in natural health and medicine. The author of three books and many articles, he lives in Winnipeg, Canada.

From the Back Cover

Abram Hoffer, Ph.D., M.D.: "...this book does it better than the others. Every physician ought to have [it] on his or her shelf."

Harvey Ross, M.D.: "Baumel is to be congratulated for the work he has done in bringing this information together which can benefit those with depression, their families and the professionals treating them."

Melvyn R. Werbach, M.D.: ....The author has done a superb job of digesting and summarizing a massive literature....the book is loaded with solid information and is remarkably comprehensive for its size."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

from Chapter 22, Bodywork: Working the Body to Free the Mind Acupuncture

If depression has given you a craving for punishment, the prickly art of acupuncture might seem like just the medicine for you.

In China, acupuncture (especially electroacupuncture -- in which mild electrical current is passed through the needles) is a popular prescription for nervous exhaustion and depression (13). In Russia, psychiatrists are confirming the antidepressant effect (14). And in the United States, psychiatrist Louise Wensel of the Washington Acupuncture Center in Washington, D.C., has (at last count) treated 872 depressives with a combined acupuncture and orthomolecular [diet and supplements] regimen (15). Of those, 686 (79 percent) have enjoyed "significant" improvement, 183 (21 percent) "slight" improvement, and for just three, no improvement. Wenzel's patients have typically begun to feel better after the very first of six to ten daily acupuncture treatments. Maintenance sessions have then come every week or two, or every few months.

Harder evidence comes from J. S. Han of Beijing Medical University (16). Han cites research showing that acupuncture can stimulate major mood-regulating neurochemicals like norepinephrine, serotonin, and the endorphins. In a controlled study at Han's university, five weeks of daily electroacupuncture brought complete or near-complete relief to most of 47 severely depressed patients. Because there were no side effects, Han rated electroacupuncture superior to its competition, a popular antidepressant drug. NOTES 13. W. Chang, "Electroacupuncture and ECT" (letter), Biological Psychiatry, 19 (August 1984): 1271-1272. 14. K. I. Dudaeva et al., [Neurophysiologic Changes During the Treatment of Endogenous Depression by Reflexotherapy], Zhurnal Nevropatologii I Psikhiatrii Imeni S. S. Korsakova, 90 (4, 1990): 99- 103. 15. Louise O. Wensel, Acupuncture in Medical Practice (Reston, Va.: Reston Publishing, 1980). 16. J. S. Han, "Electroacupuncture: An Alternative to Antidepressants for Treating Affective Diseases?" International Journal of Neuroscience, 29:79-92, 1986.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0879836458
• ISBN 13: 9780879836450
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 270