Motivational problems in kids: clue about depression to come?

Motivational problems in kids are probably an indicator of what may happen in the future.  I don't have access to any of the studies on motivation and depression in kids that are out there, but I can share an anecdote.

In the fifth grade, I was ready to resume my place as one of the smart kids.  I'd spent a year with a teacher who hated children so deeply that I have carried a dislike of tenure ever since, but this year I had a teacher whom I respected, and who liked me.

We were given a science assignment, the specifics I can't recall but my excitement over it I remember clearly.  I actually took my teacher aside and asked him if there was a maximum word count, because I was afraid I would write too much.

Something happened, though, and it didn't turn out quite like I expected.  I lost interest in the project, and I did the fifth-grade equivalent of "phoning it in."  It was so poor, in fact, that my teacher took me out in the hall to talk to me about it.  "You asked me for a maximum word count," he said, his disappointment showing in his every word, "but this is a minimum of a minimum!  How can I accept this from you?"

I didn't have an answer for him.  Sure, I had problems with a bully and a few kids who made fun of me from time to time, but that was nothing new.  Family life wasn't perfect but the parents weren't beating us or preparing for a divorce.  I had been hit, and hit hard, with a lack of motivation, and I had no clue why.

I can't fault my teacher or parents for not recognizing it in the 1970s, but I was showing early depressive symptoms.  Not every child is lazy if they don't do the work, and not every child is suffering from vision problems (which I first got corrected in fifth grade, as a matter of fact) or reading disabilities.  Some of them are having troubles which are completely beyond their comprehension.

The fact that "depression" means both "sad" and "serious condition affecting the brain" only adds to the confusion, making it more of a challenge for parents and teachers to tell the difference.

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.

Business Leadership and Depression

I read and review business books from time to time, and one thing that always comes up in them is leadership. You've got to stand out from the crowd, go against the grain, create a climate of change if you're going to succeed, they all say.

Really?

Business books target the people that want to be exceptional, want to make more money,want to share a special idea or way of doing things with the world - or so they say. But that makes it sound like depressed people aren't - or shouldn't be - in business.

Deep in the depths of depression, who can pick up a book about rallying the troops to victory and not feel inadequate? Designed to inspire, a lot of these books do the opposite for a depression suffererer - and the truth is, plenty of business owners wrestle with depression.

So how do depressed business people succeed? Do they? Can they grow their companies while neglecting themselves, or do both suffer if both are not addressed? I don't know the answers yet.

Do you own a business? Are you depressed? What do you do to make sure your business stays on track, even if you don't?

Depression Stinks Squidoo Lens

I've created a Depression Stinks Lens on Squidoo. Right now it's got links to a basic course on happiness, posts from this blog, and an interesting article on hormones and depression. I would like to add book reviews and other material; please stop in here or there and leave some feedback about what you'd like to see.

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.

Boy, is this ever a tough blog to keep up! When you're fully depressed, you don't want to right, and when you're fully well, you really can't explain much about how depression feels anymore. The best state of mind, it turns out, is that slightly annoyed and angry space.

Maybe this blog should be less about the disease and more about just letting sufferers rant? I'm not sure yet, but if you have an idea you'd like to share I'm certainly open to ways to keeping this running. I'll keep plugging along as best I can in the meantime, though.

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.