Family plays Blues together

I am so proud of our talented family. The Mad Martins from Adelaide are using family time and their musical talents to play blues together.

Just love 'Slow Blues', Hannah's 'Be what you wanna be' and Rory's 'Are we there yet?' Great piece of work in the studio you guys...

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/madmartins

Haiku on Reincarnation

Reincarnation
My own deeds come back to haunt
Karma set me up

Great self-help videos for young people - from the UK

I think its good that someone is making these videos - they may educate staff as much as young people. They are a bit glossy, and the comments on each video reflect a mix of like versus not like. The accents sound like they emanate from Manchester.
http://www.thesite.org/

Challenging my Depression (4)

Much has been written about Aaron Beck’s cognitive triad within depression – that ‘I’m no good’, that ‘the world is no good’, and ‘none of that is going to get better’. OK I know there is much more to the theory, and that Beck’s work goes much deeper into how our minds control emotion, so what I am about to write may seem superficial to some purists, but who cares?

Let me start with our world. Whichever way you look at it, and whether you are depressed or not, our world is looking very shaky and subject to immense and rapid changes that appear to be out of control. The recession we are not quite out of keeps threatening to reappear, and seems to have been caused (as so much is) by greedy people thinking they are really clever, and needing so much more than a few million dollars to live out the rest of their empty lives. Countries all over the world are billions, if not trillions, of dollars in debt, and politicians seem to have little ability to control further increases. There has been a shift of power from the west toward the east, that is India and China, who seem to be able to engender growth, maintain better stability, and (at least for the moment) lend money to the profligate west. Look, the shift may be a good thing. Let’s face it western countries seem to have made such a mess of things – perhaps someone else should have a try. And eastern countries are based much more on the family as the unit of importance rather than the individual focus – me, me, me – of the west. That might be a really good thing.

I don’t really have a view about some of these things. I watch the television news, which is always skewed towards death and destruction – “Ooh isn’t it awful?” (and then has a heart-warming story from somewhere close geographically, about 20 minutes from the end, just to make us all feel better). I can’t influence any of that. For instance the changes going on in the middle east are cataclysmic, but there is nothing that I can do to influence the path of peace. I have to watch from a distance and contain my worries about escalation to world conflict. I don’t believe ‘my vote’ has any currency or any influence. You wonder how countries run themselves when all politicians do is argue every day, often on fatuous grounds, until they all end up looking like raving loonies. I don’t have a voice in this country; I certainly don’t have a voice in any other country.

Well hang on.... My world is not just about the fact that everywhere seems in self-destruct mode. Actually my world is about my family – my extended family - and how they are coping with their lives. In particular its about how my wife and I manage our day to day lives, continue to love and support each other, and maintain some patterns of life that keep us reasonably happy. Its about my work – my clinical work and how I bring my experience to bear to help others make the changes they want, my teaching and how this might influence clinicians to become the best they can become, my research programs and how these might create new knowledge to help those who struggle with despair, my staff and how we can help them to become better clinicians, teachers and researchers for the next generation, the journal I edit and how it can publish new thinking on prevention of ill health, wellness, and mental health promotion.

You see what I have done here... I can’t change things I can’t change. But I can influence things around me. I can use the best skills I have with my patients. I can think hard about the essence of our work, and teach people in the best way I know how. I can think through the implications of our research, make sure we publish what we can, and then work out where to go next. Within my own little world, I can do... So, I will do...

If I thought of all the big stuff that is going on, I would get really depressed. It IS awful, and I wish it were not. It IS depressing, but I refuse to let it wreck my little circle of life. In challenging my own depression, I have to keep that world stuff out of my mind as much as I can. Well, how do you do that while you are watching the evening news? You have to be clear that other people’s (or peoples’) problems are theirs. They have to take their own decisions, do the best they can for their own people and their own country. And the politicians? Actually they make me laugh. I find their wriggling antics highly amusing. They are all grandstanding, strutting stages that are often too big for them, always looking for some clever angle to ensure they stay in power next time. I enjoy watching them just to see what silly things they get up to next. Its always good for a laugh – and laughter is very good medicine to help me challenge my depression.

RUOK? seems to have got the question right!

http://youtu.be/JLZ5cPPJ_AU

There is massive national enthusiasm for RUOK? as a process. RUOK? Day is a national day of action to prevent suicide by stopping little problems turning in to big ones. In Sep 2011 we reached 58% of Australians. How will you contribute next September?

Haiku on Going Back to Work

Study needs a sort
Before I go back to work
Can't find a damned thing

Challenging My Depression (4)

I will be coming back to some of the issues I have already raised; to look at them in more depth. But at this point I want to talk about music. I have to admit I am not a musician. I was a choirboy for 12 years, and used to be able to sing well, even when my voice changed to tenor, and later on to baritone. More recently, however, the medications I take for prevention of asthma have had an impact on my vocal cords, so if I sing, I embarrass myself, or I end up coughing and gasping for breath. I do keep trying, but mostly when I am on my own. I did try to learn the cello for a couple of years, but got RSI in my left wrist - so that was pretty much the end of that.
I do have a residual keen ear for music. And music has played an important part in my challenging of my depression. The main opportunity is when I am on my exercise bike, which I do two or three times a week. I set up the iPod with noise reducing earplugs, find something that interests at that moment, and away I go. I have listened to Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Queen, Clannad, The Cranberries, Bond, Jacques Loussier, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Frisell, EST, Bach Cello Sonatas, Mozart's Horn Concerto, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Ravi Shankar, Alistair Fraser and Emma Haas, and lots of Crowded House. There is some influence from the style as to how quickly I peddle, but so what? At the end of 40 minutes I always need a recovery rest for 20 minutes, so I lie down and go on listening - and often fall asleep with the music still playing.
Whatever the music, my mind ends up feeling at peace. Any problems with muscles, pain, tiredness seem to float away. My legs may be temporarily less under control from the sustained effort of peddling, but I feel good in myself. The background I suppose is that the exercise is not just rebuilding muscles and fixing up my body image, but it also floods my brain with those chemicals we all crave - endorphins. The music seems to help me do the exercises I have to do, but also seems to have a very similar effect to that produced by the exercise - stress, frustration, tiredness, sadness, worries about work projects all seem to be more settled. Problems seem less worrisome, and solutions to every day things come to me much more easily. I guess being more settled like this is something to do with mindfulness, a sort of meditativeness induced by the music.
Look (or perhaps listen), I am not saying that you can treat depression with music alone. But it is a crucial part of recovery. Listen to lots of music - vary the styles to reach different parts of the brain and access a wider range of memory. Use your earphones so you don't drive others mad.
You still have to seek help, and make sure you are getting the best professional care you can get.
Add it to the list of things you can do for you. Don't try to be too choosy - "I just can't decide what to listen to" "Its too many things to think about" "I can't make lots of decisions when I feel like this" "I don't need the hassle". Just reach for the first CD and put it on. Spin the dial of your iPod and see what comes out. You can always switch to something else.