The future of mental health care: Brain-zapping, big data, and beauty sleep.

On January 21, Dr. Chris Frueh (who writes as Christopher Bartley) gave a talk on some of the upcoming innovations in mental health care. You can watch the whole thing here (starts at about 14:30).

There are all kinds of new treatments on the horizon, like microbiome testing, Ketamine infusion and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

Of course most of us don’t (yet) have the opportunity to hop into one of these when the mood strikes:

“Just a little off the top, please.”

So the first line of defense against depression and anxiety is to attend to lifestyle:

Not cutting-edge, but low cost and minimal side effects.

Dr. Frueh stressed that the first two are paramount. Exercise is an effective treatment for depression.  Sleep deprivation damages your moodmesses with your hormones, and can induce psychosis-like symptoms within 24 hours.

I was relieved to note that I’m doing pretty well on most of these (assuming we’re not going to get all picky and literal about what constitutes “moderation”).

Frankie Bow’s first novel, THE MUSUBI MURDER , is available at Audible.com, Amazon.com, andiTunes.

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Exercise doesn’t make you live longer, but it does help you deteriorate less rapidly.

“Typically, the most aerobically fit people lived with chronic illnesses in the final five years of their lives, instead of the final 10, 15 or even 20 years.”

Of course they can’t disentangle cause and effect, as  “aerobic fitness is partly determined by genetics, and to that extent, the luck of the universe.”

Still, “much of a person’s fitness, especially by middle age, depends on physical activity, Dr. Berry says speculates”

Women's gymnastics at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. The last Olympics at which solid gold medals were awarded

Fortunately, a moderate (rather than an insane) amount of exercise is best.

Thinking about this is exhausting.  I’m going to go lie down now.