Depression Vitamins

It's raining informative articles today; I found this helpful blurb from the same website as the last post. This supplement goes on my grocery list yesterday.

More Good News

This article is both vindicating and sobering. Vindicating, because I've been supposing to my therapist for a while now about the possibility that there is something structurally wrong with my brain because I'm depressed, and sobering because of information like this:

• The newest evidence indicates that recurrent depression is in fact a neurodegenerative disorder, disrupting the structure and function of brain cells, destroying nerve cell connections, even killing certain brain cells, and precipitating cognitive decline. At the very least, depression sets up neural roadblocks to the processing of information and keeps us from responding to life's challenges.
  
• Human emotions take shape in a neural circuit involving several key brain structures, including the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. In depression, faulty circuitry fails both in generating positive feelings and inhibiting disruptive negative ones.
  

Emphasis mine.

Fascinating, yet scary.

Smelly Stuff

As part of my personal war against depression, I've started to expermiment with aromatherapy.

I did have a favorite smell; Whole Foods sells an essential oil mix called Black Opium that was warm, spicy and sweet, but also a little musky. But my body rebelled against the stuff and wearing it anywhere...even a little bit dabbed on my jeans...made my neck develop a strange sort of invisible rash; the skin itched like crazy but the skin showed no bumps, discoloration or raised skin that anyone could see.

I went back to Whole Foods to find something; the bonus of going there is that they will always have someone who is an expert on whatever alternative therapy you're looking to dabble in. The nice lady who I talked to gave me the helpful tip that the Black Opium I had to give up was composed of synthetic fragrance, a possible reason for the invisible rash.

She pointed me towards the essential oils section which would have been great had it not been the week before my period. Handy tip for all you women depressives out there: your "nose" changes around that time of the month. After smelling lots of things that should've appealed to me...Whole Foods sells a number of brands, Aura Cacia, Nature's Remedy among them...and didn't, I found a yummy tangerine grapefruit scent in a mister by Aura Cacia. In an odd sort of synthesis, its the same scent and brand that makes the oil I put in my hair.

Origins has the only other essential oil/fragrance that has stopped me in my tracks and made me want to wrap myself up in it...and I swear I'm not an employee or a sales rep for their company. It's their Ginger Collection...specifically the Ginger Body Souffle. The tin it comes in is a little too big and a little too pricy for a purse carry, but they have the scent in what I think is the only way smell should be packaged: a convenient, no spill, quick-apply roll on which they call an "Intensified Fragrance Rollerball". I got one the other day and applied some just now to test allergic reaction.

Let's just say I'm really, really, really hoping I'm NOT allergic to this stuff because it is the olfactory equvilant of a warm, comfy, soft sweater that someone close lent to you so it smells like them.

Technorati : Aura Cacia, Origins, Whole Foods, aromatherapy, depression, ginger, smell