Blog — depression and mental illness

  In the whirlwind of our daily lives, we often focus on physical fitness, but what about mental fitness? Just as we exercise our bodies to keep fit and strong, our mental well-being demands attention and care. A crucial aspect of this is managing stress, a common yet impactful adversary. Imagine stress as an internal alarm triggered by a minuscule part of our brain—the hypothalamus. When it activates, the body releases stress hormones, gearing us up to confront perceived danger. This stress response, a survival mechanism ingrained in us, can be immensely helpful. It heightens our senses, primes us for...

An eye-opening discussion and review of mental health case histories with Alyssa Burns-Hill, PhD takes practitioners through the hormone looking glass for a deeper understanding of depression and mental illness.  From Burns-Hill's perspective, mental health is not just the preserve of mental health professionals, but a global health problem that all specialists – from family practitioners and psychiatrists, to neurologists and social workers – ought to be concerned about. She points to the 2010 Global Burden Disease Study that identified the most predominant mental health problems as depression and anxiety, which are symptoms physicians see in practice every day. Yet...