Only 9 years old and I bet your doctor has never considered prescribing this for your post-stroke depression. The bolded line would seem to be an excellent reason for using this as part of your enriched environment as talked about by Dr. Dale Corbett in 2011. This would seem to be similar to the Szechuan pepper that sends the equivalent of 50 light taps to the brain per second.
Adapted cold shower as a potential treatment for depression
Abstract
Depression
is a debilitating mood disorder that is among the top causes of
disability worldwide. It can be characterized by a set of somatic,
emotional, and behavioral symptoms, one of which is a high risk of
suicide. This work presents a hypothesis that depression may be caused
by the convergence of two factors: (A) A lifestyle that lacks certain
physiological stressors that have been experienced by primates through
millions of years of evolution, such as brief changes in body
temperature (e.g. cold swim), and this lack of "thermal exercise" may
cause inadequate functioning of the brain. (B) Genetic makeup that
predisposes an individual to be affected by the above condition more
seriously than other people. To test the hypothesis, an approach to
treating depression is proposed that consists of adapted cold showers
(20 degrees C, 2-3 min, preceded by a 5-min gradual adaptation to make
the procedure less shocking) performed once or twice daily. The proposed
duration of treatment is several weeks to several months. The following
evidence appears to support the hypothesis: Exposure to cold is known
to activate the sympathetic nervous system and increase the blood level
of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline and to increase synaptic release of
noradrenaline in the brain as well. Additionally, due to the high
density of cold receptors in the skin, a cold shower is expected to send
an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve
endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect.
Practical testing by a statistically insignificant number of people, who
did not have sufficient symptoms to be diagnosed with depression,
showed that the cold hydrotherapy can relieve depressive symptoms rather
effectively. The therapy was also found to have a significant analgesic
effect and it does not appear to have noticeable side effects or cause
dependence. In conclusion, wider and more rigorous studies would be
needed to test the validity of the hypothesis.
- PMID:
- 17993252
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.mehy.2007.04.052
No comments:
Post a Comment