Aging and Depression

Aging and Depression

Feeling blue occasionally is a natural part of life. But when the sadness persists and interferes with everyday life, it may be depression, a medical condition that plagues many seniors as they continue to age. As a matter of fact, depression is a serious disease itself affecting approximately 15 percent of the senior population in the United States, in particular, those in hospitals and nursing homes.

When depression occurs in late life, it may be a relapse of an earlier depression, or its onset is due to another chronic or life-threatening illness. When one is afflicted with a disease, the depression can be more serious and more difficult to deal with or recover from.

The loss of a lifelong partner or a close friend is a frequent but inevitable occurrence in later life. Although bereavement is part and parcel of life, it is another major cause of depression.

Physical disability and its accompaniment of worthlessness may also bring about depression in the golden years.

Act Like Santa, who is always cheerful, not depressed. Like Santa, you must remain cheerful and positive despite your current medical conditions or environmental problems. You must control all your negative emotions. Not controlling your negative emotions is like drinking salt water: the more you drink, the thirstier you become.

Debug depression myths

First and foremost, depression is not a normal part of growing older. It is a myth that all seniors experience some form of depression as they age. Nothing is further from the truth!

Research studies at the UCLA School of Medicine have shown that cognitive-behavioral therapy alone can actually cause chemical changes in the brain. In other words, it is a depression myth that chemical imbalance cannot be changed by thinking and behavior alone, other than by the use of medications. Unless the depression is post-traumatic, you can increase your neurotransmitters (the brain chemicals) with or without antidepressants. Therefore, it is important to train your mind to control your production of brain chemicals through positive thinking, instead of solely relying on medications.

It is also a depression myth that depression is caused entirely by chemical imbalance in the brain. Although the many symptoms of depression, such as guilt unconnected with the loss of a loved one, thoughts of suicide, difficulty in sleeping, inability to function normally, weight loss, and among others, are associated with chemical imbalance, there is no absolute scientific evidence that low levels of serotonin (a brain chemical) actually cause depression. At any rate, chemical imbalance may be the result, not necessarily, the cause of depression.

It is a depression myth that your behavior is primarily the result of environmental stress or conditioning. The truth is that people and events do not necessarily cause your moodiness, irritability, negative thinking, decreased motivation, loss of appetite, and insomnia—they are all common symptoms of depression.

It is a depression myth that you are powerless against a malfunctioning mind. The truth is that your brain is the hardware of your whole being. If you want to be what you really want to be, you must control your mind, and not letting your mind control you, making you become lethargic and unproductive. It is you who control your own thinking, and not your medications; and it is your brain that creates your own world—how you live your life, and how happy you are in your golden years. It is all in your deep limbic system (near the center of your brain). Your deep limbic system may be the culprit—the underlying cause of your depression. How is that? Your deficiency of neurotransmitters may increase metabolism or inflammation in your deep limbic system, leading to its malfunctioning. An overactive deep limbic system may make you do the following: looking back at the past, you feel regret; looking at the future, you feel anxiety; looking at the present, you feel only dissatisfaction. All these negative thoughts are known as automatic negative thoughts (ANT).

It is a myth that you can heal your deep limbic system only with antidepressants to enhance your neurotransmitters. Even if that were true, all depression medications come with a hefty price—their long-term adverse side effects that may offset the immediate benefits.

Rethink depression. Rethink any depression myth that may have been wrongly inculcated in your mind. You are what you think, and depression can be a choice—your choice, if you choose not to rethink your thinking of depression. You are responsible for your own thoughts. Create your own realty, and change your thinking mind about your depression.

Heal your deep limbic system

Without antidepressants, you can still heal your deep limbic system and enhance its functioning to increase the production of your neurotransmitters to overcome your depression.

Step 1

Understand that your thoughts are real to you. They are not imaginary, but as real as life to you alone.

Now, you have a thought in your mind. Your thought sends electrical signals to your brain. Your brain processes these signals and releases brain chemicals. You become aware of your own thinking. No matter what you think, your thoughts are real to you, and must be treated as real. The goal is to change your perception of these “real” thoughts.

Step 2

Be aware of your body’s reactions to the chemicals released by your brain as these thoughts occur. For example, if you are angry, notice how your muscles tense up and how your heart beats faster; if you are happy, notice how your body responds with a smile or a feeling of euphoria.

Train yourself to notice the differences in your deep limbic system when your thoughts are happy and when they are sad, and notice the different reactions of your body to these different thoughts.

Step 3

Think of negative thoughts as bad. Talk back to your negative thoughts whenever they occur.

Remember, your automatic negative thoughts (ANT) come to your brain involuntarily and spontaneously. But they are NOT correct, and they do not reflect the WHOLE truth.

Change your thoughts, and do not believe them. Learn how to train your mind to change your thoughts, and accordingly change your feelings. Reinforce your changed feelings by talking back to those negative thoughts.

Step 4

Do not focus on negative thoughts. Do not predict the future: you are not supposed to know your fate, and you will never know it anyway. Do not read into someone else’s mind: you have enough trouble reading your own mind, let alone that of others. Do not think with your feelings: they often “lie” to you because they are based on powerful memories from the past, which may be distorted and untrue. Do not cherish the feeling of guilt: remove from your vocabulary “could have”, “should have”, and “ought to have.” Do not label or generalize anyone or anything with words, such as “arrogant”, “dishonest” or “a liar”: judging or labeling prevents you from getting a clear picture of someone or a real situation. Do not explain someone else’s action or intention: that is, attributing any reason or explanation why things happen. Do not play the blame game: stop blaming anyone or anything because you are responsible for own your feelings, and no one else is!

The above are all common patterns of thoughts that come to you naturally simply because you permit them. They all upset your deep limbic system. Learn to talk back to them whenever they surface in your mind. That you cannot control your thoughts is a depression myth. That you must use medications to suppress your negative thoughts is another depression myth.

Banish your negative thoughts

Exercise can help you banish negative thoughts from your mind by increasing your energy output, by accelerating your metabolism, by normalizing your melatonin production to induce restful sleep; by improving your mood with more of the natural amino acid tryptophan.

Nutrition, too, can help your deep limbic system function optimally. Essentially, your deep limbic system needs fat, specifically, omega 3 fatty acids. According to the American Journal of Psychiatry, men who had the highest suicide rates had the lowest cholesterol levels. So some fats may not be too bad after all.

Your body needs proteins, which are building blocks of brain neurotransmitters. Eat more protein.

Balanced meals with complex carbohydrates, milk, meat, and eggs may boost the levels of dopaimine, serotonin, and norepinephrine—their insufficiency is implicated in the cause of depression.

According to Buddha, depression is an illness not just of the body and mind, but also of the heart. The heart or the spirit is where the key to healing lies, contrary to the depression myth that only medications and talk therapy hold the key to recovery.

If your life does not have a real purpose, the worldliness of life may become like quicksand sucking you into a spiritual vacuum, which can only be filled by depressive negative thoughts. When that happens in your golden years, you are not living but merely staying alive.

Emotions are both psychological (what we think) and biological (what we feel). Recognize the power of emotions, but not the truths they necessarily represent. Learn to manage your emotions to free yourself of depression when you grow older in your golden years.  All emotions have an “inner voice” that must be acknowledged first or it will not go away. In addition to talking back to that voice, you may have to talk to someone else, such as someone close to you, to avoid being at risk for trapped emotions, especially when you are all alone by yourself. Always cherish a positive attitude towards yourself as well as others.

According to a pioneering study at Yale University, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, seniors are more likely to recover from a disability if they have a positive attitude about aging. The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston also conducted a survey to assess the frailty of the elderly based on their weight loss, extent of exhaustion, walking speed, and grip strength. One of the findings was that there was a link between positive thinking and frailty in that those who scored high on positive thinking were significantly less likely to become frail in their senior years. Their positive thoughts included being hopeful about the future, being happy and content with life, and believing that they were just as good as other younger people.

To sum up, positive mentality means hope rather than just optimism. There is a difference between hope and optimism. With optimism, you believe that things are going to turn out for the best; optimism, however, has to be realistic and should not exclude grief, hurt, sadness, and sorrow. Hope, on the other hand, shows you a possible and realistic path to a better outcome despite all the challenges, obstacles, and problems you may encounter in your golden years. Your future is always unknown and unknowable, but it is your readiness to get new information and to use your new experience to reassess your current situation that provides a light at the end of the tunnel.

If you have already developed depression in your golden years, you don’t have to struggle with it for the rest of your life. Now is the time to wake up from your nightmare and live a life that you deserve in your golden years.

YOUR GOLDEN YEARS

MY WAY! NO WAY!TAO IS THE WAY!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Embracing All

Embracing All

The TAO recommends embracing all—including everyone and everything that one encounters on one’s life journey—instead of choosing this and picking that. The fact that humans pick this and avoid that is based on their past experiences and projecting those experiences into future as their expectations.

         

"Good fortune and misfortune are all in one.

Seeking one and rejecting the other,

we become completely confused.

Striving for goodness and righteousness,

we become evil and wicked."

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 58)

Embracing everyone and everything is beneficial because it holds the key to awakening, which is the ultimate understanding of the TAO.

“We act without over-doing.

We manage without interference.

We enjoy without attachment. . . .

Therefore, we focus on the present moment,

doing what needs to be done,

without straining and stressing.

To end our suffering,

we focus on the present moment,

instead of our expected result.

So, we follow the natural laws of things.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 63)

The TAO, however, does not imply that there is no free will or freedom of choice.

“Fame or self, which is dearer?

Self or wealth, which is greater?

Gain or loss, which is more painful?

                                  

Accumulating or letting go, which causes more sufferings?

Looking for status and security, we who find only sufferings.

Knowing our true nature, we find joy and peace.

With nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to us.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 44)

Embracing helps you let go of all your attachments to life, especially those you think define who you are.

“Everything that happens to us is beneficial.

Everything that we experience is instructional.

Everyone that we meet, good or bad, becomes our teacher or student.

We learn from both the good and the bad.

So, stop picking and choosing.

Everything is a manifestation of the mysteries of creation."

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 27)

Attachments and Detachments

Attachment is no more than a safety blanket to overcome fear—fear of change and of the unknown from that change. To cope with that fear, all attachments become distractions.

Attachment is basically your emotional dependence on things and people that define your identity, around which you wrap your so called “happiness” and even your survival. Attachment is holding on to anything that you are unwilling to let go of, whether it is something good or bad, positive or negative.

All human attachments are the raw materials with which one both consciously and subconsciously creates one’s identity through a period of confusion and uncertainty that inevitably leads to the identity crisis. Without human attachment, there will be no identity crisis.

“The Way is easy,

     yet people prefer distracting detours.

Beware when things are out of balance.

Remain centered within the Creator.

Distractions are many,

in the form of riches and luxuries.

They allure us from the Way.

Accumulations are like extortions of the poor.

They bring only disasters and sufferings.

Do not deviate from the Way.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 53)

Detachment from the ego-self is the only way to go.

THE TAO OF LIVING LONGER

THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Wisdom of Letting Go

The Wisdom of Letting Go

What Is “Letting Go”?

“Letting go” literally means releasing your close or tight fist in order to abandon or give up something that you are holding in your hand. If you are close- or tight- fisted, you also cannot receive anything. “Letting go” is detachment.

The opposite of “letting go” is “attaching to” something that you are stubbornly holding on to.

The Wisdom in Asking Questions

There is an old proverb that says: “He who cannot ask cannot live.” Life is all about asking questions, and seeking answers from all the questions asked, including questions about “letting go.”

To live well, you need to ask yourself many self-probing questions as you continue on your life journey in order to find out: who you really are, and not who you think or wish you were; what you really need, and not what you want from life; why certain undesirable things happened while certain desirable things did not happen to you. Without knowing the answers to those questions asked, you can never be genuinely happy because you will always be looking for the unreal and the unattainable, just like the carrot-and-stick mule forever reaching out for the unreachable carrot in front.

In many ways, the human brain is like a computer program. Your whole being is like the computer hardware with the apparatus of a mind, a body, and its five senses. The lens through which you see yourself, as well as others and the world around you, are the software that has been programmed by your thoughts, your past and present experiences, as well as your own desires and expectations. In other words, it is you—and nobody else—who have programmed your own mindset. All these years, you may have been trapped in a constricted sense of the self that has prevented you from knowing and being who you really are. That is to say, your “conditioned” thinking mind may have erroneously made you "think" and even "believe" that you are who and what you are right now; but nothing could be further from the truth.

By asking relevant questions, you may have the human wisdom to "change" that pre-conditioned mindset, and thus enabling you to separate the truths from the half-truths or even the myths that you may have created for yourself voluntarily or involuntarily all these years.

The important thing in questioning is to experience everything related to all the questions you ask concerning yourself, others, and the world around you. Live every question in its full presence.

Always ask yourself many “how” and “why” questions regarding whatever you may do, say, and want in your everyday life and living. Ask questions not just about yourself, but also about all those around you, whether they are connected to your or not.

Be patient toward all those questions that you cannot find the answers right away. Enlightenment may dawn on you one day when you ask fewer or even no more questions, because by then you may already have got all the answers; that is your ultimate self-awakening to the truths.

Empower your thinking mind to increase its wisdom by asking questions to initiate its intent to learn, to discover, and then to change yourself for the better.

Ultimately, you will self-intuit the wisdom of letting go, which plays a pivotal role in how you are going to live the rest of your life.

To get your copy, click here.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Unlearning and Relearning

 Unlearning and Relearning Pharmaceutical Drugs

On your healing journey, take the step to unlearn and relearn many things related to your autoimmune disease, such as myasthenia gravis.  

To heal, you must unlearn what you have previously learned, that is, letting go of all your preconceptions related to all the hows and the whys you might have got your myasthenia gravis in the first place. Remember, the knowledge you are currently having may have been generated by the limited and the finite material world you are living in.

Life itself is a sacred journey involving change, growth, and self-discovery. Knowledge is self-empowering, but it has to be distilled by true human wisdom. Therefore, to deepen your love of heath and your quest for health and healing, you must seek not just knowledge but also wisdom in order to expand your vision and stretch your soul so that you may stay both physically healthy and spiritually wise. Your knowledge and wisdom may provide you with meaning and direction to continue with every step of your long healing journey.

Unlearning Pharmaceutical Drugs

As we age, our self-made energy from the food we have consumed over the years begins to decline, and this is evidenced by our inability or difficulty to cope with the stressors of life. These stressors may have come in many different forms, such as overexposure to sunlight, polluted air, contaminated water, and a host of other lifestyle factors of modern life. After decades of abuse to our bodies, our choices—whether we have made them knowingly, or they have been imposed unwittingly on ourselves—begin to take their toll, resulting in the development of chronic conditions and degenerative diseases. To add insult to injury, our metabolic slowdown that comes with the natural process of aging makes it even more difficult to maintain our health and energy.

To deal with our health issues, many of us may desire a quick-fix, and thus turn to pharmaceutical drugs, which are toxic chemicals that only address the symptoms but without removing the causes of the health conditions.

Unfortunately, unsafe and toxic pharmaceutical drugs are prevalent. This is an indisputable fact! Unreliable drug tests abound in the medical and pharmaceutical research communities. Drug tests prior to their FDA approval may not be reliable due to the following reasons:

• Pharmaceutical companies may often influence medical researchers, through coercion, incentive, and even threat, to produce the desired results in clinical trials. There have been many cases of data fabrication in clinical trials of drugs in order to facilitate their intended applications.

• Clinical trials usually involve a small number of people, and may not truly reflect the outcome of those who will ultimately be using those drugs after their approval by FDA.

• Drugs tested on animal models may be biased and even irrelevant. An artificially-induced disease in non-human animals may not yield results relevant to a spontaneous, naturally-occurring human disease.

 Relearning Pharmaceutical Drugs

Regularly taking pharmaceutical drugs does not make you live longer because longevity is always drug-free. This makes sense: taking too many pharmaceutical drugs means your body is already stressed by many physical ailments. Ironically, these drugs may do a further disservice to you by ingesting more toxins into your already toxic body.

Pharmaceutical drugs do not heal a disease; they only temporarily suppress the disease symptoms.   Remember, when you give your body a drug to replace a substance that your body is capable of making itself, you body then becomes weaker and will begin not only to manufacture less of that substance, but also to become more dependent on the outside source, which is usually the drug itself. Over time, you will become no longer drug-free.

Unfortunately, no drug can give you insight into the circumstance that created your problems in the first place. At best, it can only temporarily assuage the physical pain created by your situation. Remember, there are no miracle drugs—only wholesome natural self-healing. Utilize your body’s natural self-healing power, rather than relying on those unsafe pharmaceutical drugs. Keep yourself drug-free as much as and as long as possible!

However, it does not imply that you must desist from taking your medications prescribed by your doctor. Rather, it suggests you should always be more alert to the side effects of the drugs you are currently taking; you should not readily reach out for unsafe pharmaceutical drugs, especially over-the-counter ones, without any second thought as if they were coupons or silver bullets.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

  

 To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.

Go on Your Healing Journey!

The Healing Journey

One of Lao Tzu’s famous sayings is “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” The TAO journey of healing myasthenia gravis, or any autoimmune disease, is a great undertaking: every step is as important as the first; and each step is as firm as the previous one. The Chinese often like to say “feet stepping on solid and steady ground.” Your healing journey is the sum of all the steps you are going to take.

Before you take your first step, ponder on this reality: in life, all humans have two desires or pursuits—happiness and healthiness, which not only often come with many delusions and illusions but also always are unattainable and unsustainable. But the TAO may give you self-intuition and self-enlightenment to help you along your own journey of healing myasthenia gravis.

The Step of No Desire and No Intent

It is your healing journey, and only you can take your first step. So, you must choose to take your first step to go on that healing journey.

To continue on your journey, paradoxically, you must show no desire to heal and no intent to reach your destination.

But why?

The desire for good health may be difficult to sustain for someone who is currently confronted with the many health issues related to myasthenia gravis. It may seem not only difficult but almost impossible for that individual to restore natural health and get well again. Worse, ill health may even make that individual feel depressed and forget to take care of the body, and thus allowing the body's malfunctions to continue and deteriorate further.

A wise traveler on a long journey has no fixed plans, and is not intent upon arriving the destination within a certain time frame. But that traveler is ready to use all the situations and all the people encountered to help him along the long journey.

               

Likewise, healing is a long, on-going process, and not a destination. With innate and inexplicable power, it may appear that everyone and everything along your journey are also playing a part in facilitating in your favor all your endeavors in healing your myasthenia gravis.

The bottom line: take your first step of no desire and no intent for healing so as to change and to overcome any attitude of confusion and even despair related to the trauma of your myasthenia gravis diagnosis. On your healing journey, with no intent upon arriving at the destination any time soon, you will continue to keep yourself moving forward, and you will then go the long distance on your long healing journey.

The TAO

According to the TAO, being free of desires is your path to detachment, and thus giving you clarity of thinking to start your own healing journey.

Paradoxically, if you have no desire to desire for change or healing, there is stillness, in which you may see yourself gradually changing for the better in order to slowly heal yourself:

“To live a life of harmony, we need letting life live by itself. . .

So, follow the Way.

Stop striving to change ourselves: we are naturally changing.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 57)

“Accordingly, we do not rush into things.

We neither strain nor stress.

We let go of success and failure.

We patiently take the next necessary step, a small step and one step at a time.

We relinquish our conditioned thinking. Being our true nature, we help all beings

return to their own nature too.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64)

According to the TAO, a good traveler neither has fixed plans, nor shows any effort to arrive at the destination:

“The softest thing in the world

overcomes what seems to be the hardest.

       

That which has no form

penetrates what seems to be impenetrable.

That is why we exert effortless effort.

We act without over-doing.

We teach without arguing.

This is the Way to true wisdom.

This is not a popular way

because people prefer over-doing.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 43)

Begin your healing journey, and take your first step with effortless effort and humble simplicity:

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.

Knowledge and Wisdom to Heal Autoimmune Diseases

If you or your loved ones have been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, one of the autoimmune diseases, it must have been a devastating experience, especially if the neurologist has said that there is no known cure, except using medications to control and manage the many debilitating disease symptoms associated with myasthenia gravis.

A traumatic experience may have a prolonged effect on the human mind: having overwhelming negative emotions; feeling numb and unable to experience pleasure or even pain over a long period of time. The ultimate impact is that it may affect how you think, feel, act, and react in every aspect of your daily life and living.

To heal yourself of myasthenia gravis or any illness, you must be both knowledgeable and wise.

Knowledge and Wisdom

Knowledge comes from how your mind perceives and processes any information available. Wisdom, on the other hand, is how you apply the knowledge acquired to cope with any disease and disorder you may have, as well as your everyday life and living. The important implication: being knowledgeable may not  necessarily make you wise or wiser.

The bottom line: you need both knowledge and wisdom to heal yourself of myasthenia gravis.

Given that both knowledge and wisdom come from the thinking mind, your brain is, therefore, the most important of all your body organs. With its billions of brain cells, your brain is not only most complicated but also major source of all your health issues and problems related to myasthenia gravis.

So, it is important to keep your brain healthy as much as possible in order to be capable of acquiring the knowledge and attaining the wisdom to heal your myasthenia gravis.

The Healthy Brain

This is how you may keep your brain healthy:

·      Keep yourself hydrated because 80 percent of your brain is water. Drink at least 7-8 cups of water per day.

·      Keep healthy gums, and floss your teeth regularly to prevent any gum disease.

·      Enhance and improve blood flow to your brain with your 30-minute exercise at least several times a week.

·      Eat a healthy diet: high-quality lean protein; low-glycemic and high-fiber carbohydrates; natural and not processed foods.

·      Avoid inflammation and the formation of free radicals in your body.

·      Avoid sugar and sugary drinks, including all sodas and diet sodas.

·      Quit smoking, and limit your alcohol consumption to no more than 5 glasses per week.

·      Manage your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

·      Maintain healthy levels of nutrients, e.g. vitamin D and omega-3s.

·      Maintain healthy hormones of the thyroid and the testosterone.

·      Promote good mental health, and avoid anxiety and depression.

·      De-stress yourself with correct breathing and daily meditation.

·      Get quality sleep of at least 7-8 hours a night without the help of medication.

·      Develop meaning and purpose in your life.

In addition to having a healthy brain, you must learn how to empower your thinking mind to seek and acquire the knowledge to heal your myasthenia gravis.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.