More advice regarding depression, anxiety, BP etc.

While my continuing series of advice is directly mostly to depression and anxiety disorder sufferers much of what I explain applies also to people with mood disorders. Here is an example that everyone can learn from including people who are of good health and who wish to preserve their good health for as long as they can.

First, do understand that humans evolved into their current bodies and mental faculties over a period of millions of years. Think of the body as being sculpted for maximum success and health. Over millions of years the human body is like a sculpture that is being made better and better for health and vigor and the ability to successfully reproduce and raise children. For all of those millions of years humans slept when the sun went down and woke when the sun rose. Therefore the human body has been sculpted to require a full night's sleep every night in order to be at its maximum capability for health and normal operations.

Humans slept for 8-12 hours every single night for millions of years. The body has been created in a nursery, if you will think of it that way, where the sun required "lights out" in the early evening and all humans slept until "lights on" at the dawn. So when people say that humans need a good long night's sleep every night, it's not like prudes discovered that because they have a dull life. People who have been stating that people need a good night's sleep every night realized that it is a fundamental of successful biological life. The human body (and mind) have been sculpted by millions of years to be healthier and healthier and better and better, and all of this was done with the basic configuration (think of bodies like a computer now) of "down time" every night from sundown to sunrise. "Maintenance" takes place during that down time that is vital to healthy bodies.

A recent study shows that dieters lost more fat when they slept MORE. People think the opposite must be true, that is, they think the more active you are the more you "burn fat" and the more lethargic you are the more you gain fat. That's true of exercise and daily activity but that is not true of nighttime. Sleeptime is maintenance time for your body including correcting fat and other imbalances while you sleep. Your body is busy doing "maintenance" during your "downtime," and this is both bodily and mental optimizing and conditioning.

For two generations now adults have not gotten enough sleep and they have sleep deprived their babies and children. This has caused many of the physical (cancer, heart, blood sugar) and mental (depression, ADHD, anxiety, moods) disorders that people are scratching their heads (or their asses) over in puzzlement today. Sleep is not the "cure" but sleep is a requirement for good health, just as is food, water and air. If you are struggling with depression and other disorders one of the best things you can do it to get yourself on a schedule of at least eight hours of straight sleep a night. I know that's hard to do but trust me, it's got to be done.

It's a feedback loop within a society that is now set in concrete against full and good night's sleep so I understand that it will be hard to implement, but you have to do it for your own good, for our children's good and for society as a whole.

First start be redefining your idea of being a perfect person or, rather, a "high achiever." For millions of years the human body was evolved (sculpted) to be a "high achiever" if you got enough air, water, food, shelter, heat and sleep in a day. THAT was a successful day. It was a HIGHLY successful day if you could do that for yourself and for someone else, that is, your spouse and your family. Because obtaining air, water, food, shelter and heat all required physical work humans developed the perfect balance of the active body in the daytime and the receiver of a full sleep night every day with certainty. You are not a "high achiever" if some activity is keeping you from getting a regular full night of sleep every single night for yourself and your family.

You know how when you don't eat enough salt you crave chips or something, or if you've not had fruit for a while you crave some sort of citrus? People with depression unknowingly crave sleep, which is why they often do sleep. They get criticized, though, by "mental health professionals," who have all bought into the high achiever myths themselves and view people with depression who sleep as "showing symptoms" and "being escapists." Um, no, that's not quite it. People with depression are like the canaries in the mine who are the first to recognize, but at a subconscious level, that people are not getting enough sleep. Now the trick is to make yourself stick to a good healthy sleep schedule every night, rather than compensating via naps.

It's hard to get to sleep these days with so many stresses, pressures and worries on your mind every night AND the fact you lack a full day of physical activity to make you tired, which is the way human bodies were sculpted to be. So I understand that it is hard to sleep when mentally under siege and when you don't have enough tiredness in your physical body to crave the sleep. This is why sports at the end of the work day is such a great thing. Forget the stupid TV and computer and video games. If you work at a desk all day try to get involved in a sport after work. Trust me that will make a huge difference for both adults and children. It's hard because consumer society has conspired to rob people of good health and peace of mind. Everyone has to be an overachiever, so they pile on the job stress, the homework assignments, and the whole "perfect" lifestyle of coolness and this sucks away the basics around which the body was created to thrive, which is as I said, goals that are modest and life affirming each day, with physical activity and with a solid regular long block of sleep at night every night.

Sometimes when you make the change you just have to lay in bed whether you can sleep or not. Old studies (not talked about these days because they are anti high achiever propaganda) show that if you just lay in bed all night and don't actually sleep because you can't, you still get a high percentage of the physical and mental benefit of sleep. So don't take sleeping aids unless you absolutely must due to a medical condition! Stick with a schedule even if you feel like a dummy laying there awake. Eventually your body will adjust back to the way it should be, especially if you have, like I said, a sports activity to make up for the desk job all day. Also, obviously, don't have caffeine and energy drinks after 2 pm each day if you are working on regaining this good sleep schedule. The mid afternoon boost of soda or coffee break during the work day should be your last consumption of an energy or caffeine beverage, just to get you over the hump of the end of the work day, but not to carry into the evening. Once you get back in a good regular long night of sleep you can fine tune this and maybe have a soda at dinner or something like that, especially if you are having a sport activity. Drag your kids away from their homework and their Facebook and make them shoot hoops with you after dinner. That's what we used to do in the 1950's and early 1960's. Kids and adults had no trouble sleeping then and they got good grades.

I hope this helps and best wishes to all.