Mental Health & Wellness: Depression & Anxiety

For many years Sergeant Kevin Briggs had a dark, unusual, at times strangely rewarding job: He patrolled the southern end of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, a popular site for suicide attempts. In a sobering, deeply personal talk Briggs shares stories from those he’s spoken — and listened — to standing on the edge of life. He gives a powerful piece of advice to those with loved ones who might be contemplating suicide.

Kevin Breel didn't look like a depressed kid: team captain, at every party, funny and confident. But he tells the story of the night he realized that -- to save his own life -- he needed to say four simple words.

Everyone gets sad at times or feels a little down. People get depressed when life doesn't go the way they hope it will. Many people bounce back after a time and feel okay again. But for many others those feelings of sadness and despair don't leave. They persist even when life seems good. They can interfere with one's ability to enjoy favorite activities, keep up with friends and family, or even to complete schoolwork. That's an illness called depression, and millions of Americans suffer from it each year. Most cases of depression can be treated with medication and/or therapy, but one must understand the signs and symptoms and know when it's time to seek professional help. If you're suffering depression, you are not alone and help is available.

Not sleeping for days on end. Long periods of euphoria. Racing thoughts. Grandiose ideas. Mania. Depression. All of these are symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank talks about mood disorders and their causes as well as how these disorders can impact people's lives.

So, it turns out we have an easy time reading emotions in facial expressions, but emotions can straight up kill us! In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank discusses stress, emotions, and their overall impact on our health.

The connection between what we eat, and how we feel, has been documented for over a decade in studies. Yet, few organizations dealing with mental health and addiction have incorporated this concept into their treatment protocols. In this video seminar, renowned dietician Kristin Kirkpatrick discusses the major dietary factors that impact depression, anxiety, and addiction. She details why dietary intervention is essential to successful recovery and considers the groundbreaking new program at the Meadows that is addressing these factors in an effort to better serve patients, visitors and staff. She explains the mind diet, Omega 3 fatty acid and vitamin D studies, MTHFR deficiency, gut health research, and the impact of processed food on mental health.

The "fight-or-flight" response is your body's built-in response to stress. When faced with a challenging or threatening situation, your body produces adrenaline, which increases your heart and breathing rate and improves your response time. Many things, called stressors, can trigger this response. A stressor can be a physical danger, a high-pressure activity, or even performing in public. In most cases, your body relaxes and the adrenalin fades once the situation is resolved. When your "fight-or-flight" response continues, though, or is triggered by a concern or preoccupation with something that might happen, it becomes anxiety, a state of worry that has negative effects on your health. How you choose to manage stress cope with anxiety can have long-term effects on your well-being, so it's important to understand the difference and how to deal with them.

“Manage Overload and Relieve Stress” is a video to help people struggling with issues of stress, anxiety, and overload that affect them at work and at home. In this video you will learn to manage stress and overload and restore work-life balance by changing your mindset and taking positive action to get back in control. When people feel overwhelmed, they are easily distracted and agitated, the quality of their work deteriorates, they may work more hours or start to take work home and so create a poor work/life balance. Failing to effectively manage stress can lead to health problems such as physical and emotional exhaustion, depression, eating disorders, drinking too much, poor sleep, anger and irritability. We all need to acknowledge problems and take action to relieve or overcome them. In this video, psychologists Eve Ash and Peter Quarry give practical advice for what people can do to manage time and priorities and take control to relieve stress and overload.

Current treatments for depression and PTSD only suppress symptoms, if they work at all. What if we could prevent these diseases from developing altogether? Neuroscientist and TED Fellow Rebecca Brachman shares the story of her team's accidental discovery of a new class of drug that, for the first time ever, could prevent the negative effects of stress -- and boost a person's ability to recover and grow. Learn how these resilience-enhancing drugs could change the way we treat mental illness.

We will learn the connection between anxiety and depression. We will learn habits that contribute to anxiety that you can break. We will learn what to tell yourself the next time you are depressed. Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in the U.S. affecting forty million adults. About half of those that are diagnosed with anxiety disorders also suffer from depression. Experiencing occasional anxiety and worry is normal; but people with anxiety disorders experience excessive and persistent fear about everyday situations. These anxiety disorders are often inherited and occur by faulty circuits in the brain that control fear.

This documentary offers exclusive access to a ground-breaking new trial at Imperial College London. The trial sees, for the first time ever, and under controlled conditions, a psychedelic drug tested head-to-head against a standard antidepressant as a treatment for depression. The film follows a pioneering team of scientists and psychotherapists, led by Professor David Nutt, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, and Dr Rosalind Watts, as they compare the effects of psilocybin (the active ingredient of magic mushrooms) with an antidepressant (an SSRI called escitalopram) on a small group of participants with clinical depression. This is scientific research at its most cutting-edge. With over seven million people being prescribed antidepressants each year in England alone, this drug trial is an important milestone in understanding a completely different treatment for depression. Filmed over 16 months, this film explores both the immediate and long-term impacts of the trial on the lives of participants. It investigates whether psychedelic drugs combined with psychological support could help tackle one of the biggest medical challenges faced today and what it takes to conduct research in uncharted scientific territory. How do psychedelic drugs measure up against the industry-standard antidepressants that have been popular since the 1990s? The empirical results of the trial are explored alongside the participants' powerful lived experience. A BBC Production.

Our identities, societies, and health are all mixed together in cool, weird, and often deeply unfair ways. One of the big factors that comes out of that mix is stress. Stress impacts our health in a number of ways. In this episode of Crash Course Public Health, we’re going to go beyond the basics and look at the ways society affects our stress, which in turn impacts our health.

Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world; in the United States, close to ten percent of adults struggle with the disease. But because it's a mental illness, it can be a lot harder to understand than, say, high cholesterol. Helen M. Farrell examines the symptoms and treatments of depression and gives some tips for how you might help a friend who is suffering.