I went to the woods a few days ago and was delighted to see these... they gave me so much pleasure last year. The magic of them.
The feeling ill has gone (maybe it was the jet? I have been sleeping with it under my pillow...) but I still feel discombobulated. I'm sure the worry about the fast approaching five weeks of intense labour is in the background. But also there's this sense of my mind firing off in all directions.
For example, in Alex Riley's A Cure for Darkness (how can he feel dark?? He's 30, has a loving partner, a new baby and has written a very well researched book) he recounts the 'Friendship Bench' approach to depression. I think it was started in Zimbabwe. The doctor recruited grandmothers and gave them basic training in counseling over a few weeks and had them talk to people who were depressed on these wooden benches. It turns out - they have done studies and written up a paper - that it works - and the positive effects last longer than antidepressants. Even better is when groups of people meet with a trained lay person and at the end, those people keep on meeting and supporting each other. People change their lives and make the factors that cause their low mood less bad by getting support and encouragement to make changes.
These kind of interventions can prevent depression too - if people are connected and supported and encouraged.
Then there is the inflammation theory. Pre and probiotics can work. So can psychedilics and deep brain stimulation and ECT. But what we get is bloody SSRIs.
But get back to the idea of the bench and the inflammation... these are interventions that address a whole person and a whole body not a brain in a vat. Surely there should be a focus on the whole person rather than this fixation with serotonin and brain networks?
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