• 1What Is Depression? (VIDEO)
  • 2Treating Depression
  • 3What Makes You Unique?
  • 4Your Brain Is Electric
  • 5Depression and Neurotransmitters
  • 6Emotions and Your Brain
  • 7Losing Your Balance
  • 8Forms of Depression
  • 9Symptoms and Diagnosis
  • 10Causes of Depression
  • 11Depression and Pain
  • 12Depression Changes the Brain
  • 13The Depression Cascade
  • 14Finding Balance
  • 15Talk Therapy
  • 16Movement as Medicine
  • 17Managing Stress and Making Choices
  • 18Food for a Better Mood
  • 19Get Some Sleep
  • 20Treatment: Antidepressants
  • 21Treatment: ECT and VNS
  • 22There Is Hope
CHAPTER 1

What Is Depression? (VIDEO)

Take a trip inside your head to see what happens in your brain when you have depression. Hear depression sufferers talk about living with this devastating disorder, and top experts explain how depression feeds upon itself. Travel deep into the brain to zero in on the organs implicated in emotional disorders. Voyage deeper still to witness electrical impulses racing across neurons. Depression acts like a neurotoxin: view the chemicals that can cause those neurons to wither. Learn the factors that put you at risk. Discover which organs of the brain may atrophy, while others become too active. Hear a message of hope from someone who knows: even people with severe depression can become symptom-free.
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