IGX

http://www.amazon.com/Lifting-Depressio ... 005&sr=8-1

A friend read this first, and sent me this synopsis while I was waiting for my copy:

Our inactive, symbol-manipulating, no-effort lifestyle causes depression by starving the feedback mechanisms of physical action, tangible reward, and fulfillment.

Effort-driven rewards, behavioral activation therapy, and complex, purposeful, productive hand movements (refer to percentage of brain volume dedicated to hand control) have broad, measurable effects on brain chemistry and physical wiring, and have been demonstrated to increase resilience in the face of adversity, as well as cultivate healthy, context-relevant responses to different types of stressors.
Antidepressants, in contrast, provide a temporary, non-sustainable crutch by affecting a small number of neurotransmitters. The brain may "adapt" to antidepressants by reducing its sensitivity of the relevant neurotransmitters, and then you're shit out of luck unless you balance everything out yourself using behaviors. Antidepressants can quickly take someone out of a very dark state, but behavioral activation therapy appears to have same success rate in treatment of depression, with happier end states and fewer relapses. Broadly, author suggests patching seriously ill patients with drugs, but immediately incorporating behavioral activation therapy, gradually increasing effort level until the effort-driven rewards circuit is self-propagating, then dropping the drugs.

He also thought that it was a little "lightweight." I agree, although really that just means that it's written on a typical pop-psych self-help level. Endnotes are included for anyone who wants to do dig up the original research.

To elaborate on the above, the central idea is quite simple: jumpstart and heal the brain's effort-driven reward circuitry by deliberately engaging in manual tasks that have a tangible, meaningful endpoint. Gardening, canning, knitting, flintknapping, whatever. It doesn't particularly matter what you're doing, as long as you're doing it with your hands and it creates a valuable endpoint. Flaming fitness boards is not on the list, alas.

It's easy to see why this is on the Exuberant Animal reading list. Lambert harkens back to our early days on the savannah, when we did "it" all by hand. And "it" was everything that kept us alive. The good old days weren't always good, but the point is that we evolved doing a great deal of manual activities, and now we sit and stare at a box, with or without some typing, and what we get from these modern activities is not always clear. Minimal effort, and unclear rewards.

Lambert points out the use of various manual activities during the 19th Century attempts to improve care of the mentally ill - places like Danvers State or my local Dorothea Dix Hospital were examples of this model in which the inmates gardened, tended the animals, contributed to the maintenance of the grounds and performed other tasks.

It's a very simple idea, but of course it doesn't work unless you apply it, and apply it deliberately. In my case, over the past couple of months it's been very helpful. Among other things, it's made several things clear: why my irritable depressive episodes lead to a flurry of activity, why I've always gravitated towards jobs like histology and electron microscopy that require a great deal of complex manual work, why being a manager was so unpleasant by comparison, and of course why I treasure my beloved Black and Decker hot glue gun...

It has inspired me to be more systematic about my various little projects I always have going on. I list tasks on a legal pad, cross them off as I do them, add more on the bottom, etc. When the page is full I copy any undone ones onto the next page. I make sure to progress on a few every day. Rock on.

So does it work? So far I feel very good about it. You obviously can't pick a person up out of a black puddle of depression and hand him a trowel and say "Go to it," but once you've got them stabilized, this could be a good ongoing aid.

It's not the be-all and end-all of brain tools, but it's another one for the box.