Many people are looking in to the most popular product on the market, and that is melatonin. It is a chemical that is produced by a specific part in our brain, and the lack of it can cause sleeping problems. This is because it has control over the rhythms that we have in our body, and when your body is supposed to go asleep, the production of melatonin is at its highest. When you wake up you are not producing any melatonin but instead you have a huge spike in the production of different hormones that are called corticosteroids. These include such as cortisol, and they wake your body up and consume it’s energy sources – also they relief severe allergic reactions.

One common over the counter sleep aid is called diphenhydramine that is actually an allergy medicine. Our brain has multiple different ways it causes us to be awake, and how it makes us sleep. Histamin has a great effect on the vitality of the brain and since anti-histamins cause the histamin to be ineffective, it will make us feel tired. Most of the modern anti-histamins do not make your sleepy and for that reason they can not be used as over the counter sleep aids. This is because they can not go through the blood brain barrier which is protecting our brain from harmful chemicals. One well known allergy medicine that contains diphenhydramine is Benadryl, and a few popular sleep aids that contain it are Tylenon and Nytol.

Usually the allergy medication that is been used as over the counter sleep aids, are quite powerful, and are mostly used to treat severe reactions like anafylaxia. This might just be the reason why they also have a significant effect on the vitality of the cortex and with that the vitality of the individual – making him or her sleep easier or feel tired. If you are about to use any sleep medication – prescription or no – you should consult your doctor first.

Most people don’t even think about getting medical help because that would be the same as accepting that they need “head medication”. Well the problem with that is that basically when you are derpessed you have a chemical imbalance in your brain, and that can not be fixed with the right thougths. You are going to need medication if you really want to get help and that is why in severe cases it is important to go see a doctor.

The drugs used to medicate it are selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors which will basically increase the amount of serotonin that you will have for your brain to use and rebalance your brain.

Many people start suffering from depression when there is too dark and they don’t see the daylight for long periods of time. This happens especially in parts of the world where during the winter there is the majority of the day dark. Mostly in the norhtern parts of the world in northern Europe and in Alaska.

The reason for people to get derpessed because of this is that our bodies need some real alteration in the day. You need to have a period of bright light and a period of darkness. This is because most of our hormonal and chemical systems are operating according to the changes of the day. At night we are producing hormones such as melatonin and in the morning we produce such as sex hormones and cortisol. That keeps us working during the day and enables us to fall asleep at night. These systems are controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus in our hypothalamus which is in turn controlled by light sensation in our eyes. That was a bit roughly explained but you should get the idea. If there is no clear change between the day and the night we are not going to have a normal hormonal cycle and our brain chemistry is going to get messed.

This is why many people get help from bright light therapies which are actually just a fancy way to say “sit in front of a light during the morning”. You will get a specific type of bright light which you will turn on in the morning and sit nearby, without directly looking at it. Do this for a half an hour and you can simulate the natural daily cycles and get help to your depression. Once again this is no professional advice and I am just reading stuff from the web and implementing here, and that is why you should also consult a doctotor if you feel like you might be depressed.

Normally you don’t really understand yourself if you are depressed. You are not going to blame some condition on the fact that everyone one the planet seems to be doing it wrong and only making you annoyed. You don’t want to accept the fact that the problem is in your head and you should do something about it before it gets too serious. I don’t want you to be jumping in conclusions or anything but when you realise that you are trying to push everyone away for no good reason it might be a good time to go see a doctor.

It really happens like that. One day you realise that you want to be alone for no good reason and that you don’t feel that good even if you are alone. Most of the depressed people never realise that they are depressed, they just go about their miserable lives without really enjoying it. When you constantly feel like there is no tomorrow and are hopeless of the future, it might be agood time to consider some treatment. There are those people who are just pessimists and that is why you should not go and give diagnoses to your friends who seem like they are depressed, since in many cases you can’t tell what is going on. They could just be having too much of things to think about and  be stressed in that way, that does not mean they are in the need for some brain chemical altering medical treatment.

Another common symptom is the feel of guilt and that is what hit me. I realised that even though I was not doing anything wrong at work I felt like the bosses were about to fire me because I was a bad employee. Actually I am pretty good and one of the best at what I do there so there is no reason for them to give me the boot, but even so I constantly felt that I was doing something really wrong, or that they were just going to start blaming me for something outrageous and get me fired.

Usually you can get rid of depression by talking about it but it is a good idea to go see a doctor. I am probably going to talk about the treatments in another post.