Circumstances change every minute and you never know what can hit you next that can affect you mentally, personally or financially. As per a study, millions of people undergo depression every year and some find it really hard to come out. Depression can affect not just the quality of life but the whole life from every possible corner. Getting in touch with a right therapist or a psychiatrist is the need of the hour if you have been feeling low or depressed for a long time.
Symptoms of depression include:
- Feeling sad and helpless all the time
- Loss of interest in almost everything in life
- Lack of energy to performing day to day activities
- Problem concentrating
- Problem having good night sleep, feeling drowsy during the day
- Weight gain
People suffer from different types of depression. Types of depression include:
- Major depression
- Anxious distress
- Melancholy
- Agitated
- Persistent Depressive Disorder
- Bipolar Disorder
- Seasonal Affective Disorder
- Psychotic Depression
- Postpartum Depression
- Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
- Situational Depression
- Atypical Depression
- Treatment Resistant Depression
What is HBOT – Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?
HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) is an adjunctive treatment procedure that involves no medicines or use of any chemicals to treat a medical condition. In this procedure, the patient has to be in a closed chamber that is filled with 100% medical grade oxygen at at-least 2 times the normal atmospheric pressure. The patient is usually required to remain in the chamber for about 60 to 90 minutes.
During his/her stay in the HBOT chamber, the person will inhale at least 5 times more oxygen than he/she breathes in the normal environment. As a result, more oxygen gets dissolved in the blood including the plasma and is carried to every cell in the body including those in the brain. Oxygen rich blood and plasma helps in reducing inflammation and treating tissue, cell, blood vessel damage. HBOT also helps in strengthening the immune system by helping the body increase the production of white blood cells.
HBOT to treat depression
HBOT helps in treating several other medical conditions. You can go through the list of conditions treated by HBOT here. When people suffering from depression were put through HBOT sessions, they started to experience clear headedness and mental sharpness. The increased supply of oxygen to the brain helped improve neural functioning of the brain as more stem cells were lodged in the brain. Eventually doctors found that the chemicals produced by the brain were balanced unlike when they were depressed.
The benefit of HBOT is that the effects don’t go away after stopping the sessions. They persist for months and years making the lives of patients better. Psychiatrists found that including HBOT along with their therapy produced remarkable results in their mentally depressed patients.
Conclusion
If you ever feel less and less energetic, losing interest in living your life, remember that you might be getting into depression. Obviously, the things that happened in your past should be the reason and you need to see a good doctor immediately. Remember that depression is a treatable condition and by including HBOT in their therapies, there can be surprisingly positive results in your condition that can bring back your normal or even better life back!
