Anti-Aging Information

Depression is an illness many of us must come to grips with in midlife. Depression can come as the product of genetic or emotional precipitating factors in our lives, perhaps expedited by one or more external events, but ending up with the potential to ruin jobs, families, and lives. In some cases, depression may actually have started earlier in our lives, masquerading through high school, college, and beyond as an inability to produce in school or at work or to perform successfully in one or another of life's relationships.

Depression is not a character weakness. It is a correctable, sometimes crippling condition that is probably inherited and certainly biochemically induced. It comes and goes elusively and, if uncontrolled, can kill. Medications such as older tricyclic antidepressants; newer, "cleaner" serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft; and lithium can restore energy levels and stabilize nasty mood swings. They are the keys that might break the cycle, the downward spiral of depression, and launch you back on the road to feeling good. It's more likely that such medications in conjunction with some sort of cognitive therapy will be necessary to bring you around to at least a level playing field from