A clinical psychologist encouraged people to wear colorful clothes aimed at reducing depression since “looking at colorful objects triggers a mechanism in the brain that causes a sense of happiness.”
Depression is a mental disorder, and a person who has impairment in three out of four aspects of his/her life, namely: job, education, family and social communication will be considered depressed, said Robabeh Qhaffar-Tabrizi, quoted by ISNA.
She pointed to some of the obvious symptoms of depression such as anorexia, change in sleep patterns, anxiety, feelings of sadness and defeat, decision making problems, lack of self-confidence, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (obsessive thoughts that lead to repetitive behavior) that can deteriorate in the long-term.
Regarding behavioral and genetic disorders as effective risk-factors in causing mental illness, she noted that humiliation, pessimism, low self-esteem and having depressed parents will enhance the likelihood of depression in an individual.
“Anemia - a condition in which the blood doesn’t have enough healthy red blood cells - is highly influential in the pathogenesis of depression,” she said, adding that if left untreated, the patient’s lifestyle would change and the symptoms of depression would gradually increase, leading to psychosomatic disorder, a disease which involves both mind and body.
Early Attention
Qhaffar-Tabrizi also noted that factors like lethargy, lack of motivation and concentration to plan in life, reduce a person’s energy for daily activities, causing persistent depression.
To prevent mental illness, it’s better to visit a psychiatrist, she stressed, calling for parents’ attention to identify symptoms of depression in their children early. Production of humorous and funny programs by the broadcast media, and donning colorful clothes can help reduce morosity, depression and psychosomatic disorders in young children.
In the medieval Islamic world, Persian psychologist-physicians Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (d.934) and Haly Abbas (d.994) developed an early understanding of mental illness that was due to the interaction of the mind and the body. They realized how a patient’s physiology and psychology can have an effect on one another. They found correlations between patients who were physically and mentally healthy and between those who were physically and mentally ill.
In the beginnings of the 20th century, Franz Alexander led the movement looking for the dynamic interrelation between mind and body. Some physical diseases are believed to have a mental component derived from the stresses and strains of everyday living.
This is the case, for example, of lower back pain and high blood pressure, which appear to be partly related to stresses in everyday life in modern society. Psychosomatic aspects of illness are often attributed to stress making the remediation of stress an important factor in its development, treatment, and prevention.
