Are there new ways to beat depression?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 June 2019
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For decades, people suffering from chronic depression have relied on medicines that affect the levels of chemicals in the brain like serotonin, which regulate mood and emotion. But ten percent of people don’t benefit from any of the existing treatments for this devastating condition.
Sisters Annie and Kathryn have both been diagnosed with long-term depression that makes it hard for them to experience pleasure as others do. But they’re interested in whether there are new solutions on the horizon that could improve their wellbeing, in particular ones that don’t necessarily involve conventional medication.
Datshiane Navanayagam learns how a technique called mindfulness could strengthen neural connections in bits of the brain that communicate with each other. This, it’s said, may harness the ability of the brain to adapt and self-repair which can change people’s emotional responses to life’s ups and downs. She meets a psychologist who shows how this simple technique could improve our overall ability to process information and reverse negative thought patterns.
CrowdScience also hears about cutting edge research into the use of psychedelics as potential treatment for depression and heads to the UK’s only centre for ketamine therapy, where patients say a drug once popular with partygoers, is having a profound effect on their mental health.
Produced by Marijke Peters for BBC World Service.
(Photo: A woman sitting on the top of a mountain and meditating. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.8 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC |
| 0:29.1 | Sounds? |
| 0:30.3 | Hello, my name is Catherine from Australia and with me is my sister Annie. |
| 0:35.0 | Our question for today's crowd science is, |
| 0:38.0 | How did treatments for depression change your brain. We both suffer from depression and I've been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and I've lived with that for as long as I can remember. |
| 0:57.0 | Mine comes down as a sort of gradual darkening of thoughts and experiences and I stop enjoying things. |
| 1:07.0 | This is crowd science from the BBC World Service. I'm Daciano Navanayagam. |
| 1:17.0 | I struggle to get out of bed sometimes. I struggled to go to work in the past I've |
| 1:24.5 | struggled to keep jobs so it's tough. Many people write to us out of |
| 1:30.8 | curiosity there's something they've always wondered and ask us to go off and |
| 1:34.8 | investigate. But sometimes we hear from people with a deeply personal reason for getting |
| 1:40.4 | in touch, like today's listeners. |
| 1:43.0 | There are just some days that I can appreciate, |
| 1:46.4 | you know, that something in front of me is beautiful, |
| 1:49.6 | but I can't feel it. |
... |
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