One of the things that makes it hard when you have depression is convincing others that you aren’t just sad. Anyone who has the disease knows how heartbreaking it is when those that you love around you dismiss your heavy pain as something that you should just be able to kick yourself out of. That is because there is not a sure fire test for the disease. Well now researchers, in what could be the best work of them all, are developing a blood test that could actually reliably say whether a person has depression or not. ...

You know, sometimes I admire scientists ability to get paid for obvious studies like this one. The research found that mothers who work are happier than those that are stay at home moms. I could have told them that and I’m not even a woman or a parent.

But I am a work-at-home blogger and I’ll be honest, I miss going to work and socializing with my co-workers. It got me out of the house and into society. I’ve also seen what my stay at home niece goes through with her kids crying, screaming and sometimes even fighting over the stupidest things with their siblings like they both want to play with the same toy. It makes me wonder if I was ever that bad as a kid? ...

Everyone knows that if you don’t get much sleep for a few days, you usually get a bit slow and perhaps even cranky, the world becoming a much harsher place because your mind is literally exhausted. But now researchers at the University of Gronigen in the Netherlands are conducting tests to understand how sleep deprivation creates symptoms that mimic or even cause depression. ...

Ah, is there anything the Internet can’t do? Well except find my keys. But can online websites make a difference in helping someone with depression? Well a study in Australia along with online programs have been found to treat depression, showing that 24/7 interactivity in an anonymous environment can help indeed. ...

A new study reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that women were at more risk for depression if they were less physically active and/or watched more TV.

It’s a pretty commonly accepted theory that physical activity has benefits in the mind and thus this isn’t a big surprise. Especially when the findings found that walking briskly was one of the activities that lowered the risk the most. Such exercise often releases endorphins in the blood that make the person happier, not sadder. ...

While a lot of people get a case of the blues around the holidays and in the winter months because life seems harder than normal due to perhaps no one to share it with or just dealing with downfalls of snow. But seasonal affective disorder is just as real and devastating as regular depression. The only difference is it happens only during certain times of the year. Scientists speculate that the lack of physical sunlight during these months, with shorter days and more inside activities, are to blame for this. And so a new treatment is being explored that exposes the brain to more light, but not through the eyes, but through the ears. ...