Are you "Inf-Obese?" A New Health Crisis and 3 Ways to Avoid It

Infobesity: the feeling of busting at the seams with tweets, status updates, texts, emails…too much information!

The average adult spends 6-8 hours each day online. With each passing moment, there’s a more portable gadget that makes consuming information easier... just as there's another unhealthy junk food or 'energy drink.' Is this really any different than the obesity crisis?

Whether from distracted driving, or erosion of quality time with our children, or lacking a spare moment in the day to just relax...infobesity is equally as dangerous to our bodies and even more so to our spirits.

How can you avoid the dangers of infobesity and get Info-Skinny in 2011?

Getting Started: Talk Therapy for Depression

Many studies have found that talk therapy, or psychotherapy, can help treat depression. Talk therapy can help you learn about your depression and help you find ways to manage your symptoms.

“Talk therapy can give you the skills to help handle your depression, so for many people it’s a very empowering experience,” says Larry Christensen, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. “This makes it effective over a long period of time.”

If you have mild to moderate depression, talk therapy might be all you need to feel better. But if you have more severe depression, you might benefit from medication in addition to talk therapy. Here are some tips for getting started.

The Top Ten Inexpensive Ways to Keep Warm in Winter

Baby, it’s cold outside! Rosy cheeks are cute but you’ll soon want to warm up when ol’ Jack Frost has been nippin’ at your nose. Here are ten fun and inexpensive ways to beat the winter chill.

10. Warm Bricks. This is an old-fashioned, cheap way to keep those toes toasty. While you are cooking dinner, place a brick in the bottom of your oven. Wrap it in towel and put it at the foot of your bed. It will keep you warm all night long!

9. New Life for Old Socks. You can recycle socks by using them as forearm warmers. No one likes cold wind up coat sleeves. So cut off the sock at the ankle and pull them on. You can easily slip them into your coat pocket with no one the wiser.

Depression Rising, but Psychotherapy Declines

Gap Between Drug Treatment and Talk Therapy Widens

More Americans than ever are receiving treatment for depression, but the number getting psychotherapy with or without drugs continues to decline, a national survey finds.

Depression treatment rates increased dramatically during the 1990s with the introduction of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft.

Other SSRIs, including Celexa, Lexapro, and Luvox soon followed, as did newer classes of antidepressants represented by drugs like Cymbalta, Effexor, and Wellbutrin.

Despite all the new drug choices, the use of antidepressants increased only modestly during the last decade -- from about 74% of patients treated in 1998 to 75% in 2007, the survey revealed.

Team Treatment Helps Depression, Chronic Disease

Patients Have Better Outcomes With Team Approach to Managing Care, Study Finds

More than 40% of older Americans have multiple chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, and many also suffer from depression.

These patients have the highest health care costs and the worst outcomes, but a new study suggests that a team-based approach to managing care could improve outcomes and potentially save taxpayers billions.

Researchers at the University of Washington and the Seattle-based managed care organization Group Health Cooperative published their findings in the Dec. 30 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Bright Light Eases Depression in Elderly People

An Hour of Light a Day May Brighten Mood, Improve Sleep in Elderly People With Depression

Exposure to bright light may ease symptoms of depression in elderly people.

A new study shows that three weeks of bright light therapy using specially designed light boxes improved symptoms of depression by as much as 54% in older adults with depression.

In addition to lifting their moods, bright light therapy improved sleep and optimized levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression and often targeted by antidepressant drugs.

Researchers say it’s the first major study to show a beneficial effect of bright light therapy on treating depression in the elderly with non-seasonal major depressive disorder.

Untreated Depression

Untreated clinical depression is a serious problem. Untreated depression increases the chance of risky behaviors such as drug or alcohol addiction. It also can ruin relationships, cause problems at work, make it difficult to overcome serious illnesses, and even result in .

Clinical depression, also known as major depression, is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. Clinical depression affects the way you eat and sleep. It affects the way you feel about yourself and those around you. It even affects your thoughts.

People who are depressed cannot simply “pull themselves together” and be cured. Without proper treatment, including antidepressants and/or psychotherapy, untreated clinical depression can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people with depression.