The Brain's Connection with Your Hands and Depression

[Wally]

http://www.everydayhealth.com/healt...gupta-using-your-hands-to-heal-your-head.aspx (Video embedded in link)

"Carrie and Alton Barron met in medical school. They married and made a life together, but they never expected to work together. She is a psychiatrist and he is a hand surgeon. Their two disciplines would seem to be miles apart.

Then they noticed their patients had something in common: When they were using their hands, their mental health improved.

“People started coming in and talking about activities they had done with their hands over the weekend that had lifted their mood,” Carrie says. She remembers one patient who was struggling with depression: “Something broke in his apartment and he fixed it and he just felt euphoric.”

Alton saw the other side of that equation — people who lost the use of their hands after an injury. He witnessed “the significant mood depression that occurs when people lose the ability to do what they need to do.” He saw that not only in craftspeople who made a living with their hands, but also in ordinary people who could no longer cook a meal or tie their shoes.

Those observations evolved into a book they wrote together and called “The Creativity Cure.” They call it a “prescription” for avoiding and alleviating depression. . . ."

(Click the link above for to read full article and watch video.)

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

They say it is no coincidence that modern people use their hands less than our ancestors, and also experience higher rates of anxiety and depression. More than half of the brain’s cortex is mapped to the hands. That’s evidence, Alton says, that our hands need to be engaged for our brains to be healthy.

Never knew that.

 

[adreno]

Never knew that.

I'm sure he means the brain's motor cortex.

 

[Little Bluestem]

He saw that not only in craftspeople who made a living with their hands, but also in ordinary people who could no longer cook a meal or tie their shoes.

Why are they surprised that not being able to cook a meal or tie one's shoes is depressing?

 

[A.B.]

Maybe they're just happy to do concrete activities instead of psychoanalyzing themselves in the hope that magically their health problems will go away once they gain insight.

 

[adreno]

There is also the fact that motor activity facilitates dopamine release -- this is usually why children with ADHD fidget.

 

[chipmunk1]

(Click the link above for to read full article and watch video.)

i apologize for being cynical but to me this sounds like just another "miracle cure".

“Something broke in his apartment and he fixed it and he just felt euphoric.”

sounds more like mood instability.

Alton saw the other side of that equation — people who lost the use of their hands after an injury. He witnessed “the significant mood depression that occurs when people lose the ability to do what they need to do.”

for obvious reasons. People who lose their leg or eyesight don't get depressed?

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

Maybe they're just happy to do concrete activities instead of psychoanalyzing themselves in the hope that magically their health problems will go away once they gain insight.

There's also the effect of distraction. If you're knitting one and purling two, it's easier to forget that you're been sitting or lying on a bed 18 hours a day.