Category Archives: Mental Health

What we eat has a profound impact on the mind, body and brain, yet the power of nutrition and dietetic supports remain largely underutilised within Australia’s mental health care system.

The nation’s peak body for dietetic and nutrition professionals, Dietitians Australia, released a mental health brief to evidence on how nutrition therapy can be harnessed to tackle the spectrum of mental health challenges faced nationwide.

The Dietitians Australia: Nourishing the Mind, Body and Brain Evidence Brief 2024 details evidence-based solutions for better integration of dietetic and nutrition services into Australia’s health care system to shake up the way we manage mental health conditions across the nation.

“Our health care system needs to evolve to manage the often-complex needs of people living with mental health conditions.

“That includes ensuring Accredited Practising Dietitians take the leading role within multidisciplinary teams when it comes to providing effective, evidence-based dietary therapy for the prevention, treatment and management of mental health conditions their symptoms and commonly co-occurring physical illnesses,” Dietitians Australia President Tara Diversi said.

“The brief highlights the emerging evidence that has found making changes to the quality of food intake, can lead to the remission of depressive symptoms in some people.

“Australians must be supported with food and nutrition guidance to prevent occurrences of mental health conditions, with evidence showing eating a diet that isn’t made up of nutritious foods can increase the risk of developing mood and anxiety disorders.

“There are limited pathways for Australians facing mental health challenges to access nutrition therapy and dietetic services through the Medicare system.

“We’ve been calling on the Government to create avenues through Medicare and other funding programs to support Australians with depression, mood disorders and severe mental illness to access individual and group consultations with Accredited Practising Dietitians as part of a holistic and truly multidisciplinary approach to care.

“Currently there are only limited Medicare item numbers for people with eating disorders and other chronic health conditions to access an Accredited Practising Dietitian for mental health care.

“Mental health conditions cost the economy upwards of $70 billion dollars a year from lost productivity.

“The personal and societal impact cannot be quantified, but is an enormous load for many Australians’ who live with and support people with mental health conditions.

“Dietitians stand ready to play a poignant role in transforming the way we manage mental health care in this country and will continue to advocate for ways we can better nourish the minds, bodies and brains of all Australians.

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There’s more we can do for mental health in Australia – and it starts with what we eat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Quote Source: https://www.australiafitnesstoday.com/?p=15020&preview=true

AFTNews, Mental Health

Children as young as 10 are repeat self-harming: study (UNSW Sydney)

November 21, 2022 admin

The risk of repeat self-harm in young people is highest in the first month after an initial self-harm hospital presentation.

Suicidal behaviour is evident in children, with some as young as 10 presenting to hospitals and emergency departments following a self-harm episode – some on multiple occasions.

Research has found 6055 adolescents aged 10–14 attended an emergency department in New South Wales for self-harm over a five-year period – 2276 of them for a repeat incidence.

In the study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers from the Black Dog Institute and UNSW Medicine & Health analysed over 81,000 hospital-presenting self-harm episodes among 48,547 individuals aged 10-29 years identified during 2014-2019 in New South Wales. They found approximately one-quarter had engaged in self-harm more than once. Repeat self-harm was most likely to occur in the year following the initial episode – specifically in the first month.

“Anecdotally, we’ve been finding that teachers are overhearing self-harm and suicide being discussed in the playground from the primary school years,” says Dr Michelle Tye, senior author of the study who is from the Black Dog Institute and UNSW Medicine & Health. “This study supports that children and adolescents are a high-risk group for self-harm and repeat self-harm.”

The research, which was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, also found the risk of repeat self-harm was highest among children and adolescents who had their index (first) episode between ages 10-19, and for more severe presentations requiring admission to hospital. According to the findings, those with two or more self-harm presentations had a higher risk of dying from suicide.

While the study couldn’t determine intent, repeat self-harm is a predictor of suicide, which is the leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15-44. Self-harm is also a risk factor for a suicide attempt, which is even more common, with some estimates suggesting they occur up to 30 times as often as deaths.

“Adolescence is a stressful period of change, but young people today face unprecedented uncertainty – the COVID-19 pandemic, climate anxiety and economic stress colliding,” Dr Tye says. “It’s likely they’re not coping with distress well and turning to self-harm as a way of coping.”

Lead author of the study Dr Jiahui Qian, from the Black Dog Institute and UNSW Medicine & Health, says self-harm behaviours among adolescents may be even more widespread than reported.

“We only looked at self-harm presentations to an emergency department. But there will be many more young people in the community who self-harm but don’t go to a hospital and so aren’t represented in this study,” Dr Qian says.

The study found males aged 15-29 who were admitted to hospital following a self-harm episode had a higher risk of engaging in self-harm again and subsequent suicide death compared to females. The higher risk of suicide death in males has also been observed in previous studies.

“We observed a higher risk of repeat self-harm and suicide death in males, but overall self-harm presentations are much more prevalent in females,” Dr Qian says.

Dr Tye says it could be that males escalate the lethality of their means of self-harm more than females, but that’s question future research may be able to help explain.

Developing youth-specific self-harm interventions

While the complete prevention of self-harm may not be realistic, we can hope to reduce the extent of it, particularly for young people. Youth-specific early intervention is critical to prevent future self-harm episodes for adolescents.

“Self-harm is fundamentally a maladaptive coping behaviour, so we need to find ways to stop young people from getting to the point of engaging in suicidal behaviour and shift them to adaptive coping behaviours,” Dr Tye says.

The researchers say more evidence-based programs in schools would help expose large cohorts of young people to adaptive coping strategies, raise awareness of the warning signs of suicide and non-suicidal self-harm, and educate young people about how to seek help.

“We need better (and more) suicide prevention-focused programs in schools to empower young people to recognise the warning signs, and improve their capacity to seek out and get the right support,” Dr Tye says.

There is also a need to improve clinical assessment in frontline health services. For many, the experience of presenting to an emergency department can be varied, and clinical support and post-discharge care isn’t always adequate, Dr Tye says.

Routine psychosocial assessments and follow-ups with patients may help reduce the risk of repeat self-harm and suicide death over the long term. But the heightened risk in the first month following a self-harm episode also indicates a need for more immediate patient support.

“Ideally, all young people should have access to ongoing support through coordinated aftercare approaches, particularly in those first few weeks after their presentation to hospital, to protect against repeat self-harm,” Dr Tye says.

Dr Qian says developing new insights into how to respond effectively to self-harm will help suicide prevention efforts. There is an increasingly critical need to learn from children and adolescents who are presenting for self-harm to hospital to help researchers better understand intervention opportunities, guide service provision and improve clinical management.

“Because we’re better able to identify young people who self-harm from hospital records, rather than in the community, we have an opportunity to engage with them to help us understand how we can develop better preventative strategies and find new opportunities for intervention,” Dr Qian says.

In an emergency call triple zero – 000.

For help and support, call:

• Parent Line NSW 1300 130 052
• Beyond Blue 1300 224 636
• NSW Mental Health Line 1800 011 511
• Lifeline Australia 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 551 800

Source: UNSW Media & Content

AFT Books, Mental Health

UNSPOKEN by Suria Tei

November 25, 2021 admin

Dear Bookworms,

We’re pleased to announce a new title – UNSPOKEN – from award-winning writer Suria Tei, a raw and courageous memoir about living with mental illness. As more and more people around the globe struggle with mental health issues exacerbated by the on-going COVID saga, Suria’s book is a timely reminder that speaking out and getting help are important first steps in dealing with mental illness. In Malaysia, we don’t usually give mental health issues much thought and tend to flippantly dismiss people going through such turmoil as ‘gila’ or ‘siao’ (or worse!). Suria’s book really opened my eyes to the day-to-day issues faced by depressives as well as what their family and friends can do to walk with them on their journey.

Click to buy Unspoken.

I’m also sharing a recent article from The Guardian by Dave Eggers on his new book and aversion to Amazon. There’s a hidden cost to the cheap books/cheap delivery promised by Amazon and it is publishers and booksellers (and Amazon’s exploited workers) that are paying the price.

“Amazon is a monopoly that uses unfair business practices to drive out competition. They do not play by the rules and they do not pay anywhere near their proper tax burden. Meanwhile, you can bet your local indie bookstore is paying taxes. Amazon loses money on book sales because they can make up those losses through other revenue streams. That’s the essence of predatory pricing, and it should be illegal under existing antitrust laws.”
Dave Eggers

We’re always happy to hear from our readers and if you have any thoughts, books etc to share please do get in touch.

Happy reading!

Rosalind Chua

Publisher/Editor, Clarity Publishing

Synopsis

During a Scottish summer, author Suria Tei was struck by an acute psychotic episode that left her mentally paralysed. After a few sessions of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), she gradually regained awareness.

As she recovered from her ordeal, Tei delved into the roots of her chronic depression and psychosis, eventually finding answers in her formative years growing up in a conventional Malaysian Chinese family.

From grief to depression, from psychosis to catharsis, from East to West, Tei shares her past encounters and insights into life with an unflinching honesty. Unspoken is a journey of self-discovery and understanding how the past conditions our present.

Unspoken is now available for sale online with free postage (throughout peninsular Malaysia).

**Click here to buy Unspoken. Available at all good bookstores nationwide across Malaysia from December 2021.**

Suria Tei is an award-winning writer. Her first novel, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes, was listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize and Best Scottish Fiction, and won Malaysia’s Readers’ Choice Award. Her second book, The Mouse Deer Kingdom, came third in the Readers’ Choice Award.

She was the script writer for Night Swimmer which won Best Short Film at the Vendome International Film Festival. Born and raised in Malaysia, Tei came to Scotland to study in the 1990s and now lives in Glasgow.

AustraliaFitnessToday.com is pleased to share this exclusive interview by Clarity Publishing’s publisher, Rosalind Chua (RC) with the author, Suria Teh (ST).

RC: You’re known as a writer of fiction, what made you decide to venture into non-fiction? And why such a personal account?

ST: The writing of Unspoken came to me at the time that was deemed necessary. I was overcome by grief after my sister’s passing in 2014, which triggered my depression. I lost the motivation to work on another novel. As I was finding ways to help myself out of the dark abyss, I became aware of the need to dig into the roots of my mental illness, which is my childhood trauma. I was attending a counselling course then, which required me to confront my past and led me to a journey of self-discovery, and I explored it further through writing. At the same time, the process of writing was in itself therapeutic. It helped me to express and release the feelings and emotions I had been supressing over the years.

I am inherently a private person. The idea of laying bare my experiences to the world does scare me. However, if my writing can benefit others – for persons with mental illnesses to understand that they are not alone, for their loved ones to get a handle on how to care for them, and to raise mental health awareness in general – I have no regrets in bringing this book to readers.

RC: Do you feel that attitudes towards mental health/depression in Malaysia or the UK have changed during the global lockdowns?

ST: I am unsure about the situation in Malaysia. But in the UK, there has been more coverage on mental health issues in the media during the pandemic. On social media too, I noticed there has been more openness in discussing mental health matters. I am trying to do my part in raising mental health awareness. On Twitter, I regularly share my experiences with my followers, give advice where appropriate and encourage them to talk about their problems.

The idea of writing about family and sharing family secrets is still quite a touchy affair in Asian culture (there are so many sanitised biographies floating around our bookstores!). What’s your take on this and how were you able to overcome any resistance, internal or external?

I did not inform my family before writing Unspoken. The book is personal but there weren’t any dark secrets involved in it. I grew up in a small town where everybody knew everybody so there were not really any secrets to speak of. As such, I did not think there would be anything offensive. I simply stated the truth. My family was aware that I was writing a memoir and they were proud of me when it was first published in the UK, though they had not read it. My eldest brother read Part I of the book and was emotional for my experience of mental illness.

RC: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions the public may have about mental illness or depression?

ST: One of the biggest problems faced by persons with mental illness, especially the depressives, is that there are still many people out there who do not recognise mental illness as a form of illness. The symptoms of depression, such as unexplained lurgies and the lack of motivation to assume daily activities, are often dismissed as laziness. The last thing a depressive wants to hear is to be asked to ‘get a grip’ and ‘get on with your life.’ They simply can’t. That is why raising mental awareness among the public is so important.

RC: What effect did your depression have on your writing? And how did that make you feel?

ST: I was working on my second novel, The Mouse Deer Kingdom, when my second bout (the first was after my father’s death seven years before) of depression struck following the passing of my mother. For months, I withdrew into hibernation state and lost the motivation to do anything. I couldn’t make myself sit at the desk and write as my body was heavy with lurgies and my mind couldn’t concentrate. My agent had to negotiate for a new deadline with the publisher then and again. After my psychotic episode in 2018, my mind wasn’t functioning properly. I had problems with writing, reading and speaking. I thought I would never be able to write again. The thought scared me. I felt like an invalid, useless. I had loved writing since a child. If I couldn’t write, what use was I? That thought made me even more depressed.

RC: What does a typical week look like for you now?

ST: My days are quite different from most writers, I guess, as I am still recovering from the acute psychotic episode three years ago, during which I totally lost my mind. For someone with mental health issues, every day is a struggle. I try to establish a routine, as advised by my psychiatrist. With the help of the Glasgow Association for Mental Health (GAMH), I volunteer at a community allotment for persons recovering from mental illness every Monday. The organisation also arranges for me to go cycling and play tennis during the week. Every Thursday I attend a Buddhist study group, which has been moved online since the pandemic began. I also find time to be in nature, going to the woods or seaside. In between these activities, I try to write a little bit at a time when I am able to. I understand that the recovery needs time, and I always count myself lucky that I can still write, despite being slow.