When the Chinese New Year has just passed, we don’t realize that it’s already springtime. After the holiday, we found that the hospital was full of people, and the number of outpatient and inpatient cases had increased dramatically. Among them, there are a lot of depressed patients who come to the hospital for treatment because of severe insomnia, anxiety and even light-heartedness. To sum up the feelings of these patients, most of them have these characteristics: 1. they are easily disturbed, restless, and can’t do anything quietly. 2. 2, especially easy to lose temper, and even because of some trivial matters can be argued with people. 3, easy insomnia, either can not sleep, or wake up early, or very light sleep, dreamy. 4, “spring sleepiness”, daytime mental depression, lethargy. Self-awareness of reaction and memory decline. 5.Moody, not happy, not interested in doing anything. 6.Have a lot of plans but no motivation, consciously feel incompetent. 7.Complaining about God, often self-hatred. 8, pessimistic and desperate, and even anorexic thoughts, sometimes, suicidal thoughts will also take advantage of this time. If these manifestations above, it means that you are likely to be depressed mood entangled. “Frozen three feet, not a day’s cold”, we see a high incidence of suicidal behavior in the spring, often because there is a long accumulation of depression within the five yards, and in the spring season, the accumulated depression is more likely to aggravate and lead to tragedy. Why is depression high in the spring? First of all, the weather, especially the change of air pressure will make people’s mood changeable: the temperature and air pressure in spring are variable, which will make people’s mood also change from good to bad. Some people with low basal blood pressure, such as women, the elderly, children or people with physical weakness, will have low air pressure in spring, which will lead to changes in blood pressure, which will lead to a decrease in the oxygen supply to the brain. Second, the rise in temperature will make the brain not adapt: in winter, the skin capillaries contract, the blood flow and oxygen supply to the internal organs and brain increases, so that the brain has been in a “comfortable” environment of high blood flow and high oxygen supply. In spring, when the weather becomes warmer, the capillaries of the epidermis expand and blood flow increases, leading to a reconfiguration of blood flow throughout the body, resulting in a relative decrease in the amount of blood and oxygen supply to the brain. Moreover, with the arrival of spring, the body’s metabolism accelerates and the oxygen consumption of various organs in the body rises, which further leads to a relative decrease in the oxygen supply to the brain. The high oxygen supply in winter makes the brain develop a dependence on the high-oxygen environment, and it is not easy to adapt to the change of environment in the short term. Brain tissue has to make a series of self-protective adaptations – reducing excitability. As a result, once we enter spring, people are particularly prone to sleepiness (springtime sleepiness). For depressed patients, this phenomenon will aggravate their mental depression, and if the work pressure is increasing at this time, it is easy to produce irritable mood. Again, negative oxygen ions and other subtle changes in the natural environment on the human body: these subtle changes will hardly attract attention, but for the consumption of nutrients accounted for 20% of the human brain, but can not be ignored. First of all, talk about negative oxygen ions: negative oxygen ions can strengthen the oxidation process of brain tissue, which in turn makes the cerebral cortex function and brain activity to strengthen. It makes people feel refreshed, work and study more efficiently, and sleep quality improves. And negative oxygen ions for other cardiovascular and inhalation system also has a lot of benefits, by the medical community known as “vitamins in the air”. But negative oxygen ions are very “short-lived”, in clean air can last a few minutes, while in the dust, haze only a few seconds of life. It is not difficult to imagine, in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen such a big city, spring, more wind, more dust, more hazy weather, coupled with long-term indoor closed work environment, how little negative oxygen ion content? From the above introduction we can easily see that the impact of environmental changes in air pressure, temperature, negative oxygen ions, etc. on mood, ultimately because of the impact on the oxygen supply capacity of the brain. Medical research has found that depressed patients have reduced brain glucose metabolism, and if the brain oxygen supply decreases, it will further reduce the brain’s glucose metabolism, which in turn leads to a decrease in the information processing capacity of the cerebral cortex and various neural clusters. Finally, it is our own mentality change: the plan of the year lies in spring, spring is the season when everything grows, people cat a winter, very much hope to start a new year action with the help of spring, to achieve some of their life goals. However, for people with depression, the lack of motivation will lead us to “have ideas but can’t move” and create a sense of incompetence. This can further aggravate the depressed person’s sense of inferiority, self-blame, pessimism and despair. In turn, it makes the patient feel like he or she has lost everything in this vibrant spring, and then he or she may think of suicide. Spring depression – a multi-pronged approach First of all, we need to know the origin of depression: I have already talked about the so-called high incidence of depression in spring, in fact, the usual has already unknowingly suffered from depression, but because it is still mild and does not obviously affect the work life, so do not pay attention to. But in the spring, due to the above reasons, it will lead to the aggravation of depressive symptoms and even suicidal behavior. The patient and the people around him/her pay attention to it as if spring causes depression. Depression does not arise without a cause. On the one hand, it is because of the innate physical problem: the nine physical constitutions mentioned in Chinese medicine, among which the qi deficiency and qi depression, etc., are very prone to depressive mood. From a modern medical point of view, depression is caused by the lack of pentraxin, a chemical in the synaptic gap of the brain. The reason why not everyone is depressed in the same natural environment in spring is probably because certain body types make the patient susceptible to the natural environment. On the other hand, family education and environmental factors can also cause depression in individuals. If there is too harsh and stereotypical education pattern in early family education, or major life environment changes in early years, family disaster events, parents’ relationship discord and domestic violence, etc. make children’s sense of security missing, after growing up, they will form the foundation of low self-esteem, timid and sensitive personality, and in the intense social competition, they will be more likely to produce depression. So, knowing the reasons why depression occurs, instead of seeing spring as an unchangeable spell of depression and letting it develop, we should see this season as an opportunity for depression to change and face it bravely. First of all, we have to allow ourselves to be temporarily inadequate physically and mentally: especially if we are distracted and sleepless every year in spring, there is no need to be overly nervous as long as there are no serious consequences – such as suicide. First learn to relax yourself and let nature take its course. The post-60s and post-70s are mostly educated in the idea of “man is better than God”, which is useful in breaking through personal limits and challenging life’s adversities, but it is also easy to create a nervous state of mind for yourself. In solving problems such as depression and insomnia, this “fight hard” attitude is counterproductive. For example, many patients with chronic insomnia suffer from “anxiety” about insomnia and make a daily resolution to fall asleep tonight. A lot of sleep-promoting techniques are used – soaking feet before bed, drinking hot milk, going to bed early, taking sleeping pills …… Once you have insomnia or wake up early, you will be more nervous. I will tell such patients: to get a good night’s sleep is to first let yourself relax, you set yourself a bunch of such and such methods, can not sleep so nervous, so much psychological implication to themselves before going to bed, which is not in vain to increase the cerebral cortex excitement? That of course is the more you want to sleep the more you can not sleep. Therefore, at this time, we must learn to let nature take its course, sleep is not able to close their eyes, relax themselves, right for rest. In fact, so relaxed, it is naturally more likely to fall asleep. Then, actively adjust the living environment and mindset, so that they adapt to the changes in natural rhythms. Increase outdoor activities, go to parks, countryside, lakes and forests more often to increase the intake of negative oxygen ions; moderate more clothing, pay attention to warmth; more intake of food rich in B vitamins and iron, such as blood products, animal liver, etc.; moderate increase in physical exercise, avoid late to bed and late to rise. All these methods are good for regulating the brain and reducing depression. In the regulation of the mind, you need to do it naturally, must be clear this year’s life goals and work, study plans, but also to make plans to be down-to-earth, do not be overly ambitious. In particular, do not compare with others. For example, their own energy is now low, consciously work and study ability have declined, then do not force the intensity of work in the past when they were full of energy. Lastly, and most importantly, actively seek scientific treatment and do not avoid treatment. Depression is known as “emotional flu”, which is easy to produce and easy to cure for modern city people. As long as the scientific treatment, it is not difficult to cure. It is recommended not to blindly believe in the advertising gimmicks of “the best psychiatric hospital” and “complete cure for depression” on the Internet when treating depression. Instead, choose a regular psychiatric hospital and treat it with a combination of medication and psychotherapy. Generally speaking, mild depression, which does not affect work and normal life, can be treated by psychotherapy alone; but if it is more serious, especially for patients with major depression who have suicidal thoughts, they need to receive standardized antidepressant treatment. Those with a higher risk of suicide also need to arrange for inpatient treatment to protect their lives. Although spring is said to be the season of high prevalence of depression, as long as you relax, take care of your body and mind, and actively channel and treat your depression, you can also get a happy body and mind and enjoy a bright spring season!