Staying Sane May Be Easier Than You Think

**ablaye** · #1 06-21-2009, 03:59 PM

We tend to view the brain like an alien that happens to reside in the skull. We see it as unpredictable, ungovernable in ways that other organs aren't. Proper diet, exercise, no smoking - these will help prevent heart and lung disease. But diseases of the mind? They strike at will, right? You just can't keep yourself from going crazy.

And yet - what if you can? The most exciting research in mental health today involves not how to treat mental illness but how to prevent it in the first place. Hundreds of studies that have appeared in just the past decade collectively suggest that the brain isn't so different from, say, the arm: it doesn't simply break on its own. In fact, many mental illnesses - even those like schizophrenia that have demonstrable genetic origins - can be stopped or at least contained before they start. (Photos: Portrait of Schizophrenia.)

This isn't wishful thinking but hard science. Earlier this year, the National Academies - an organization of experts who investigate science for the Federal Government - released a 500-page report, nearly two years in the making, on how to prevent mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. The report concludes that pre-empting such disorders requires two kinds of interventions: first, because genes play so important a role in mental illness, we need to ensure that close relatives (particularly children) of those with mental disorders have access to rigorous screening programs. Second, we must offer treatment to people who have already shown symptoms of illness (say, a tendency to brood and see the world without optimism) but don't meet the diagnostic criteria for a full-scale mental illness (in this case, depression).

Read more at Staying Sane May Be Easier Than You Think - Yahoo! News