Fighters & Depression

a lot of fighters suffer depression, but why do you bring up recreational drugs? some fighters are hard partiers, but the game requires such discipline, are recreational drugs that big a deal? more than the general population?

MMA is MUCH cleaner than the old boxing gyms i used to go to.

i use to feel depressed all the time, but then i changed my eating habits, started taking supplements, lost alot of weight and feel great! im not depressed no more, but its hard to sleep now.

Creatine and Whey had me feeling like I was God. Your body builds a dependency on it tho so when you get off it it'll feel like heroine withdrawls.

I take prozac and it makes me feel like a champ

ttt for a very interesting subject.

sense high school i would always have very extreme highs and lows and i didnt understand why. I began to think it was normal in life and that everyone lived like this. It wasnt to my sop year of college when one of my prof was taking about manic deppression and its symptons. I was like holy shit thats my life story, talked to the doc been on prozac sense and it works great, never really get deppressed anymore but the only thing i dislike about it is that it makes me alittle tired sometimes and i might not be able to train at my peak sometimes but not to often

Well i'm not fighter, but different treatments work for different people. Some need to combine meds and therapy, theres a couple of effective therapies. I don't know the thread starter to well so i don't know the details of his depression, but trying to gain insight and advice from people who have fought this disorder for years is the right thing to do. Prozac and zoloft or whatever, are usually only effective for mild depression at best. Most people need therapy and anti-depressants.

"I have known friends to party hard, drugs drink the lot for years and they have had no effect on them, then I have had friends who live healthy who are the most down depressed people, so go figure. My opinion on this is if you have a genetic link to deppression then the party hard rout is not the one to take i.e if you have a prediposition to depression then maybe the chance of an imbalance is more possible."

In terms of this: A) I look at drugs and alcohol as some forms of antidepressants. Suer it sounds stupid, but take it away and life is more dull to these people.
B) People who are known to party hard usually have better skills socially and their self-esteem isn't as low. People who party less, like myself, might feel like they are more socially inadequate than these people and get depressed easier.

How a fighter can fight with either a disorder such as clinical depression or social anxiety is beyond me though. So many highs and lows in winning, it must be a roller coaster ride.

Holy shit AE

I was depressed until i found out i was oppressed then i became repressed.......are you impressed

10g a day of Spirulina would pretty much cure that problem

I think one very common misconception is that depression is an emotional afflication. For some it is but for me the symptomlogy has always manifested itself physically. Headaches, fatigue, dehydration, etc. This is why, for many of us, it takes a long time to diagnose.

when I was first diagnosed, I told the Doc he had to be kidding. I was a pretty happy guy with a pretty good life, I just didn't feel well.

Alberteinstein hit it on the head, drugs will help control symptoms to a degree but, at least for me, they are by no means 100% effective.

For those who say they "changed their thoughts" just curious what you mean specifically. I've tried every method from the Tao to the Dali Lama and no matter how I try to restructure my thoughts to a less stressful state, as soon as I walk into the office or even start thinking about work, business, money, the business end of the gym, etc, my old thought patterns come crashing back.

How many psychologists (and psychiatrists) are on this forum?  I am (neuropsychology by subspecialty) and I am wondering if a psychology and/or mental skills forum might not be a useful addition to mma.tv.  Mental skills training and psychological aspects of athletes is relevant as are issues of psychopathology such as depression for the same universal reasons that everyone else is suceptible to such as well as unique factors of althletes, training, injuries (including mild head injuries), etc.  Such would need to be defined as general information for further follow-up and not clinical treatment, of course.  None of us would be experts in everything but if there is a group of us the combined knowledge could probably result in interesting as well as useful/helpful discussion and dissemination of empirically based information (and defining the degree of such support) with regard to mental skills training and more general common psychologic/psychopathologic issues/treatments of/for athletes.

I am eventually going to do a mental skills dvd when I get done with my wrestling technique videos; that is an area where training is very unsytematized and ranges from sound principles to voodoo among most athletes.

With regard to the mental skills aspect of training, my experience is that this is ignored, minimized, or pursued haphazardly.  There seems to be a vague notion that such training is relevant and many althletes, among other things, complain of difficulty acheiving and maintaining optimal levels of arousal, focus, etc. in the competitive arena; typically, however, relatively little structured time is given to the development of such.  When I work with athletes I will ask them what percent do they believe that mental factors play in their competative success.  They may say 5% or 95%, etc., it doesn't matter.  When I ask about the proportion of their structured time and training that is devoted specifically to such I will rarely get a commensurate figure.

On the other hand, mental skills training is not the be-all and end-all of "sport psychology."  Optimal performance is difficult if not impossible when the athlete is suffering from marked levels of stress or clinical depression, etc.  The type of lifestyle, regimens, and culture(s) of athletics also provides somewhat unique psychological challenges with the final common pathway sometimes being various forms of psychopathology necessitating treatment.  Further, optimal performance is not the be-all and end-all goal of psychological input into that athlete.  Althletic participation and competition is a portion of the athlete's life in what is, presumably, a pursuit of happiness, contentment, etc.  This area needs to be appropriately placed and balanced within the more general life (e.g., family, friends, work, other pursuits) of the althlete.  Balance and perspective generally engender althletic success and more general happyness and contentment.  For most, consistent success, in anything (including athletics) comes from good focus, not obsession.  All of this comes from conscious and structured efforts; if you don't know where and how you're going, you're probably not going to get there.

So...who is out there and who might be willing to participate in a "psychological aspects of combat sports" (or the like) forum if Kirik would also be interested?

Rich 

In my opinion different people respond better to different kinds of treatment. Some people may do well on medication, whereas for others it may not be as effective. Other people may benefit from psychotherapy or a combination of psychotherapy and medication.

If you are seriously depressed I strongly advise you to get professional advice from a reputable health professional. Don't try and struggle on without getting help.

However if you only have mild depression or indeed are not depressed but are interested in learning more about how to treat depression I highly recommend the books by David D. Burns such as "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy". In this book he basically explains how cognitive behavior therapy can be used as a treatment for depression. In fact the techniques he explains are pretty powerful, I have friends who have not been depressed but have adapted his techniques to deal with other problems in their life like procrastination etc. I don't want to say that Cognitive behavior therapy is some kind of magic bullet, or that everyone should try and treat themselves using the techniques in this book, but I think that nearly everyone can get something useful from this book. He also has another similar book called "The feeling good handbook" which basically covers the same material.

He has just released a new book as well that presents some of the same ideas but adapted for panic attacks / anxiety. I don't have either of these problems but his books are so insightful I plan on reading it anyway.

Good luck to anyone out their struggling with psychological issues.

I have no association with Dr Burns, I just have read his books and feel they have a great deal to offer.

Having a positive home life and surrounding yourself with positive people is critical, being negative is detrimental to your physical and mental wellbeing.

ttt i'll post later

Rich -

Glad to hear of your interest. I am also a licensed, board-certified psychologist (and a Professor at University of South Florida). I've been working on applied sport psychology with combat sport athletes for a while now (this is the only athlete population I work with). I've written a number of articles on sport psychology topics, mainly in MMA-related publications like TapouT Magazine, MMA Sports, Ultimate Grappling, MMA Authority, etc. I also started a MySpace profile to prompt discussion among those with an interest in h topic. If you want, you can check it out at MySpace.com/combatsportpsych

Randy

Just to be clear, I'm not selling any products, I'm just in this because I love the sport and care about helping fighters achieve their potential.

Randy, Im glad to see a proffessional working specifically in this area
Thank 'You. There have been so many fighters, I don't know why fighters?, But have a built in function that turns them down, or lets them down, It happens to run in my family as well as in the sport, so I hav battled it many many times, thanks again for your time and effort, If it helps one person, you time was used wisely in my opinion.

Thanks Mikey. I appreciate the kind words. Feel free to let me know if I can help with information on anything. Best regards - Randy

I posted the idea of a "sport psychology for mma" forum on the new forum suggestion list back in January (see below), but there was not much interest at the time. Glad to hear there may be some renewed interest.

http://mma.tv/TUF/index.cfm?ac=ListMessages&PID=1&TID=967242&FID=42