Stressed or Depressed?

Are you stressed or depressed from the anxiety that often accompanies ongoing job search? Sometimes it can get you down. So today I wanted to shift the focus a little bit to combating this topic.

Today in the news appeared this article: Incense May Relieve Depression. The author looks at the scientific evidence behind the age old belief that burning incense activates particular channels in the brain to reduce anxiety and depression.

"In a prepared statement for the press, one of the researchers, Raphael Mechoulam, stated that most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning. However, there is much more going on when frankincense wafts into your nostrils.

"In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Boswellia had not been investigated for psycho-activity. We found that incensole acetate, a Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice lowers anxiety and causes antidepressive-like behavior," Dr. Mechoulam said.

To study frankincense's psychoactive impact, the researchers administered incensole acetate to mice and discovered the compound significantly impacted areas in the brain intricately involved in emotions as well as in nerve circuits that are targeted by modern-day drugs currently used to treat anxiety and depression.

"Perhaps Marx wasn't too wrong when he called religion the opium of the people: morphine comes from poppies, cannabinoids from marijuana, and LSD from mushrooms; each of these has been used in one or another religious ceremony." said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, in a press release. "Studies of how those psychoactive drugs work have helped us understand modern neurobiology. The discovery of how incensole acetate, purified from frankincense, works on specific targets in the brain should also help us understand diseases of the nervous system. This study also provides a biological explanation for millennia-old spiritual practices that have persisted across time, distance, culture, language, and religion. Burning incense really does make you feel warm and tingly all over!"