Depression is a mental health condition defined by the following symptoms:
- Feeling sad, numb or hopeless
- Having persistent negative thoughts about self
- Being demotivated
- Withdrawing socially
- Unable to do, or enjoy, things that you normally would.
- Not able to sleep or sleeping too much
- At its worse it can stop us looking after ourselves (such as eating or washing), thinking life is not worth living and/or feeling suicidal.
What causes depression?
Feeling depressed and low tends to be due to a lack of “happy” chemicals in the brain such as endorphins and serotonin. There is no single cause of depression and it can be a combination of factors such as:
- Genetics – some people are more prone that others due to brain structures they were born with that they might have inherited.
- Stressful life events can leave us traumatised and may effect us long term.
- Lifestyle – how we look after ourselves physically can have an impact on our mood such as exercise, eating, sleeping and alcohol consumption etc
- Childhood– we may have experienced parenting styles that left us demotivated and self critical.
What can help depression?
For some people it can really help to use medication to improve mood. But depression can also be effectively managed by making positive changes yourself. This is because depression can be a vicious cycle. The more negative thoughts we have about life the less motivated we are to do the things that make us feel good and then this further creates worsening mood. We can therefore do the following to help ourselves:
- Be more active. When we do less of the things we enjoy, or make us feel good, this further worsens our mood. So even if we do not feel like it, try to plan activities to give you a mood boost. Working with a therapist can help you to plan activities to boost your mood.
- Exercise: There is lots of research to show that exercise improves mood. Try to do something physically active at least once a week and see how you feel after.
- Physical health also impacts on our mood. E.g alcohol makes us feel good in the short term but leaves us feeling depressed after. Junk food and sweets also can feel like a treat but will sap our energy and happy chemicals.
- Working with a therapist. Our thoughts effect how we feel but we often take as facts when in fact they are just our perception. A therapist can help you to challenge your thoughts to try to find more realistic ways of looking at things i.e. we often make negative assumptions about situations or can be overly harsh on ourselves. Be we can train our brain to look at things differently.
- Learning Mindflness to help you manage your reactions to negative thoughts and spend less time “ruminating”.
- Solving or goal setting to help develop practical steps to resolve issues that might be on your mind.
- Sleep really effects our mood and often our mood effects our sleeps. However we can give ourselves better chances of sleep by improving sleep hygiene.
If you would like 1-1 support to manage depression or interested in learning mindfulness please contact me for more information.