Decoding Depression

In today’s world, depression has become a common site amongst all the age groups. Everybody will have experienced a person with the symptoms of depression or have dealt with them closely or been a part of their life. 

It is a common and in some cases, serious medical illness, that concerns what a person feels, behaves and how they react to different situations. 

For the majority of sufferers it revolves around having feelings of sadness, loneliness, or feeling of disinterest in activities or even daily chores and tasks. 

The symptoms also includes:

• Feeling of void, emptiness, and even isolation. 
• Feeling of sadness or depressive mood for the majority of time.
• Increased  or decreased appetite. 
• Loss of energy, enthusiasm or vigour. 
• Erratic sleep pattern, sleeping too much or too little or disturbed sleep. 
• Feeling of guilt or negligibility. 
• In extreme cases, feeling of suicides or death. 

Now that you are well aware of the symptoms of depression, it is very vital to understand what steps to take to deal with depression on an individual and professional basis. 

Depression majority of time is closely related to the lifestyle you are living, circumstantial or even chronic and deep rooted in some cases. 

To find the solution of any problems, you need to dig deep into the roots of its origination. 

The first and the foremost step lies in detecting what is affecting your mental state? Is it triggered by the change of situation or place, loss of loved ones, tough times, academics, work pressure, relationships or a chronic medical condition? 

Once you are able to trim down your reasons, you will be able to find a cure too. 

• In today’s fast paced world, lifestyle diseases have taken the whole globe by shock as the number related to it have dramatically elevated. Therefore, please make sure you are following a set routine and inculcating all healthy habits to rule out any such causes. 

Small steps go a long way, therefore daily movement and a plate full of nutrition should be your first goal and the rest can be taken care of slowly and gradually. 

• If it is due to changes in any situation, people or place, always remember, “change is the only constant”, change is what is keeping us alive. The more you become acquainted with these changes, the less they trouble you. Acceptance of these changes goes a long way. 
• If it is due to any medical condition, your best bet lies in consulting a professional as they are the most experienced and well versed with the subjects. Don’t rely on advice, google or any unsolicited words coming in from anyone and everyone. 

Depression is affecting one person out of every six, and has been playing a huge role in decreasing the overall health and happiness rate of many countries. While depression has become an evil for our society there are ways through which it can be controlled and boiled down to a sustainable level. 

Help is always available at every stage of depression, you just have to be strong enough to seek and ask for it. You can anytime choose for psychotherapy and consultations as your medium of solution as it has helped so many people and therefore more and more people are turning towards it. 

Gunjan Arya (Counselling Psychologist)