Overcoming Depression
Depression Awareness
About one in five persons will experience clinical depression in their life. So, we should all be well informed about the signs of clinical depression in order to identify it in ourselves and others. Clinical depression is more than sadness. Everyone has down days, but clinical depression is more persistent; day after day of depressed mood.
Clinical depression is more likely to involve persistent sleep and appetite changes. Decreases or increases in sleep or appetite may occur. The more persistent these changes, the greater the cause for concern.
Clinical depression often involves decreased social interest and decreased social contact. The normally outgoing person is now refusing lunch invitations or refusing to leave their room or home. Clinical depression often involves a lack of experiential pleasure (anhedonia). The father whose heart used to leap when his two year old would hug him now feels empty inside when she hugs him.
Suicidal thinking distinguishes clinical depression from non-clinical sadness. Suicide is a taboo issue for most persons, but we must overcome this. If you perceive that someone you know is depressed, ask them about their mood and whether they are thinking of hurting them self.
Overcoming Depression
Consider these tools for overcoming depression (i.e., tools to promote life satisfaction).
See a mental health professional. Treatment works. Counseling or counseling plus antidepressant medication can help you overcome depression. Medications can help with symptom reduction and counseling can lead to changes in thoughts, feelings, and actions that promote an emotionally healthy life.
Get socially active. Healthy friendship and family relationships are essential to life satisfaction. Set aside time to socialize with the people in your life that care about you and make you feel good about yourself; also, limit your contact with the people in your life that recurrently hurt you and make you feel bad about yourself.
Get physically active. Exercise promotes positive changes in brain chemistry, self image, and energy level. Make your exercise fun. We are more likely to persist in an exercise routine when we enjoy the activity or see it as “play”; playing basketball or soccer with friends is more enjoyable than walking alone.
Be a positive thinker. Positive thinking promotes better emotional and physical health. So focus on the positive aspects of your life events. Everyone has gray and white clouds in their sky, emotionally healthy persons focus on the white clouds. Optimism motivates new and positive actions; for example, believing that you might meet someone wonderful at an upcoming social event motivates you to attend. It’s been said many times and in many ways, “people are not troubled by life events, people are troubled by what they make out of or think about life events.”
Find meaning and purpose in your daily activities. Consider the greater meaning of your daily activities as you are engaged in them. Making and packing your child’s lunch for school is not a thrilling activity, but it has great meaning; it represents your caring and involvement in your child’s life. Identify what is meaningful to you in your daily experience, in your interactions with friends and family, in your work activities; and be mindful of these deeper meanings as these events are occurring.
Return to those small daily achievements. Depression can cause people to lose their functional routine. The depressed person might sleep in until noon, miss work, disregard lunch dates, etc. It’s about doing the small things that make us feel competent: showering, shaving, shopping for groceries, washing our clothes. So you should schedule such activities in your daily calendar – 8:00A.M. Wake Up and Shower, 8:30A.M. Go to the Gym, 10:00 Go Grocery Shopping, etc.