Every once in a while, events in our lives disappoint us and make us sad. having a bad day could lead you to say ”I am so depressed.” Some people tell that depression feels like a black curtain of despair coming down over their lives. Although feeling depressed once in our lives is normal, chronic depression appears among people who are not able to recover from the normal cycle of grieving. These are people who are not able to deal with stress.
Depression is not just a state of mind but it is also associated to physical changes in the brain. It is said that depression could be caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters that carry signals in the brain and nerves. Excess activity of the stress response system sends emotional centers of the brain into overdrive so that negative events make a disproportionate impact and hijack rational response systems. One literally can’t think straight. It makes one ponder over and over about the difficulties and disappointments one come across until that’s all one can focus on. Depression could be both caused by the genes or the environment. To a big number of the population, depression is hereditary. They are inclined to be depressed even when faced with very minimal stress because it may be inherited. On the other hand, there are people who are not able to adjust to certain changes in their lives, like losing a loved one, or even when after getting married, get depressed. These individuals may not have hereditay depression but they are still prone to get depressed when they are not able to recover from their gloomy moments. Furthermore, a pessimistic personality characterized by a low self-esteem, and a negative outlook are at higher risk of becoming depressed. As said earlier, it is normal for people to become depressed but only for a short while. A prolonged depression could always lead to other psychological disorders.
When one is depressed, one may feel hopeless and sad. You always find displeasure in the things that you do. Others either lose or gain weight because of changes in appetite. There are those who will develop insomnia while others would oversleep. Also, a depressed person is either restless or feels tired all the time that moving seems to be a great effort .
Gender difference is one factor in considering depression. More women get depressed than men. Reasons could be attributed to changes in the hormones of the body like puberty, menstruation, menopause, and pregnancy. However, records of men becoming depressed may come in small numbers because men less likely seek help when they are depressed. Men usually disguise their depression with alcohol or even drug abuse. On an interesting fact, a high number of men are seen to commit suicide due to depression. Another group of people who are prone to depression are the elderly. This can be probably due to the burden of having to adjust living alone while their children are having their own lives. Seeing themselves useless and unimportant could also lead older people to become depress.
Once you have the disorder of depression, the disorder wont leave you on its own. One must do something with it. We are lucky that in the present, treatments are therapies are easily available to teat depression. Supportive therapy assists relieve the pain of depression, and tackles the feelings of hopelessness. Cognitive remedy on the other hand, adjusts the pessimistic thinking, expectations, and negative self-evaluations that create depression and sustain it. This therapy helps the person differentiate significant from minor problems and it helps the person to develop positive life goals and a more positive self-evaluation. Behavioral therapy lets the person to try solving certain problems in a more constructive way. This develops improved coping skills. These therapies may be combined for a better and faster recovery.
Though depression may have biological basis, it is still a state of mind. The person has control over his mind. We can say that our minds are very powerful that our thinking affects our judgment and outlook in life, but everyone is capable of deciding whether to allow these pessimistic rule over all away and decide
to view the bright side of life.
