Treating Depression

Depression is a bad condition that affects millions of patients world wide, if you feel that you could be experiencing the effects of this disease, continue reading this article and get more information about what depression is all about. For one thing, depression is the number one reason for patients to seek psychotherapy. The National Institute of Mental Health confirmed that almost 21 million adults have been diagnosed with depression, we need to add teenagers and kids to this figure, since they can also suffer from it. In simple terms, we can define depression as a feeling of helplessness and unhappiness far greater than just feeling down for a while, it is actually so overwhelming that it will interfere with the normal life of the person. Depression will affect the way people relate to their friends and family, as they would have a tendency to withdraw from all kinds of social gatherings and activities. Other effects of depression are weight changes, concentration issues and irregular sleep patterns. A very serious consequence of depression has to do with suicidal thoughts, that in many cases end up in suicide attempts and even consummation.

In terms of the most common signs of depression, The National Institute of Mental Health has put together a series of indicators, so that the patient can clearly identify if he or she has depression or not. If you are rather sad most of the time, tired, have lost your appetite (or feel like eating all the time), restless and with sleeping issues, have problems focusing and forget things easily, feel mad at the world, have stopped doing the things that you have always done because you do not longer enjoy them, feel really achy, upset, fearful, have lost your sexual drive, have suicidal thoughts or death related thoughts frequently, do not want to talk to people, and dislike yourself, you probably have depression and it would be time to talk to an specialist.

The most common causes of depression are divided in chemical and psychological. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of discussion in this regards. On one hand, pharmaceutical manufacturers present studies and theories in which they explain how depression is nothing more than a chemical imbalance which can be treated by the chemicals they have developed. On the other hand, psychologists believe that negatively biased information processing and dysfunctional beliefs trigger depression. Avoidance, other disorders such as OCD, ADHD and others are also related causes of depression. An interesting fact about depression has to do with the female population, which is by far more likely to get depressed than men. Factors such as PMS have a direct impact on the mood changes of women, and have been shown to worsen depression symptoms during their cycle. Postpartum depression is a serious kind of depression that is more common than we usually think. Infertility and menopause are also causes of depression related to the female population. Social factors such as physical and sexual abuse are also causes for depression that happen a lot more often in women than in men. Marital problems also contribute to developing depression in women. Even though the reasons are still not very clear, married women with children are a lot more likely to develop depression than women with no children, a good hypothesis proposes that the stress levels caused by the responsibility of having kids could be the main reason. Medication is a very effective solution for depression, however, medications often come with a series of side effects that are of course unwanted. A very reasonable alternative has to do with psychotherapy. Your insurance company will pick up the expenses even if they would rather pay for the cheaper pills. The only case in which medication is immediately recommended is in the case you or somebody you know is suicidal. In these cases medication first, psychotherapy later will work great. Depression can be treated by antidepressants such as Prozac, Celexa, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, Serzone, Remeron. Like it was mentioned before, these medications come with side effects that include: constipation or other gastrointestinal problems, urinary retention, sexual dysfunction, dry mouth, lowered blood pressure, insomnia, fatigue, headaches, weight gain, and nervousness. Besides psychotherapy, hypnosis and group therapy are possible treatment options. As far as group therapy is concerned, it has two main characteristics that make it a good call, the fact that the patients can support each other and exchange strategies they have found useful and the second one is the economic factor that will be a lot smaller as group prices will be available. Finally, experimental treatments like the use of certain lights and sounds in order to increase brain blood flow.