What is depression?
Depression describes the frequent depressed mood or drastic loss of interest or pleasure for two weeks or more. People suffering from depression may also frequently experience:
slowing down of thought and a reduction of physical movement
fatigue or loss of energy
the feeling of worthlessness or excessive guilt
diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness
significant weight loss or weight gain due to an increase or decrease in appetite
What causes depression?
Depression is caused by the interaction between a variety of biological and psychological factors.
Biological factors include:
Depression is inheritable, so it often runs in the family.
under- or over-production of certain hormones in our body, such as thyroid, estrogen, cortisol
Imbalance in the brain chemicals which transmit information (neurotransmitters), such as dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine
Psychological Factors
Unhelpful thinking such as tunnel vision over negative aspects of a situation, taking inappropriate personal responsibility, catastrophizing
Loss of a loved one, loss of a job, or loss of friendship
Stressful situations such as heavy workloads or difficult family issues
So depression is not something that people can snap themselves out of. And sometimes medication may be necessary. And fortunately, some ways may help people to feel better and gradually recover from depression:
Behavioral activation
When people suffer from depression, they may become less active and neglect their responsibilities and self-care. This could increase the feeling of guilt, and things feel more overwhelming, further decreasing personal effectiveness. To break this vicious cycle, we need to take small actions that can help us feel better and solve the problems.
Changing unhelpful thinking style
Feelings and thinking are inextricably linked. We need to understand unhelpful thoughts we may have and adjust them accordingly.
One thing that contributes to unhelpful thinking information processing capacity of our brain is limited. So to make it more efficient, our brain often takes shortcuts. For example, we form a strong impression of a person by our first look at them. The same thing happens to how we judge life situations, we all have some tendency to jump to conclusions, catastrophise, focus on the negative, making overgeneralizations.
The other contributor to it is our upbringing and culture. For instance, some people are brought up by parents who are highly critical and set unrealistic expectations as a means to help children progress academically. The child may grow up believing that they are “lazy" and “not enough”. They may also be thinking that imperfection or failure is unacceptable and become fixated on their thinking.
Some strategies help us examine these unhelpful thinking and replace them with more constructive, re-energizing, and creative ways.
Mindfulness exercise
Mindfulness can be described as the act of paying attention to one's experience in the present moment. This includes observing thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and breathing from moment to moment without judging or becoming caught up in them.
During a mindfulness practice session, the meditator will start by paying attention to the moment at hand, such as focusing on the breath, bodily sensations or a simple yoga move. Individuals will take note whenever their mind wander, and calmly brings their attention back to the present moment.
This helps people develop a sense of control over their strong emotions and improves their ability to concentrate.
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