What is Depression?
Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder found in large-scale population surveys. It underlies many of the physical complaint’s physicians are asked to treat, and it hospitalizes hundreds of thousands every year. It also is responsible for the high suicide rate among teenagers.
Depression is usually related to some sort of loss or disappointment.
What depresses you is viewed as having already had an irreparable impact on the present and the future; this gives you a feeling of helplessness. When depressed you become a captive of your mood. You seem unable to do what you want or control the way you feel.
Depressed individuals often exhibit one or more of the following traits: poor appetite, a lonely feeling, a tendency to withdraw, little interest in other people or things, low sexual interest, trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, low energy, preoccupation with unhappiness, thoughts about suicide.
What Causes Depression?
Such factors as your job, homemaking responsibilities, financial obligations, parental responsibilities, and the stress of marriage or being single can contribute to depression. Other factors associated with depression include not knowing what is expected of you in the performance of a role or task, and the failure to fulfil your personal expectations. The more of these factors experienced at once, the greater the chances for depression.
The tendency to overwork has also been associated with depression. Some individuals lack the ability to regulate their work-rest-recreation balance and have guilt feelings when they are not working. With their compulsive need to work, they deny the existence of fatigue and push themselves beyond their limits.
To cope with their lack of concentration and fatigue, they force themselves to stay long hours at their duties. To compensate for their diminished efficiency, they lengthen their workday. By taking these misguided measures they make things worse rather than better, usually eliminating exercise or recreation time, and further diminishing their capacity to recover.
Things to do for Depression
- Individuals suffering from severe depression should be urged to seek medical help. Drugs, electroshock therapy, sleep deprivation, and counselling have all been used to treat extreme cases. However, there are also things you can do to help yourself for many types of depression.
- Face up to reality. Analyse yourself to become aware of things that trouble you. Don’t expect everything to be pleasant all the time. Unpleasant tasks are often a part of life and must be faced, especially when seeking goals. The belief that there should be no unpleasantness in your life will only lead to disappointment.
- Don’t strive for unattainable perfection. Anger at yourself is often the root of depression. Expecting to always perform flawlessly can cause unnecessary stress and tension.
- Anytime you have an unpleasant task to perform, do as much advance preparation as possible. Plan how to cope with the unexpected.
- When attempting new tasks or to reach new goals, begin at a level in which you will experience success. Initial success in your endeavours will help your self-image, and depressed individuals experience elation as a result of assuming a more positive self-image. Recalling past successes may be good therapy. However, it is important to take on new projects, to try to experience new successes, rather than rely on recalling past successes.
- Visualize the rewards of fulfilling your goals. Talk to yourself about the rewards. Often it is possible to talk yourself into a positive attitude and mood.
- Seek a pleasant environment as often as possible. There is a definite relationship between engaging in pleasant activities and a positive mood.
- Evaluate your attitude towards your work. You must keep in mind that people differ in their energy levels, their recuperative powers, and their enjoyment of work. Seek to balance these factors against the realistic demands of your job and the goals they require. It just might be that a vacation or rest will do wonders for your depression.
- Manage your time. If you manage it well, you can avoid feelings of being rushed or pressured. Avoid wasting time that can be of use to you. Always allow some time of the day for yourself, however. There should be time for you to “get away from it all!’
- During your times of being alone relaxation, meditation, exercise, etc., think pleasant thoughts. Try to empty your mind of unpleasant things; don’t allow them to intrude on the part of the day that you have set aside for yourself.
- If you follow these practices, they may help you to become the master of your moods, instead of allowing depression to be your master.
Physical Activity for Depression
As early as the 1940’s certain veterans’ hospitals used running as a means of treating depressed patients. Today more and more medical authorities are prescribing physical activity programs as therapy for depression. They are impressed by the benefits that many depressed individuals obtain from extended, systematic periods of regular physical exercises such as walking, jogging, swimming, bicycling, tennis, and racquetball.
There are numerous studies to support this treatment for depression. Dr. W.R Morgan demonstrated that, as the physical activity working capacity was increased, the depth of depression decreased in male psychiatric patients. Another study found that depressed adult males experienced a significant reduction in depression following six weeks of chronic exercise. In addition, in experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, depressed persons placed on a regular exercise program experienced mood elevation.
Patients at the University of Wisconsin were able to decrease depression symptoms through a running program, and a study with 100 college professors found a reduction in the occurrence of depression with participation in programs such as jogging, swimming, cycling, and weightlifting.
Female college students who improved their circular respiratory endurance through a jogging program became less depressed, more confident, more efficient at work and experienced more restful sleep. It also has been demonstrated that physical activity can be effective in repelling the depressed pessimistic moods occasionally experienced by healthy people.
