Tips for Maximizing Depression Treatment

I wanded in the wilderness of clinical depression for 40 years (OK it felt like 40 years) and I am finally feeling good again. Lately, I've been looking back and taking stock of what helped and what didn't help. I hope that someone else can benefit from my suffering and my journey of the dark night of sadness and low energy.

Is there someone who you're close to who you're concerned may suffer from clinical depression? If so you must understand the condition better so that you can see if that's the problem they are dealing with. The definition of clinical depression is feeling extremely sad, downhearted, and miserable to such a degree that it interferes with the person's ability to function normally in their day-to-day life. Its somewhat different than feeling low all the time, which can be depression, but since it doesn't interfere with daily activities to the point of making it impossible to perform them its called depression or being depressed. Sometimes this feeling makes a person show a lack of ambition or seem to be down for no obvious reason. Still it's different than being diagnosed with clinical depression.

Clinical depression affects sixteen percent of all Americans. More females are affected than males; at least twice as many. These figures are skewed to women at an early age, but as people grow they actually even out with the figures coming closer when people reach their fifties. At this point clinical depression is the leading cause in America of disability. By 2020 it is expected to be the same worldwide. This very serious problem cannot be diagnosed with a blood or urine test. No x-ray or MRI can confirm or deny the existence of clinical depression.

It can only be diagnosed based on symptoms that a person suffers from. The expectation is that if a person is suffering from clinical depression they must experience one of two specific symptoms. They are either suffering from a severe down mood or from an inability to experience pleasure. The latter is called Anaerobia. If a person has one of them and at least five of the following symptoms they are considered to be suffering from clinical depression.

These next line symptoms include a person getting no pleasure from their daily activities. They're always feeling empty. Some people will show a significant weight loss or gain due to a major change in appetite. They frequently must deal with unending tiredness, always feeling a lack of energy. Some have to deal with a sleep pattern disruption that can be due to requiring too much sleep or an inability to sleep enough. There can be difficulty concentrating which is often accompanied by memory problems. Many of these people have to deal with a feeling of being alone, that no one cares. This may lead to thoughts of death, though not always related to suicide or planning to end one's life, are also typical. Many also suffer from a feeling of great sadness, or an inability to feel anything. These can be accompanied by the lesser symptoms of a feeling of worthlessness, neglect of personal care, crying, and sensitivity to sound, irritability or physical illness. If someone you know has more than five of the above they're struggling every day. The best thing you can do is encourage them to seek help from their health care provider.

The ability to understand what a person goes through when they are suffering from depression can be helped by first trying to understand what the causes of depression can be. First it is important to know that physicians and researchers have not yet been successful in identifying a specific cause of depression. They continue to research and study but the answers are coming slowly. What is known about depression is that those who suffer from it will have some common circumstances that they have to deal with. It may be in what they eat, how they were brought up, how they relate to certain things that go on around them.

First, heredity plays a big role in who will have to deal with depression. If one or both of a person's parents suffer from depression they are at a high risk to suffer from the same problem. It is believed that between forty and seventy percent of those who suffer from depression have it because to runs in the family. It is thereof not unlikely that they have siblings who also fight the problem.

Others are affected because of an imbalance of the chemicals in the brain. This is why antidepressants can work to help those who are depressed as it evens out the chemicals that should be there. These include serotonin and norepinephrine. The truth is that physicians and researchers are not clear on why this is a problem but they do agree that correcting the imbalance of chemicals can go a long way to dealing with eliminating the symptoms. Studies recently have pointed to a coincidental pattern in the hippocampus. This part of the brain deals specifically with memory and mood. Research has linked this area as a possible source of depression since when the chemical serotonin is low it certainly affects mood, but when it is increased with medications both mood and memory improve greatly. Therefore proving the researchers claim.

Some people are affected by what has been called seasonal affective disorder, also known as SAD, which is a recently recognized ailment. It is caused by the reduced hours of sunlight once winter approaches and the days grow shorter, The thinking is that with less sun the body manufactures more melatonin and that this is the cause of the problem. There is actually a therapy that has been developed to help counter this problem called bright light therapy or phototherapy. Many people respond to this therapy with generally good results.

In the ongoing look for answers to the question of what causes depression diet has come up as a possible factor. Researchers have claimed omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and heavily processed foods can be a trigger for depression. Studies were conducted to prove this point at schools and prisons. A study with laboratory rats showed excessive omega acids appeared to cause depression in the rats.

Whatever the cause of a person's depression, learning to deal with it, by therapy or medication, is the bigger issue.