Wonder how to diagnose depression – A few steps to help you out

Depression is often perceived as certain form of sadness that lasts for a few hours or days. However, depression can have rather destructive results into a man’s life not only mentally, but socially, emotionally and physically as well. It is important to identify depression at the very initial stages and if you are wondering that how to diagnose depression, here are a few tips that will help you to help you out:

Reduced Energy Levels

A depressed person will often be left with no interest whatsoever in any kind of activity. The feeling of emptiness in the depressed person can be diagnosed with the following symptoms: helplessness, guiltiness, worthlessness, purposelessness etc.

A depressed person starts thinking that nothing in his life will change and he will have to continue in the doomed situation till he dies. They lose interest in performing daily activities and experience deep fatigue. 

Reduced Socializing

If a person is depressed, he will almost immediately stop going out. He will not hang out with friends, partners; instead will lock himself inside his room. He will also refuse to discuss anything with others. He will stop being a part of any discussion and start growing distance with others.

Weight Change

Another significant point in diagnosing depression is weight change in a person. Well, weight change is pretty much normal, but; a drastic one often rings the alarm. Weight of one can increase or decrease, but, if it happens in a rapid fashion, try to look out for other symptoms of depression.

Addiction

Sudden addiction to stimulators such as alcohol, cigarettes or caffeine can strongly hint that the person is depressed. They smoke or drink as they try to be happy; but these actually spoil things. The physical condition of the depressed person, as a result of such addictions, also deteriorates.

Some however starts gambling a lot in hope of a sudden change of luck. That, however never happens and the person starts losing money, causing further reasons to worry.

Abusing

Though this is not prominent in all depressed persons, at certain times, he will start abusing people for no such good reason. He will always be irritated and often pick fights with complete strangers. This happens as the depressed person tries to make a point of his own and it’s best if you don’t argue with him at those situations.

Body Disorders

This piece of information on depression will fascinate you, but, yes, your mind has a huge impact on your health as well. Many depressed guys spend sleepless nights. Sometimes, they cannot get into sleep even after consuming sleeping pills. This takes a toll on the person’s health and he starts experiencing body pains. Sometimes, the depressed person stops eating resulting into digestive disorders.

As soon as you start seeing these symptoms in your dear ones, act as soon as possible. Try to visit a medical practitioner if possible. If the depressed person refuses, be calm and try to bring a change on his lifestyle. Things will not change overnight, but if you start taking care, you will see positive signs for sure.

Information on depression – how to get over it?

Life is not easy always and there are certain times when I think I have depression. Life takes a toll on me at those times and I start trying everything to get rid of depression. I have seen many people with depression killing them to get rid of it, but, I, somehow never felt the same way. Instead, I generally start gathering more information on depression to actually come out of it.

In the following sections, I will try to explain what I understood by going through those facts aboutdepression and hopefully those will help you come out of depression and live a happy life:

Depression is a disease

It indeed is, but deals with mental health. You have to understand this if you are serious about curing the same. Like any other disease, you have to take medicine and visit a doctor for proper advice. Never feel that you are mad or something similar, depression is completely curable and you can easily get back to normal life. However, depression can come back after an interval of few years, the next time; you know already what to do to get cured though.

How to help yourself?

 

When you are depressed, the best you can do from your end is helping yourself & here are the various things that you can actually do:

Have Healthy Food and at Regular Intervals: First things first, please don’t skip your breakfast. Rather try to have a heavy one. Try to eat at regular intervals throughout the day (5-6 times). Make sure that you skip caffeine altogether (It actually saps water out of your system and you can experience mood swings because of the same). Instead, have green tea, sparkling juice or fruit juice. Also, keep water handy all the time. If you have a habit of munching snacks whenever you are free, replace chips with carrot sticks, sunflower seeds or celery sticks. Even, popcorn is a good alternative if you don’t put salt or butter on it. 

Start exercising: These can not only help you maintain a healthy body, but, can help you get over all the negative thoughts. Exercising can actually increase endorphins (The feel good chemical of your body) and decrease cortisol (The stress hormone). Exercises also help to get your mind off all the random thoughts you encounter during being in a depressed state of mind. 

Get Quality Sleep: I understand that today’s fast paced life doesn’t allow adequate sleep all the time. However, try your best to get at least 6-8 hours of sleep every day. This is important to refresh your mind and health.

Most important of all, never stop believing in yourself. Optimism is the key to success and you see hardship only to learn from it and then get over. Never let stress or depression to have heavy impact on your life. It’s your life after all and only you can decide how to deal with it and move forward.

Facts about depression - Do medications work?

Though minor depression can be self-treated, if things have taken a serious turn, medications are must for proper recovery. In case of major depression, the feeling of sadness lasts for more than 2 weeks and a person loses interest in carrying out his daily tasks. Apart from that, he stops eating and loses weight randomly, has difficulty in having a sound sleep and talks about being unworthy of achieving anything in life.

As soon as major depression disorder is identified in a person, he should be taken to a medical practitioner without wasting any time. In case of major depression, medication is important and doctors often choose antidepressants depending on the symptoms of the patient. Well, you must understand one thing first, though antidepressants have side-effects, these are not stimulants. They reduce depression symptoms in a human and try to make them feel better. These are nothing but some known facts about depression.

A full course of medication can last for as long as 12 months. Sometimes, improvements are visible within 2 weeks of use, whereas, sometimes, even after months of using a particular antidepressant, no improvement is experienced. The key is to stay focused and continue medication according to doctor’s prescription. It sometimes gets hard for doctors as well to come up with the exact antidepressant at the very first go. So, if they see that patient is not improving after regular usage of the first one, he changes the same. Just like you talk to a medical practitioner before taking these antidepressants, before withdrawal, consultation with a doctor is important as well. Understand one thing, at certain times; you can experience several bouts of depression. So prescribing you antidepressants even when you feel fine is nothing but part of the long term treatment plan of the doctor.

In general, doctors start with low dosage of antidepressants and then gradually increase the dosage until the desired results are achieved. However, at the same time, they try to keep the side effects as low as possible. 

Different antidepressants

Earlier, the most commonly used antidepressant was the tricyclic ones (A name these obtained for their chemical structure). It used to work on two major neurotransmitters of human body named as serotonin and norepinephrine. The only problem was the unpleasant side effects. However, thanks to the new age antidepressants such as amitriptyline, imipramine, desipramine, nortriptyline etc. the side effects can be controlled these days. 

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) have been known effective to treat major depression disorder, bipolar disorder and panic disorder. Certain approved MAOIs are: Parnate, Nardil, Marplan etc. However, these can result into dangerous interactions if taken with certain foods. So, if you are going to take MAOIs, make sure you follow the dietary instructions given by doctors strictly.

SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are also known for their effects on serotonin & are used widely these days. Some approved SSRIs are: Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Zoloft, Prozac etc.

Remeron and Wellbutrin are also known to work to control depression. However, Wellbutrin should never be taken by a pregnant woman who is under the risk of seizure failure. At the same time, taking Wellbutrin doesn’t result known side effects of antidepressants such as weight gain or sexual dysfunction.

If you are unsure about how todiagnose depression or selecting the appropriate medicine for your treatment, a visit to a professional medical practitioner will definitely help you out.