Too often, depression is seen as simply feeling sad. That isn't accurate. The worst part about Depression is that people who don't have it, just don't get it.
Depression is a very tricky topic to talk about, it is very difficult to express what one goes through under depression, everything seems wrong in life, you loose interest in things you are interested in and further you suspect everything in life, even the intention of people close to you. It seems as if the Gods have conspired to give you pain, you are at losing end of everything, every situation in life. It has been medically shown that in addition to situation, chain of events, the reason for depression could very well be imbalance of serotonin in brain. We have been depressed in life to varying degrees, so, what should you do when you are feeling blue?
I am not going to give you links to motivation videos or books, they might help, but in general I have found them to help very little. When you are depressed, the last thing you want to do is read about how someone made billions following some crazy idea; you do not want to be lectured about thinking positive. If you could, on your own, you wouldn’t be depressed in the first place. I will suggest some practical tips, I have found useful when I felt down, depressed with life.
When you are depressed you become very critical about everything, you become critical about your thought process; you think about how depressed you are, you continue to dwelve upon this for hours!! This grows upon you, the more you think you are depressed, the more you feel depressed and like recursive process, you go deep into depression. STOP. Do not think too MUCH about depression.
When you are depressed , the worst thing you can do is spend insane and ardain amount of time online, spending time on social networking website aggravates depression. Looking at all kind of messages, status updates, comments make you even more depressed, you don’t know what might make you sad.
I cannot over stress this, there is no point sitting alone, maybe in-front of computer and think: how depressed you are. Go out! Go to a nearby park, go to someplace with people and walk. Going on a stroll in a park does wonder for your mood. This is probably one of the best stress buster.
Disrupted sleep pattern is one of major cause of depression, with the kind of life style we spend in college, we sleep almost when the daylight breaks and work for hours together without sleep; all this causes depression. Going to bed early, waking up early, looking at sunrise, the pleasant breeze in morning, all helps relieve stress and hence reduces depression.
I cannot reinstate importance of this, you should not be ashamed to talk about your problems with people you consider close to you, your parents, friends. It might seem cowardly to talk about things you are worried about, your fears, things that disturb you, it does not make you weak. It helps to discuss your problems; you do not think clearly when you are depressed and one cannot expect to reason clearly or come up with solutions to difficult problem with an unstable and depressed state of mind. Asking for help and a few good suggestion that can come out of discussion could do wonders to one’s mood and confidence.
Yes, this is probably one of the most important part of fighting depression, doing something different that could help ward of negative thought is important. When I was depressed, I used to listen to music on my iPod, I developed interest in classic rock in undergrad days. I used to spend countless hours listening to the likes of Beatles, Hendrix, All Man Brother band, Led Zep and countless other Gods. It helped me beat negativity and focus on things which were not negative. Blogging was another fruitful activity that helped me ward off negativity. Learn guitar, learn computers; if you are non-geek types, develop taste of good music and by good I do not mean listening to GaGa for countless hours!!
I know, when the pain gets intense, you can do stupid things to relieve pain; resist the pain, resist the thought to do stupid things, years down the line when you are able to ward off depression and when you look back, it will pain you that you were coward enough to attempt these things.
Think about people who care about you, when you think about doing stupid things. Trust me, anti-depressants work and depression even though can be cured without medicine, but sometimes taking pills to be happy is better than carrying scars of past throughout life. Depression is caused by imbalance of hormones and these pills help restore that balance of serotonin in brain. Anti-depressants, though should be your last option.
In short if you are depressed, don’t be depressed :D. There is more to life than to dwelve about how pathetic your life is, life is beautiful and too short to live a life of misery and gloom. Things often do not go right in life, everyone is not born with silver spoon in their mouth, you fight, you fight each and every day of your life for things you deserve , things you want in life. This is what makes us human. We have dreams, dreams of glorious future, we work for those dreams, we work our asses off for these dreams and sometimes we lose track,we start getting depressed and frustrated, we loose our way. Should we get disheartened by this, should we get disheartened enough to think about ending it all ? Are we this naive, do we want to project that we are this vulnerable, or do we want to be a warrior and fight. I would let you decide and answer this question.
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