All you Need to Know about Depression

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to go back over some of the key topics I’ve blogged about and to give a complete list of my blogs for each topic. This week: All you need to know about depression – just click on the links to access the blog articles.

What is Depression? It’s the world’s most common mood disorder and the incidence is spreading like an epidemic.

What causes Depression? We are all vulnerable to depression and one way of explaining it is that it is caused by not having our basic physical and emotional needs met.

Is Depression a medical illness? This blog looked at the excellent work being done by Limerick GP,  psychotherapist and mental health activist Terry Lynch in drawing our attention to the fact that it is NOT caused by biochemical changes in the brain and that as a society we need to focus on finding ways to recover other than by taking anti-depressants.

What are the symptoms of Depression? Feeling miserable and bad about yourself much of the time, being increasingly preoccupied with negative ideas about your life and the world, not feeling motivated to do the things you used to enjoy, sleeping poorly and often waking up exhausted and finding everything an effort are all symptoms of depression. This blog looks at these and other symptoms and also some key ways to get on the road to recovery quickly.

How to beat Depression This blog lists ten key ways to beat depression quickly from

 “I don’t know if I’ve got anxiety or depression. Or both” These two blogs (Depression and Anxiety, Anxiety and Depression) discuss the close links between Anxiety and Depression – the symptoms which are common to both, a kind of “agitated depression”, how both are part of the “flight” response to “fight or flight”.

Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD is a mood disorder that affects a person at roughly the same time each year, usually starting when the weather becomes colder and the evenings darker in September or October, and ends in April or May when the weather becomes warmer, the evenings longer and brighter. This blog looks at the effects and some strategies for recovering.

The Twisted Thinking patterns in Depression– Life can be extremely challenging at times but it’s important to recognise that it’s not events and situations per se that cause depression – it’s the way we think about them. Depressed people unwittingly misinterpret and think incorrectly about things that happen in their lives, they mistake their thoughts for the truth. Read this blog to check out some of the most common thinking patterns we fall into when we get depressed.

How a negative bias in our thinking patterns causes Depression Our lives are made up of a combination of neutral, negative and positive experiences – and it’s the negative experiences that signal the greatest threats to survival. So our ancient ancestors that lived to pass on their genes paid a lot of attention to negative experiences. But you can consciously override those tendencies in simple and effective ways each day, by focusing on positive experiences, valuing them, and helping them sink in. You can literally make yourself happy and avoid sinking into depression.

There are strong links between Depression and sleep and understanding these links can help us to move towards recovering from depression. This blog explains what goes wrong with our sleep patterns when we are depressed and gives 12 top tips to get great sleep.

Need some advice and support?

If you are struggling with Depression and would like to talk it over in complete confidentiality, call Alison Winfield, Mindfully Well Counselling Cork on 087 9934541.