Overcoming Depression: Tips To Help You Heal
Clinical depression or major depressive disorder is much more than just feeling slightly down or momentarily sad. It is a serious medical illness that takes all joy out of your life. It makes you feel total despair. Clinical depression is often times accompanied by low self-esteem and anxiety. If you are unable to find pleasure in activities you once enjoyed and feel completely lost in life, do not give up hope. As hard as it is, you must force yourself to take action and fight against your illness.
The first thing you need to do in your battle against depression is to set up a regular exercise schedule. Along with being great for your physical health, exercising causes your body to release natural endorphins which help to improve your mood. By exercising regularly you are likely to have an easier time managing your mood. As an added bonus, physical exertion will help to improve your sleep patterns.
Along with exercising regularly, try to eat a healthy and balanced diet. Empty calorie junk foods will impact your blood sugar and cause you to feel tired and down. Eating problems often accompany depression. Severely depressed individuals sometimes have great difficulty eating anything at all. Be sure to stay on top of your diet and make an effort to take in an adequate amount of calories each day. Concentrate on eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and consume as much natural whole food as possible.
During periods of deep depression you must avoid isolating yourself from the rest of the world. Depression makes it hard to move and may cause you to want to stay alone in bed all day, but the reality is that isolation will only make you worse. Spend time with understanding friends and loved ones.
Consider joining a depression support group. In a support group you can talk with other people who are going through exactly what you are going through and fully understand just how you feel.
Find an excellent therapist. A good licensed therapist with experience treating depressed patients can help you through the all-encompassing darkness of your illness. Talk therapy really does work and can help you to slowly overcome your depression.
Although talking with a licensed counselor is a great idea, if you are suffering from long-standing clinical depression that is not lifting you should think about seeing a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist can evaluate your condition, analyze the severity of your depression and then recommend prescription antidepressants. Antidepressants medications have helped many people suffering from major depressive disorder recover to a point that they are able to live normal functioning lives. There are side effects associated with the use of antidepressants, however, so be sure that you fully educate yourself on antidepressant medication before starting a course of treatment. It often takes four to twelve weeks of antidepressant use before depression symptoms begin to lesson, so you must be patient.
Depression is a devastating illness that leads to suicide in severe cases. Follow the advice from this article and get professional help to overcome your illness. Good luck!
