Different Strokes for Different Folks

Two people could feel exactly the same  signs and symptoms of depression, but may need very different kinds of treatments for how to fight depression.  How can this be?  It is because the chosen treatment takes into account a variety of factors including the cause of the depression.  Justin lost his job two months ago has been sliding into a deep depression.  Justin has no prior history of depression, nor does it show up in his family history.  Richard, on the other hand, has struggled with how to fight depression for several years.  His aunt, two of his uncles, and his father have all experienced signs and symptoms of depression at least once in a very serious way.  It so happens that both Justin and Richard report the exact same signs and symptoms of depression on a questionnaire and have the same severity level during the same time period.

Can you guess who will require medication treatment in addition to therapy?  Yes, it’s Richard.  It’s not that Richard has a “chemical imbalance” and Justin does not.   Clinical depression by definition is a chemical imbalance in the brain.   So, both Justin and Richard have a similar chemical imbalance at the moment they seek help.  Justin takes an online class dealing with depression such as the Feel Alive Workshop.  He also has 5-8 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy.   He found his method for how to fight depression.  His depression lifts.  There is no need for medication once Justin learned to think of himself according to different “rules” of thought.  He feels free to think of himself as a success and not a failure just because he lost one good job.

Richard wonders how to fight depression again because he has felt this way before.  He takes an online course to gain the knowledge and skills he needs to wage war on depression and he goes to therapy.  The depression lifts slightly but leaves him stuck in a distressing state of mind.  Why?  Because his depression has biological causes that reach across his family tree like the tentacles of a giant squid.

Why can’t Richard find out how to fight depression using a method that doesn’t involve medication?  The short answer to this is that Richard has a source of depression in side him all the time regardless of his experiences.  At any time, this fountain of depression can switch on and alter his brain chemistry in a painful way for months at a time.  Justin, also has a chemical imbalance, but once it is treated he doesn’t have an ongoing cause of depression woven into his DNA.

The long answer to the question of Richard looking for how to fight depression without medication involves reviewing the biological and genetic aspects of the signs and symptoms of depression.

It Matters What Has Caused a Person’s Depression

There is no one cause of depression. The reasons why some people become depressed are very complicated. In the past, depression was referred to as “anger turned inward”. Researchers now feel that the causes of depression are three-fold: genetic, biological, and emotional/environmental.

Biological Causes of Depression

There is no one-size fits all method for how to fight depression.  The brain is extremely complex.  Although it is estimated that the human brain has hundreds of neurotransmitters, only about 30 of them have been identified. Of the ones identified, scientists have been able to discover links between depression and three of them: dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

Dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine are all active in the parts of the brain that control the activities that go wrong when an individual is experiencing depression. Each of these neurotransmitters is active in a specific part of the brain.  Dopamine is active in an area of the brain associated with the emotions. Serotonin has been found to originate in cells that may be related to sleep and agitation. Norepinephrine is found in the portions of the brain that have been linked to fear and memory.

It is thought that changing levels of these neurotransmitters lead to depression. Recent advancements in research, however, have led to the theory that the causes of depression are much more complicated than that.  With such complexity, where can one find real answers for how to fight depression?

Genetic Causes of Depression

“Aunt Gladys put me in her will!  She gave me her depression.”

If only it were as simple as removing people’s names from a will.  That would be the fast-track for how to fight depression.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.  The idea that depression runs in families is nothing new.  Many people who deal with the challenges of depression or bipolar disorder can name other family members who have also struggled with these mental health issues.

You do not actually inherit depression itself; it is the tendency toward or vulnerability to the disorder that runs in families. If you have a parent, brother, or sister with major depression, you yourself are at an increased risk to develop the disease at some point during your lifetime.

Studies conducted on identical twins point to a genetic factor in depression. Identical twins are interesting to study because they carry the same genes. Researchers were curious to discover whether when one identical twin is depressed, the other one experiences feelings of depression, too.

The studies found that when one identical twin is depressed, the other one also suffers from depression more than 75% of the time. In fraternal twins (who don’t share the same DNA), this number drops to just fewer than 20%. Keep in mind, though, that the identical twins studied were brought up in the same home, with similar environmental influences. It is possible that a factor in the home environment triggers the onset of depression. In addition, since we know that twins have a tremendous influence on each other, one twin’s depressive symptoms could very well trigger similar feelings in the other.

When identical twins were adopted by different families and raised apart, both were depressed simultaneously just over 66% of the time. This would also point to a genetic factor as a cause of depression.  This research result is important because it informs us how to fight depression:  the biological hold that depression has on a person (like Richard) is genetic and requires healing medication to counteract the biological processes inside the body and brain.

No one, single cause has been discovered to cause depression in all families. Even if a person does carry whatever gene is ultimately found to be a factor in developing depression, this only indicates that the individual has an increased chance of developing depression. It certainly is not written in stone that the individual will actually become depressed.  But that is not the point.  The point here is that people lose precious years and even decades of their lives when depression holds on tight and the quest for how to fight depression should take into consideration the strong biological component.  Medication should not be ruled out until a person has been evaluated thoroughly.

How to Fight Depression:  How Important is it for a Person to Know Specific Causes?

While it is interesting to know why your depressed it doesn’t necessarily change the treatment plan for how to fight depression.  Depression is a chemical change in the brain regardless of what caused the change.

Treat the Signs and Symptoms of Depression or the Underlying Condition?

This being the case, medication without any other treatment can give a person relief from the signs and symptoms of depression, but leave them empty-handed when it comes to a method for how to fight depression as an underlying condition.  One of three different types of psychotherapy supply many of the answers to patients questions and concerns about their problems.

Three Main Approaches for How to Fight Depression

There are three specific psychotherapeutic approaches to treating depression. Many times people consider psychotherapy as a talking cure (Sigmund Freud) when in fact it is a way to figure out what ails you and to find better ways of coping with the stress. In these different types of psychotherapy your words and feelings play a central role. The job of the therapist is to support and professionally guide you through the process for how to fight depression.  You will examine your thoughts, feelings and actions and then determine how well they have worked in the past and how to change the ones that have been non-productive.

It is important to work with a therapist who you can trust enough to be open and honest. You may have to shop around a bit before settling with someone but this is important since keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself can deepen your depression. Although there are three different types of psychotherapy most therapists are versed in all three. This knowledge can help you to pick from various tools for how to fight depression that may work for your individual situation. Of course the explanations are a bit simplistic but they help you to understand the basic premise behind each approach.

CBT:  Talking to Yourself Is How to Fight Depression

In Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) the basic idea is that thoughts, feelings and behaviors are all interconnected so that if you make a change in one area it will affect others. For instance, if you make a change in the way you feel about something then they way that you act and your thoughts will also change. If your depression is making you feel worthless then you and the therapist will explore the specific, unrealistic beliefs you have about yourself and the world that make you feel worthless. Then you’d choose alternative behaviors until the system you are stuck in breaks down and your symptoms fade.

How to Fight Depression?  Some Say, “Interpersonal Therapy is the Way to Go”

Therapists who believe that Interpersonal Therapy is the key weapon for how to fight depression assume that the most difficult aspect of depression is how it affects your relationships with others. This type of therapeutic approach is effective with people who have had unresolved grief of the loss of a loved one or significant conflicts within relationships. The therapist and the patient focus on the relationship to identify personal needs that are going unmet and find ways to meet them by ending negative relationships and building social skills.

Using Brief Psychodynamic Therapy for How to Fight Depression

This approach for how to fight depression involves  uncovering an event in your life that triggers core conflicts. These events may no longer play and active role in your conscious memory or thoughts. For instance an individual may be feeling overwhelmed by a situation as an adult that isn’t in proportion to the event but may have been appropriate in a similar situation when they were much younger. The aim is to help the person make a connection between the past and the present and work through the feelings associated with the past events.

So, once informed, choose a method for how to fight depression in a systematic way.  It’s important that you feel the treatment you are receiving is relevant and helpful to your individual situation and to have a voice in the approach you are using. However, since there are three types of psychotherapy that lend themselves very nicely to the treatment of depression you should have no trouble picking a therapeutic approach that works for you.

Summary:  Three Options for How to Fight Depression

Once people realize they have a problem with depression they have three options. There is the medication option where the doctor writes a prescription for an antidepressant and sends you on your way. In this day of fast work, fast food and fast cures that just may fit your picture of  a solution for how to fight depression.   But it isn’t the best nor the safest way. Research has shown that people who use one of three types of psychotherapy alone or psychotherapy and medication are taking a route for how to fight depression that has much better results than those only using medication. Depression is caused from an alteration in brain chemistry. The question many people ask  is,” what caused the alteration?”   Theoretically the change could happen genetically, from a genetic predisposition or triggered by stress. Or it could be triggered by all three. At this time researchers have not been able to identify a specific gene for people to be depressed, although there are genetic predispositions that are triggered by stress. Also, from a statistical point of view, depression seems to run in families.

What you can do to help yourself through depression and how to fight depression via self help is an important topic.  Depression can be debilitating and pervasive.  What can you do to help yourself through depression?  What’s involved with learning how to fight depression by helping yourself?

There are actually quite a lot of things you can do about depression that doesn’t involve medication.  In fact, even with medication, you must change some things or when the medication is finished the depression will return because the behaviors haven’t changed.

Learning how to fight depression by helping yourself  starts with developing a healthy balanced diet.  Believe it or not, we are what we eat.  Our bodies, including our brains, are fed by the food we put in our mouths.  If we eat garbage we can only expect our bodies to produce garbage.

When we are under stress, and feeling depressed, we often lose sleep and forgo any exercise program we may have been using.  Don’t!  Exercise is important for the release of endorphins, which work in our brain chemistry to help elevate our mood.  It doesn’t have to be an Olympic effort, just 30 – 40 minutes a day of work that elevates our heart rate will do the trick.  Sleep, at least 6-8 hours per night, is just as important to recharge our brains.  The trick is to get those hours between 10 pm and 2 am.  If you have to work late, go to bed early and get up at 5 am.  Your brain will be more productive and you’ll accomplish more.

Learning how to fight depression by helping yourself includes cutting down on the rehashing you do each day about your emotional problems.  It is important to know what they are but it is just as important to concentrate on the solution to the problems and not the issues themselves.  How to fight depression:  When you find yourself doing all or nothing thinking, stop!  When you don’t have an activity to do pick up a good book that is exciting, not a romance or self-help book.

Develop a support system with friends, family and support groups who can help you to stay active and involved in activities.  The more active you are the less you time you have to worry about your problems and your emotional situation.

When you are developing a plan around what you can do to help yourself through depression remember that depression isn’t an all-or-nothing situation.  Try keeping a diary or log of how you feel each day.  You’ll start to notice that there are shades of gray to your feelings and your emotions. Depression is a continuum; some days are better than others.  Celebrate the good days and learn what triggered them so you can repeat.

Continue to do what you know you enjoy.  You may not feel like doing it, but do it anyway.  You’ll find satisfaction in accomplishing the most mundane tasks. Even going out and meeting friends, though it may be difficult, will improve your mood and help you to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Triggers for depression can be found in environmental, interpersonal or physical/medical causes.  Try sitting down and honestly evaluating what you feel and how you feel.  Use a list to categorize the symptoms that make you believe you are depressed.  For instance, you may be feeling fatigue constantly, or emotionally drained, or realize that your parent’s expectations are burdening you.

Next, take one step to evaluate those issues as you continue your plan for how to fight depression.  If you are constantly fatigued you may want to get a physical exam to rule out a physical or medical problem.  Or if your emotional fatigue is around a difficult relationship you may want to investigate some assertiveness training.  A long, honest talk with your parents could clear up your perception of their expectations.

What you can do to help yourself through depression involves learning how to fight depression using several steps and you definitely have more than one option.  Keep an open mind about what may or may not help and move forward.  Remember that depression results in stagnation and loss of movement.  Constructive movement, of any kind, is movement toward resolution and happiness.

If someone has a terrible week, they might say, “I was so depressed.” But what they really mean is “I was very sad.” What doctors mean by the word depression is not the same as the common usage of the term. But if sadness is confused with depression, it is also true that genuine depression is often overlooked entirely.  Many people suppose that depression is simply a feeling of overwhelming sadness.  In reality, clinical depression is a constellation of signs and symptoms of depression.

I have spoken to many people who have suffered from depression for many months or even years, but they don’t think of it as depression. Why? Depression is a beast unlike the sadness that naturally comes from disappointment.  The signs and symptoms of depression can morph into anger or numbness.

It is an animal that lands on our shoulders and takes up residence. Sadness, on the other hand, is more like a bird that lands on our shoulder, but soon flies away. If sadness doesn’t fly away, it can become part of a clinical depression or even cause it. Sadness does not lead into clinical depression until it:

• lasts for several days (e.g., 2 weeks) and
• becomes disruptive to your life (relationships, work, or school).

To make things more complicated, a person can be clinically depressed without feeling particularly sad. How can this be?  The key to understanding this is to see that sadness is but one of many signs and symptoms of depression.

Everyone experiences mood changes as a part of living life. Good things happen. Bad things happen. But depression involves a cluster of symptoms of which sadness is only one. Pouring rain is not a flash flood, but it is part of the combination of factors that produce a flash flood. Depression is usually defined as a constellation of any five of the following signs and symptoms of depression that persist for 2 weeks or more:

1. Sad mood most of the day, nearly every day
2. Noticeable loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities most of every day
3. Significant change in weight not due to dieting (weight gain or loss of more than 5% of body weight in a month)
4. Sleep problems nearly every day (excessive sleeping or insomnia)
5. Agitation (irritable attitude and physical tension) or marked slowing of one’s thoughts and actions (e.g., much more difficulty getting started on something than usual)
6. Fatigue or loss of energy every day
7. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive (or inappropriate) guilt nearly every day
8. Diminished ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness, nearly every day
9. Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurring thoughts about suicide, or a suicidal gesture (deliberate carelessness in dangerous situations) or an attempt, or specific plans.

Most people have experienced one or more of signs and symptoms of depression at some time in their lives. But when five or more of them combine and take hold, they can cause agonizing distress and can disrupt one’s ability to function well at work, at school, or socially. When this happens the depression is considered “clinical” because it is tenacious enough to need some type of treatment. If a person is having thoughts about death that keep returning, this is almost certainly an indicator of clinical depression, whether or not the person can recognize any other symptoms.

As you can see, a person may or may not feel sadness as their main symptom. The cluster of signs and symptoms of depression, and not any one of them, is what makes a person begin to see the impact on his or her life. When we have normal, everyday sadness or the blues, our brain bounces back. With clinical depression, our brain starts working in a different way and gets stuck there.