BUILDING UP DEFENSE MECHANISM AGAINST DEPRESSION

Sometimes, you may have trouble doing your normal day to day activities, feel yourself having persistent sadness which in return affects your behavior and mood, those are early signs of depression. In the world today, a lot of factors fuels depression amongst people of all age group, everyone on earth experiences depression more often than we care to admit. It stems from what we barely have to what we don’t have, what we want, what we don’t want, what we couldn’t get in time past, what we desperately need but can’t get, and so on. That is why one of the attitudes that shield most people from depression is satisfaction. Most people in fact feel depressed as a result of feeling too sorry for themselves, its human nature to feel depressed once in a while due to occurrences going on in our lives. There are numerous causes of depression in our world today based on country, race, age, religion, and many others. Now that it has been established that everyone is susceptible to being depressed, what matters now is how we deal with the depression we are feeling. Depression is not just influenced by things physically happening around us or to us, it can also originate from medical and psychological factors.

Some causes of depression include:

• Poverty: many research has shown that poverty is linked to anxiety disorder, low self-esteem, fear, psychological distress, and in some cases suicide.
• Death and loss of loved ones are one of the leading factors causing depression, the stronger the relationship with the deceased loved one, the greater the chances of long term depression.
• Substance abuse such as alcohol, drugs are central nervous system depressants and tend to trigger symptoms like sadness and hopelessness.
• Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in past times increases a person’s vulnerability to becoming clinically depressed.

• Some medications we use for other illness contains some substances that have been known to trigger depression such as prescription painkillers such as oxycodone (oxycontin), corticosteroids such as prednisone (Deltasone), antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin (Cipro).
• Serious illnesses are sometimes capable of triggering depression.
• Depressions can be passed down from parents to offspring in some families that have a history of depression.

In most cases, depression symptoms reflect in our daily activities and hinder efficiency, and cause a lack of concentration in workplaces, homes, and social gatherings and the symptoms of depression vary among individuals.

Some common symptoms of depression are:

• Weight loss and weight gain due to a sudden increase in appetite or loss of appetite for food.
• Emotional outbursts; increased anger, frustration, worry, screaming, creating chaos, and panic among peers.
• Sadness, increased anxiety, panic attack, fear, the feeling of hopelessness, low self-esteem, lack of excitement.
• Having suicidal thoughts; especially in adults.
• Impaired mental ability including thinking, concentrating, making decisions, remembering, and also lack of focus.
• Constant fatigue and unwillingness to work or move around.
• Poor performance in school and place of work.
• Being extremely sensitive and emotional.
• Avoiding social gatherings and interacting with others.
• Sleeping too much and difficulty in getting up from bed in the morning.
• Developing feelings of hate and resentment towards others.

  Depression is a lifelong condition, it has no specific treatment like some other health issues but it can be managed. There are many factors that are responsible for triggering depression symptoms, studying them, and knowing how to deal with them in certain situations helps to counter depression at their trigger point. From medication to seeing a specialist to therapies, there are several ways to manage depression however finding the right routine for individual depression management takes time and a lot of self-study .

There are several methods an individual can adopt to fight depression:

• THERAPY

Most people do not see the need in visiting a therapist to talk about their mental issues, also there is also the issue of phobia of sharing personal information. Visiting a psychotherapist is one of the proven best ways to help manage depression. Therapists help to listen to thoughts, fears, feelings, and understand a patient and help to diagnose methods to help manage depression based on individual triggers, personality and can sometimes prescribe medications for some cases.

• MEDICATION

There are many antidepressant medications available for depression and are prescribed based on individual symptoms, medical history. These antidepressants function by providing adjustments to some chemical levels in the brain that affect mood and emotion. Although antidepressant medication has proven effective to use by helping to sleep better and enhancing concentration there is the risk of experiencing some side effects such as fatigue, dry mouth, constipation, nausea, decreased sexual drive, vomiting.