Feeling down and a bit under the weather is something that happens to every one at one time or the other. Having the blues is a natural thing that one can easily shake off and bounce back to normalcy.
Depression on the other hand is quite different. It is not something that you can just shake off because it seems to have a mind of its own. Depression is an ailment or a medical condition that needs treatment as opposed to feeling the blues which is something that you don’t need prescription drugs to deal with.
The best way of knowing that what you are going through could be depression is when it persists for a longer period. Just Feeling the blues is a temporary thing that at most would last for a day or two. But depression goes on for longer periods and the thing with depression is that you can’t just shake it away. It needs a combination of drugs and therapy for it to be effectively treated.
As far as statistics goes, close to 20 million adults experience depression very year in the United States. This means about one in every fifteen Americans suffer from depression yearly and women are more prone to it than men.
So is there a clear-cut way of being able to tell that one is suffering from depression? Depression is closely associated with some common symptoms. These symptoms may vary from individual to individual but in most cases, a combination of any of theses symptoms strongly indicates that the individual might be suffering from depression rather than just the blues.
- Sadness or a general feeling of gloominess that is noticeable to others.
- Inactivity and generally feeling disinterested in things you used to fully participate in before.
- Sleeping disorder that swings both ways i.e. its either you begin to loose sleep or you begin to oversleep.
- Easily irritated as in getting unnecessarily agitated over thing you would have otherwise overlooked. The opposite reaction also applies here in that you might just become numb to things you would have otherwise reacted to.
- Loss of focus and ability to dwell or concentrate on a given task. The person starts switching off in the middle of something and can be easily distracted from a task at hand.
- Physical pains as in back and muscle aches as well as headaches may begin to occur regularly.
- General fatigue and tiredness as in not being able to assert yourself for long in a task.
- Negative thoughts of gloom and death.
The symptoms are not limited to these but they are some of the most common that are associated with depression. You still have a measure of control when you are just feeling down. This is not the case when it has to do with depression because as much as you try to get out of it, you still see yourself been drown deeper into that condition.
The longer one takes to know for sure that that feeling of sadness has gone beyond just a momentary thing the harder it become to get out of the depression. This is because an early diagnosis is critical for the quick treatment of the ailment. So it’s important to seek professional help as soon as possible.