Quite often, each person feels depressed and overwhelmed when favorite activities and communication with loved ones do not give absolutely no pleasure. In most cases, such a depressed state is accompanied by blues, despondency, apathy, depression, and even thoughts of suicide.
Such a gloomy mood is very dangerous for the human body, since it negatively affects not only mental health, but also affects the work of all internal organs and systems. In this article, we will tell you what causes a depressed mood, and how to get rid of it without resorting to the help of a professional psychologist.
What mental state suppresses any mental and physical activity of a person?
Reactive psychosis is almost always a reversible condition that takes a certain amount of time to recover from. Despite the fact that in severe situations this disease is accompanied by confusion, the occurrence of delusions and hallucinations, as well as affective and movement disorders, in most cases it responds well to treatment and disappears without a trace, after which the person returns to his usual life and work activity.
Symptoms and signs of depression
In most cases, a depressed state of mind is accompanied by the following symptoms:
Causes of depression
There can be very, very many reasons for such a state in which you don’t want to do anything, and the future appears exclusively in a gloomy light. In most cases, it is a consequence of the so-called black band, in which a person has trouble in all areas of life.
What to do and how to deal with blues in a depressed state of mind?
In severe cases, when a person cannot cope with a depressed state of mind and bad mood on their own, it is necessary to contact a psychologist or psychotherapist. A qualified specialist will objectively assess the general condition of the body, understand the causes of despondency and help you get rid of the exhausting blues with the help of various methods of psychocorrection and the use of necessary medications.
As a rule, you can cope with reactive psychosis, depression and other mental disorders that lead to a state of depression at the initial stage on your own.
To do this, you need to follow such useful recommendations as:
Some psychologists argue that a state of depression, anxiety and hopeless sadness occurs in a person from idleness. Of course, this opinion is controversial, however, there is a certain meaning in this statement. After all, if a person is constantly busy with his favorite thing, he does not have time for blues and despondency, which means that he can be distracted from all his problems and not think about them.
When depression strikes, people feel trapped, cutting them off from their familiar environment, thus preventing them from reacting to it and interacting with others appropriately. Characteristic complaints for people in this state are loss of joy in life, sadness, guilt and worthlessness. They experience - loss of energy and interest, sleep disturbance, loss of appetite and weight, impaired sense of time, no desire to communicate with other people, as a result of which intra-family relationships are destroyed, as well as personal and social ties, as a rule, fail, so how a person feels insecure in all areas of life, and sometimes not able to get out of his confinement, or this is given to him through very great efforts on himself, which depends on the degree of the state of depression.
Since there are written sources, there are indications that people have suffered from depression at all times. Back in the 8th century BC, Homer described depressive suffering in The Iliad. He told how Bellerophon wandered aimlessly and groaned in anguish and despair:
He wandered around the Aleisky field, lonely,
The heart is gnawing at itself, running away from the traces of a person ....
The so-called notes of Hippocrates say that if fear and sadness last for a long time, one can speak of a melancholy state. The ancient Greeks called mental pain "melancholy" that is, black bile, in the Middle Ages its name was Acedia and was understood as lethargy and laziness, with the advent of natural science medicine in the 19th century, the term depression began to strengthen and was understood as oppression. The changes that occur in a state of melancholia or depression are basically comparable, and it is certain that the depressive experience has always existed.
Let's talk about some aspects accompanying the state of depression. And let's start with sadness.
Many people know the feeling of sadness. Not everyone understands the deep, lasting, disabling sadness of a person. Depressed state, when he feels like a "surviving lemon", and tears - healing in ordinary sadness - dry before his eyes before they can be shed. The onset of depression and its companion sadness can be for various reasons: the loss of a significant person, possession or status, in the way we give meaning to our concepts, feelings, ideals and circumstances, in a feeling of lack or loss of positive emotions, such as love, self-esteem and a sense of satisfaction, in feelings of deprivation, pessimism and self-criticism. While sadness is a normal and healthy response to any setback and is common, sadness that does not lessen over time is pathological. People who experience normal sadness are usually able to talk about it, know why they are sad, and yet have hope that the sadness will dissipate. Depression occurs when normal exchanges are absent or significantly weakened.
Sadness is immediately followed by "loss of joy", "inability to enjoy", "lack of pleasure". Depressed people develop an inability to enjoy. This, as a rule, is reflected in their relationships primarily with relatives, hobbies become boring, the perception of art and music that they previously enjoyed loses its attractiveness, the world of nature and sounds loses its diversity. This causes them anxiety, they know that the joy is gone, but they cannot understand where and how to bring it back, the fact that a person does not find pleasure in things or people leads him or her to emotional alienation from activities and people who would normally would encourage her. The deep sense of isolation that comes with depression usually makes communication difficult and becomes a burden. In the case of severe depression, a person is consumed by feelings of guilt and worthlessness: “I am worthless”, “the world is meaningless”, “the future is hopeless”. Minor transgressions and omissions can be blown up into enormous breaches of moral standards, that is, when depressed, our ordinary feelings of doubt become exaggerated.
Self-esteem also suffers when depressed. Self-esteem is the degree to which a person feels valued, worthy, and competent. Low self-esteem, most often accompanied by feelings - unhappiness, anger, feelings of threat, fatigue, withdrawal, tension, frustration, a sense of compulsion, conflict and inhibition. There is a strong relationship between parental warmth, acceptance, respect, and a well-defined set of limits and positive self-esteem in children. We can say that people with high self-esteem keep loving parents in themselves, and people with low self-esteem keep unloving ones. People who have low self-esteem or that of others tend to feel immediately helpless or hopeless in the face of loss.
When a person begins to slip, getting stuck in a state of inexhaustible sadness, sadness, lack of joy in life, loss of interest, of course, a warm atmosphere of understanding and support in the family is of great help, but also important and necessary is the professional help of a psychotherapist who will help find the lost that is joy.
Depression as a rhythm disturbance
From studies in the field of depression, it is known that its characteristic features are that mental, speech activity, as well as the ability of a person to act in a state of depression, become inhibited. But it has also been found that in a state of depression, the rhythm of sleep also changes.
It is known that in the state of sleep there are two types of its activation, which are fundamentally different from each other. One of them is "slow-wave sleep", which, in contrast to the state of wakefulness, does not show any patterns of rapid arousal, and, depending on the depth of sleep, is characterized by more or less slow waves on the EEG. The second type of sleep is the so-called "paradoxical dream", which, according to the picture of the biocurrents of the brain, is close to the state of wakefulness, although the sleeper did not wake up and did not change his posture. Previously, this phase of sleep, also called the REM phase, was attributed to dreams.
EEG recordings made during depression show a reduction in the period of "slow sleep", and especially its deep phase, and in parallel there are a large number of wakefulness intervals. These findings reflect, in the language of electroencephalography, the exact sensation of depressive patients of superficial, intermittent sleep. Even more revealing are the changes in REM sleep. On the one hand, this type of sleep, which is close to the state of wakefulness, occurs more often in people who are in a state of depression. However, it is distributed over time differently than in healthy people. The first phase of REM sleep usually occurs approximately 70-110 minutes after falling asleep. In people who are in a state of depression, this time is sharply reduced and ranges from 20 to 60 minutes. This phenomenon is so common that it actually serves as a reliable indicator of depression. On the contrary, this phenomenon does not occur in people who, while not in a state of depression, suffer from insomnia or only for a short time show shallow depressive mood changes.
And so, as a result of studies conducted using an electroencephalogram, it was found that a healthy person sleeps deeply at the beginning of the night, and REM sleep appears no earlier than an hour and a half later. And the predominant part of REM sleep occurs in the second half of the night, when sleep becomes more superficial. In a depressed person, on the contrary, REM sleep occurs within half an hour after falling asleep and lasts for a long time. Deep sleep is absent for most of the night. Hormonal secretion in a depressed person is significantly altered: the increase in cortisol secretion in depression is earlier than in a healthy person, while growth hormone, which in a healthy person is secreted mainly at the beginning of the night, is sharply reduced. In conclusion, it can be noted that, undoubtedly, rhythm disturbances remain one of the main biological signs of people who are in a state of depression. Due to the lack of deep sleep, the load on the body as a whole increases, since a person who is in a depressed state is forced to stay awake longer, and thus gets out of the usual rhythm of life. Such an unbearable load, in people in a state of depression, leads to an increased release of the stress hormone cortisol.
Svetlana Fomina
Many people know firsthand what a depressed state is and how depressing it is. To get out of it, you need to understand why it arose. Only by eliminating the factors that cause it, you can again enjoy life.
What is a depressed state?
When a person loses interest in the world around him, feels a breakdown, mental balance disappears, we can say that he was “captured” by an oppressed state. He does not want to go to work, meet friends, he is not fond of anything, stressful situations are unsettling.
Such apathy arises due to certain reasons:
Some people do not admit their problems for a long time, and therefore do not solve them. Over time, internal discomfort and a decadent state grows, and it is much more difficult to get rid of it. A person begins to "jam" his anxiety or drown it out with other bad habits. But they bring temporary relief, so it is important to recognize the problem and find the "root of evil".
What is the danger of such a state?
When the emotional burden becomes unbearable, it pumps hopelessness. This blocks the activity of a person and leads to apathy and depression. He "drowns" in his inaction and life ceases to please him. This dangerously depressed and oppressed mental state.
When a person lives by inertia, without setting goals for himself, it is unlikely that he will be able to achieve any results. He ceases to dream, he does not need anything, it becomes indifferent to what used to cause sincere joy.
This leads to severe prolonged depression, with which a person is unable to cope on his own.
Dropping the load
That's where all the problems start. When the burden of unresolved issues becomes unbearable, it must be disposed of. A swarm of unhappy thoughts leads to an anxious state and uncertainty, provokes an emotional disorder.
We believe in good!
A pessimistic forecast, as a rule, appears due to the fact that a person concentrates too much on something bad, losing sight of all the good that happens to him.
An imaginary anxiety can disturb a person even more than a real one, because he winds himself up and cherishes his experiences.
When there are many such predictions, this condition occurs over time. A person does not look for ways to solve problems and justifies himself by the fact that nothing will work anyway. He shifts responsibility for his life to those around him or fate, blaming random coincidences for all adversity.
I wanted, I wanted, I aspired, but I did not achieve - state of frustration, I can not reach the goal - the problem is - depressed state of mind
When a person does not achieve any goal, even the smallest one, he develops a depressed, depressed, depressed psychological state - frustration.
Greetings, dear readers of the blog of psychoanalyst Oleg Matveev, I wish you mental health.
Rubric: Providing self-help
Suppressed oppressed and depressive state of frustration due to unachieved goals
Every day people set goals and tasks for themselves, but it is not always possible to achieve or implement them. The reason for this may be various obstacles that arise on the way to achieving the goal - there is no resource state.Depending on the significance of the goal being achieved for a person, his attitude towards it and the obstacles themselves, many people experience state of frustration, i.e. mental experiences of a different nature in connection with an unachieved goal - depression, depression, loss of strength (see negative human emotions - overcoming discharge)
Based on the psychophysiology of a person, his temperament, character and other personality traits, as well as the frequency of states of depression, decline, depression - frustration, there is a danger of the appearance of neuroses.
To avoid this, it is necessary to actively use different methods and techniques to overcome and prevent suppressed, oppressed states of frustration when the goal is not achieved.
State of frustration - depression, depression, decline
In case of not achieving the goal and the emergence of a psychologically oppressed, depressed state (frustration), the individual switches on the mechanisms of psychological defense. Each person's defenses are different, depending on temperament and character accentuation.
To overcome frustration and related states of depression (depression, stress, anger, irritation, emotional excitement, etc.), it is necessary to overcome psychological defense.
Hello. Can you please tell me what to do. I'm 40 years old. Man. Married. Physically I feel good. Nothing hurts or bothers. The problem is the following. I have been depressed for a very long time. I don't even know how to describe. Complete loss of meaning in life. No interest, no joy in life. I don't enjoy anything. All through force. When I wake up in the morning, the question is, why? Why get up, why go to work, why do anything at all?! Everything is on autopilot. I work, I live, I do things through force. Just because it's necessary. Nothing brings satisfaction, peace, joy. For a long time I do not know what these words mean. I just forgot how to experience and feel it. The only question in my mind is why. I can not rest, relax, get even the slightest pleasure or joy from life. I do everything with great effort. In life, everything is normal in material terms. Expanded living space, made a good repair, profitable work. But nothing pleases, on the contrary, it depresses. People buy a new apartment - a joy, an event! I have, on the contrary. Here is the apartment and what - why do I need it? Do repairs, fuss - why? I bought a new car, so what?! Again the question is why? No answer. Unclear. All life actions through hellish efforts on oneself, only thanks to responsibility to oneself and the family. I avoid family holidays, meetings, etc. Communication with people is very annoying - you need to say something, smile, but why ?! The head starts to hurt after five minutes of talking with any person. I avoid contact with people at all costs. More or less I feel comfortable only in complete solitude. If the phone rings, then 80% of the time I will not answer, although it is necessary - there are a lot of calls at work, but I can’t do anything. If they ring the doorbell, and I'm at home alone, I won't open it 100% of the time. I don't understand why I do this. At work, I also foresee problems, but so far I have been able to avoid them only by willpower. At work, you need to communicate with people - with subordinates, with customers. But gradually I try to avoid communication. I am trying to postpone, cancel the scheduled meetings, although I understand that I still need to meet and do something, but I can’t do anything with myself. Loss of self-esteem progresses, became insecure, suspicious. A constant feeling of impending trouble and trouble, although there are no prerequisites for this. Small problems are blown up to the size of a disaster. Everything in the family looks good so far. I smile, I listen, I do. And I myself think - why ?! I do not understand. My wife says something, speaks - I listen, I smile, but I often lose the thread of the conversation and my head hurts from her voice. Laughter just kills me. He explodes in pain. Like it's cutting. I just can't stand it, but I smile back. Photophobia. If it is possible not to turn on the light, then I do not turn it on until the last. I can't stand the sun. Half an hour in the bright sun and I'm squeezed like a lemon, just to the point of hatred. At home, it’s twilight, since the wife calmly endures it. I just don't know what to do. But I feel like it's progressing. On one will, you won't last long. And it's been that way for a few years now. Help advice. Who to contact? And what to do?
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