See also: Hypnosis Anxiety and Panic Stress
Ask Yourself:
- Do people say your attitude is pessimistic?
- Are you feeling tired, or low on energy for no reason?
- Having a lot of aches and pains lately?
- Are you feeling “sad” or “out of it”?
- Do no longer feel joy in activities you used to love?
- Have you lost interest in your work, friends, even family?
You might be suffering from depression.
Depression Comes in many forms
Maybe you tell yourself that everyone has a bad day now and then. But if the reality is that you’ve been struggling for more than a few weeks — to feel like your normal self, to look happy, to sound hopeful — you could be one of the 19 million people who are dealing with depression each year.
Maybe you don’t relate to feeling deeply sad, or ‘out of it’. And yet, although you go to work, and take care of your responsibilities, you’d have to admit that there’s not much joy in it anymore. Seems as if the things that used to hold your interest, or consume your energy just don’t give you the same pleasure that they used to. That’s part of what it’s like to be depressed.
Or perhaps for you it’s a growing feeling of being worthless, no matter how hard you work at self-improvement. It’s as if you have an inner critic judging you, as if there’s an automatic tape playing in your head saying over and over again, “Nothing I do is right.”
You don’t have to feel like this. Depression can be overcome. I can help.
Mental health experts distinguish at least 6 types of depression that you might have heard of:
Persistent Depressed Mood – what many people have and don’t realize- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – due to getting less sunlight in winter
- Postpartum Depression – more than the baby blues in 10-15% of new mothers
- Major Depression – what most people tend to think of
- Psychotic Depression – more rare but what people fear
- Bipolar Disorder – alternating abnormal extreme highs and lows
Men and women experience depression differently. Children and teens differ from the elderly and younger adults in how their symptoms of depression show up, and how they tend to react. So it’s not unusual if you had depression as a kid that you might not recognize it now as a person at mid-life.
That’s why checking in with a professional is a good idea if you are feeling less than content with your everyday life.
Therapy for Depression
If you have two or more of these symptoms, I recommend exploring if therapy for depression will help you:
- Frequently feeling sad, anxious, or empty
- Having a chronically negative or pessimistic attitude
- Feeling consumed with guilt
- Believing you are worthless or hopeless
- Being unable to be self-sufficient or resilient in difficulties
- Having trouble with concentration and decision making
- Losing interest in pleasurable activities, hobbies
- Wanting to isolate from friends, family, and social life
- Having less energy than normal
- Difficulty with memory and attention span
- Over-sleeping, under-sleeping, waking frequently or too early
- Changes in appetite, including weight gain or loss
- Increased in drugs and alcohol use
- Thoughts of death and suicide
- Feeling physically restless, agitated or emotionally irritable
- Having constant aches and pains of unknown origin
There are good treatments available for depression. Maybe you’ve tried psychotherapy before and didn’t get the relief from it that you wanted. Frankly, not every therapist is skilled in helping people overcome this particular mental health problem.
And there is no one treatment that is 100% effective with everyone who struggles with depression. That’s because brain chemistry and life circumstances are different for everyone.
Research shows that one of the most effective is the counseling approach called cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT helps you identify and change negative thoughts. In counseling you learn to view yourself and your circumstances in a realistic way that provides a positive light.
When you come to counseling at Waves of Change, you and I will review how you are experiencing your daily life to find external factors that may be contributing to depression for you. I’ll use CBT techniques, stress reduction, and the science of neuro-linguistics to help you make beneficial, lasting changes in how you think and feel.
Nutrition and sleep habits can play a role in starting or sustaining a depression. Your treatment plan might include suggestions for including or eliminating foods known to affect moods. And since sleep deprivation is a major culprit in depression, we’ll see if there are ways to help you get good sleep every night.
At Waves of Change, your initial counseling consultation is free.
Contact us today to find out how counseling for depression will help you.