Coping With Depression (1)

 

Coping With Depression (1)

 

What exactly depression is?

Nowadays, the word ‘depression’ is on everyone’s lips and no doubt, every one of us does experience it one time or another. But even then, it is quite difficult to find a comprehensive definition of depression and the depressive states.

To figure out the nature of depression, an interesting experiment was conducted:

A dog was chained and his various physical states including pulse rate, blood pressure level, and blood chemistry, were carefully monitored. Then his favorite food was brought near to him, but he was not allowed to eat it. The dog became angry, his pulse rate and blood pressure increased and notable changes occurred in his blood chemistry. Then, another dog was brought there to eat the food before him. That made the chained dog extremely furious. In a state of agitation, his heartbeats became very irregular, blood pressure mounted to a critical level, his coronary veins started narrowing, sometimes, getting almost blocked, due to immense spasm, leading to a clinical heart attack.

That experiment shows if someone is deprived of his or her right, rather it is given to someone else, then the situation can stage onset of severe depression and possible heart damage. Since injustice happens universally, depression should also be a universal phenomenon.

Individual differences

Briefly, anything that puts a person into a discomfort state and becomes a problem for him or her, can cause depression. But it is also a fact that many people confront hard issues in their lives, they try to resolve them courageously without showing much pain on their faces. That discloses the other side of the picture; problems and disappointments don’t make everyone depressive.

Sometimes, life can be so hard that even the strongest breaks down. For example, a situation of extreme hunger when a person doesn’t find food for a long time or the available food is not enough for his or her bodily needs, or a case of chronic insomnia that crushes the nerves. Besides these kinds of rare conditions, there are no other circumstances that can be regarded as depressing to everyone.

It is worth mentioning that a matter that puts a certain individual under negative stress, maybe a positive trigger for somebody else. It depends on a person’s upbringing, disposition, and environment. An extroverted person would find every opportunity of appearing on a public stage very interesting and exciting, but the same thing would be very scary and challenging for an introverted.

It is a common experience that what makes us worried and depressive at the age of 12-13, is rather warmly welcomed at the age of 50 e.g. public speaking, meeting new people, etc.

Temporary depression excites us!

An interesting fact about scary movies, horror novels, and dreadful swing rides is that, for a brief interval of time, people actually enjoy the fear caused by them. Individuals who create such things know this fact of human psychology very well and exploit it for their commercial benefits. That shows depression is not that bad if it is temporary; a short-term depression actually brings some colors of variety and venture into the monotonous lives of bored individuals.

The common cause of intolerable depression is that the people suffering from it neither accept a negative situation nor they want to do so. They simply reject the unwanted changes in their lives and desire a life completely free from them.

But the truth is, succeeding through a stressful struggle brings a greater amount of happiness in the end. Non-friendly situations and temporary failures, often, motivate individuals for a self-rebuild and a more mature re-attempt.

Your reaction matters

In fact, depression gets the best of a person when he or she thinks things are never going to change and a bad scenario will actually get worse.

When a problem hits a person, the real challenge is not its size or intensity, it’s rather how calm and patient the person is at the receiving end. People who stay composed in crisis and look towards those who are in even more troublesome conditions have a better chance of coming out of that crisis victoriously.

Rise of depression

Depression is not a modern issue. Humans have been facing it since the advent of consciousness. Then why is it getting more attention today? No doubt, even being an old enemy, depression has become more devastating and challenging in present times. Some experts believe the major cause of its prevalence in modern societies is a hasty way of life that has become a hallmark of our civilization. Instant communications and speedy transportations, sometimes, put us into situations where we have to make immediate decisions that may have long-lasting effects in our lives. Now we have an extra burden of individual responsibility about matters that are not in our direct control; taking breakfast in a hurry, picking kids from school in time while also making sure our own presence in the office in time, working for a specific period of time, etc. There are many other examples where it is quite difficult to reconcile our individual responsibility with external factors.

The unending war of nerves!

Problematic emotional relations at home and competitive professional relations at a job are other reasons critical for the increase in depressive illness. Life seems to be a battlefield where our opposing armies get lined up in a new way every day. If in-between, we are unable to get adequate and peaceful sleep at night that would mean our nerves are at war 24/7.