Depression Help + Tips. 💙 (Depression + Anxiety Advice) 💙

Let's look at the similarities and differences of burnout and depression. They can look very similar... people who're suffering from depression and burnout will often be excessively tired or exhausted, they will have irritability, frustrations, they will have a lack of empathy, they will have social withdrawal, and they will probably have trouble thinking and concentrating. 💙 So those are the similarities. The differences are that burnout is specific to an external source of stress. And if that stressor was to be removed, then the person with burnout would recover because it's due to an external source of stress. 💙 Whereas someone in depression, those things, those external stressors can make depression worse, but the depression itself is an internal thing. It's about how the person feels about themselves, it's about how they talk to themselves, it's about how they think about themselves. 💙

Have you gained weight after starting antidepressants? 💙 There's just been a new scientific study released and they looked at about 180,000 people and what they found was that relative to sertraline, which is Zoloft, so that was taken as a baseline, the antidepressants escitalopram, which is Lexapro, and paroxetine, which is Paxil, and duloxetine, which is Cymbalta, were shown to have a 10 to 15 percent chance of the person gaining 5% of their body weight. 💙 So if you've gained weight while being on antidepressants, it could be the side effect of taking the antidepressants and you may want to consult with a medical practitioner to perhaps change you to a different antidepressant if there's a risk that you feel you won't continue taking the drug because of the weight against side effect. 💙

Here are five surprising facts about depression. Number one, depression can cause physical symptoms such as unexpected pains, digestive issues and headaches. Number two, depression can cause cognitive issues such as trouble concentrating, remembering and making decisions. 💙 Number three, depression is a silent epidemic. There are millions and millions of sufferers worldwide who don't seek treatment because of stigma and lack of resources. Number four, there are often comorbid conditions with depression such as anxiety or substance abuse, issues that come alongside the depression. 💙 And number five, depression is a treatable disease. If you think you might have depression, please seek out help. It's a treatable condition. 💙 #depressionfacts #depressionrecovery #depressionsurvivor #depressiontruth #depressionheroes #mdd #majordepression #clinicaldepression #managedepression #healdepression #mentalwellness #healingjourney #recoveryispossible #mentalhealthawareness #selfcare #innerpeace #positivemindset #overcomingdepression

How Does Depression Feel? 💙 I often find myself wondering how to explain to people who haven't experienced depression what it feels like. I've come up with two ways I think that people who haven't experienced depression can relate a little bit to how depression feels. 💙 So the first one is when you're ill. If you have a cold and you think back to how you felt when you had that cold, the lack of energy, the tiredness and fatigue, that's part of depression. The irritability, that's part of depression. 💙 The wanting to hide away from the world, that's part of depression. And being antisocial, that's part of depression. And the other thing is we just had a couple of warm days here in England. It was very interesting because the heat for me, it saps the energy. 💙 I feel slow, I feel lethargic, I can't think properly, I can't concentrate. All those things also happened in depression. Depression was like that, but by a factor of 10,000. 💙 #depressionfeelslike #depressionrecovery #depressionsurvivor #depressiontruth #depressionheroes #mdd #majordepression #clinicaldepression #managedepression #healdepression #mentalwellness #healingjourney #recoveryispossible #mentalhealthawareness #selfcare #innerpeace #positivemindset #overcomingdepression

For more "Depression Help", please visit http://www.epicentering.com/ 💙 One of the things that goes hand in glove with depression is a lack of a life purpose. It might be useful for you, if you feel you're in depression, to think about what is your life purpose. You probably have lost your life purpose. 💙 Try to think back if you can to the time before depression. What was it about life that lit you up? For me, it was science. I always had a passion for understanding the human biology, how there were hormones working, genes working.💙 And then also recently the psychology and obviously the work around depression. That really lights me up. And then helping share that to help people who are depressed. That's my life's purpose now. 💙 Try to engineer your life so that you're able to embrace your life's passion. 💙 So it's really important as an avenue out of depression to work out what your life passion is. And then in small incremental ways, try to pursue it. 💙

For more "Depression Help", please visit http://www.epicentering.com/ 💙 Here's one quick tip to help with depression. Try to reduce or stop the amount of self -pitying thoughts you have. Now, I learned that in therapy and while I was going through it, I didn't want to think that I had self -pitying thoughts. 💙 It's not a very glamorous thing to admit that you've got self -pitying thoughts going on, but they do contribute to depression and we end up ruminating over them over and over and over and over again.💙 So it's really important to try to recognize them so we can stop them. So the way I learned to recognize them was to put woe is me on the end of a thought that I thought might be a self -pitying thought. 💙 So words like, oh, nothing ever works out for me. The world's out to get me. I can never do anything right. Woe is me, woe is me, woe is me. If the woe is me fits and makes sense, then it's a self -pitying thought.💙 You can cut that off before it leads to a ruminating pattern which drags you further down. 💙 #selfpity #depressionrecovery #depressionsurvivor #depressiontruth #depressionheroes #mdd #majordepression #clinicaldepression #managedepression #healdepression #mentalwellness #healingjourney #recoveryispossible #mentalhealthawareness #selfcare #innerpeace #positivemindset #overcomingdepression

Depression is such a horrible, horrible thing to go through that prevention is really important. Not only prevention before a first episode of depression, but once you've had that initial episode of depression, preventing any relapse has to be absolutely paramount. 💙 And that's what therapy work and self -help work can do for you. It can help prevent relapse. But people who take antidepressants are often not taught the skills that would enable them to prevent a relapse. 💙 And that really concerns me around depression. It's like, take these pills and you'll feel better. And then the problem is, how do you prevent that person, if they ever come off those pills, from relapsing if you haven't given them the skills to prevent a future episode of depression? 💙

When you're depressed it can be exceptionally difficult to do even the most basic things. That's why it's really hard for a depressed person to hear things like, "oh you're depressed, you should just socialize more", or "you're depressed, you should just exercise more", or "you're depressed, you should just eat more healthy". 💙 What would be more helpful would be to phrase the advice as a suggestion and include yourself in that suggestion. So for example, instead of "you should exercise more", offer to go for a walk with the person, or instead of "you should eat more healthy", offer to come up with a quick healthy snack, or instead of "oh you should socialize more", offer to make a cup of tea or coffee and have a chat and listen to the person. 💙 So that's a way of rephrasing advice for a depressed person so that they can take it on board and actually potentially make some progress. 💙

Today, I just want to go over five cognitive impairments that people with depression may have, and it's quite an overlooked area of depression. So I thought it'd be valuable to take a quick look at five areas where people's thinking and their cognitive skills are impaired by depression. 💙 So the first one is a difficulty with concentration and paying attention. So this can show up in the work environment where the depressed person will really struggle to focus and concentrate on any particular task and struggle to get their work done. 💙 It can also show up in social situations where a person will have difficulty following the flow of conversation or paying attention to a person for any given length of time.💙 Number two is a real difficulty with taking a different perspective. So this can show up in relationships where one person is trying to say they'd rather do something a different way or they understand something a different way and the depressed person just won't be able to take that perspective. 💙 That can be called black and white thinking that they're just busy focusing on the one aspect that they understand and they can't take on multiple points of view. That requires flexible thinking and that's really difficult in depression. 💙 Number three and related to number two is difficulty making decisions because you can't see the potential outcomes because you can't think that far ahead or that clearly. It becomes monumentally difficult to decide between A and B.💙 You can't see what the difference is. So how can you make the decision between the two? It becomes impossible. So making decisions is very difficult for people who are depressed. 💙 Number four is memory difficulties. It can be difficult to access memories. It can be difficult to hold them in mind and to follow them so it ties in with the inability to concentrate that when you remember something you have to remember it in sequence and you remember what was going on and you remember the context. 💙 those things are hard to hold, then it becomes difficult to recall memories and to work with them. So difficulty with memories is common in depression. 💙 And number five is that a depressed person can really struggle with the number of steps in a process. This is why depressed people can find it so hard to like take a shower, because in addition to having a lack of energy, it's also overwhelming to try to think, I have to get a towel, I have to get a washcloth, I have to get soap, I have to turn the shower on, at what temperature is it? 💙 And it just becomes like, when you don't have depression, those things are done autopilot. When you do have depression, the autopilot isn't working and each step needs to be recalled from memory, which is hard, and then processed as a sequence, which is hard, and then the decisions have to be made at each point, which is hard, so it becomes just overwhelming to take a shower. 💙 So those are some of the cognitive difficulties, the thinking difficulties associated with depression. I hope you found that useful. 💙

A lot of people suffering from depression think that they're a burden to others. And this then becomes another reason for them to beat themselves up. This is not actually the case. You are not the burden. 💙 The depression is the burden. And you, if you think back to a time, if you can remember a time before you had depression, were you a burden to other people then? No, I doubt it. Now the good news is that if you're asking yourself if you're a burden, it means you have some level of self-awareness.💙 And then you can talk to the other people that you're worried you may be a burden to. Tell them how much you're struggling, how much you're suffering, how difficult it is for you, and how much you appreciate their help and their love, kindness, and support. 💙 That's really important because if you don't say that, the other person may think that your withdrawal and your isolation and your struggles are a result of them and they may take it personally. 💙

If you haven't managed to cook today, if you haven't managed to clean today, if you haven't managed to have a shower or get dressed or even get out of bed, it's okay. This is what depression does to us. 💙 Please don't make it worse by beating yourself up and saying, "I should have been able to do those things". When you're depressed, you're ill and it's good to take time to be in bed and try to rest and recover, it's necessary. 💙 So please don't beat yourself up with things you haven't done today. There's always tomorrow. 💙

Oftentimes, in depression, we can be incredibly hard on ourselves. One of the ways this shows up is when something goes wrong and we try to refer to ourselves in just one word. An example would be something goes wrong and you think to yourself, "I'm such a blank", or "I'm so blank", and it's often a negative word. 💙 People are much more complicated than one word. They can't be summed up in just one word. That's unfair to ourselves to do that. So the next time you catch yourself trying to refer to yourself as just one word, think that's not the case. 💙 I'm not that simple and other people are not that simple. We're much more complicated and try to give yourself a bit of space and a bit of perspective from that one negative word which does not sum you up in any way, shape or form. 💙

One of the things it's really important to do to heal from depression is to start generating compassion. So that's both self -compassion and compassion for others. Now unfortunately people who suffer from depression are highly likely not to have much compassion around them in their environment or to have been shown much compassion growing up. 💙 So it's therefore difficult for them to engage with compassion, to draw on any kind of compassion. So one way I like to think around this is to look for specific incidents from your past that weren't family, maybe a little bit removed, like did a friend show you compassion, did a colleague show you compassion, a teacher show you compassion, something like that. 💙 Or to look to more historic figures, if you have a specific historic figure in mind that was compassionate. Or even look to literature and films, someone like a Dumbledore or a Gandalf showed compassion. 💙 And you can have multiple of these characters to draw on. 💙

Please consider that someone who's suffering from depression may do things that you consider to be attention-seeking. But in actual fact, they're cries for help, but the person suffering from depression just doesn't know how to express themselves and how to ask for help. 💙

Sometimes, people say to those who are suffering from depression, just look on the bright side. And I can understand how that's a hurtful comment for those that are in depression to hear because when you're in depression, you're in the crushing depths of blackness and despair. There is no bright side to look on. So I completely understand how that's really hard to hear. And as a comment, it doesn't really make much sense. What does it mean to look on the bright side anyway? I don't really understand the concept. So it's not exactly a wonderful piece of helpful advice. But if we reframe that advice, if instead of looking on the bright side and I don't know, laughing our socks off, maybe we can take that down a notch and just look at things a bit less seriously because we're very prone to looking at life exceptionally seriously and negatively when we're in depression. And I know this is a big ask, but if we continue to do things the same way as they got us into depression, we will stay in depression. So just maybe once an hour or once a day even, when something happens, try to take it a bit less seriously. Like say you drop something on the floor and you're like, oh, well, it's bad to happen. It's bad to happen. Of every 100 times I carry a knife and fork around, I'm going to drop them once in a while, aren't I? That's just the way life is. And suddenly you've put a bit of perspective and a bit of distance away from the event, which could have been a trigger for a negative spiral. Of course, I dropped the fork. I'm always dropping the fork. I'm so clumsy. I'm always dropping stuff. Why is it always me? No one else drops stuff. And suddenly you're on a negative spiral. But if you can take that different perspective and a bit of distance and go, well, yeah, people drop stuff all the time. It's no big deal. Life goes on. Then that's just tweaking your way of thinking. It's not looking on the bright side, but it's looking at things a bit less seriously. So I know it's a big ask, but perhaps try that once a day whenever it crops up, something that could launch a negative spiral. Just look at it with a bit of a twist, a bit of a less serious perspective, and hopefully that will help on your journey out of depression.

Depression loves to beat us up, and our past "mistakes" are its neverending punches.💙 But if you did the best you could with the skills you had at the time, that was good enough. 💙

Depression can sound like, "I'm weak because I need extra rest", and then that can lead to a spiral of thoughts such as, "other people don't need to have extra rest, other people are able to get loads done. Why aren't I as good as those people? Why am I not good enough?" 💙 It's important to short-circuit loops like that, loops of negative thoughts. It's okay to have extra rest once in a while. 💙 If your body needs extra rest then it's self-care to get extra rest and self-care should be encouraged because it helps support both our mental and physical health. 💙

One of the problems of depression is being considered selfish. So people think when you withdraw from them, when you withdraw from your responsibilities, your job, your chores, that you're being selfish and self-centered. 💙 What you're actually doing is self-preservation because what's going on for you is so overwhelming and it's so difficult to cope with and so painful that you withdraw in order to try and simplify your life and to try to keep things the same and unchanged so you can try to get a grip on them, but it's so, so difficult. 💙 So what you're doing is self-preservation, but it actually looks to other people that you're selfish. 💙

One thing you may not know about depression is that the cognitive impairments that come with depression, such as memory problems, inability to think clearly, struggling to make decisions, "brainfog", these impairments can persist into recovery. 💙 So when you no longer have depression, you can still have these cognitive impairments. There's a scientific study done that said that during an acute depressive episode, 94% of people reported these cognitive impairments, but that was still 44% of people when they were in partial or complete remission of their depression symptoms. 💙 So if you hear someone say, do you think you're depressed, or if you think you might be depressed, please go and get it checked out. The word depression should be like a fire alarm going off for people to have them go and get treatment because depression is very serious and the cognitive impairments can persist even after treatment for depression. 💙

One of the most mind-bending things about depression is as you start healing from it, you think, oh, I'm going to get back to the person I was. 💙 But you don't get back to the personality of the person you were before depression, because even though you really kind of only have a vague concept of who that was before the depression kicked in, the work you do to heal the depression actually pulls out the real personality of you who you've never encountered before. 💙 So you're not the person who was depressed, and you're not the person who you were before depression, you're a completely new person. And that's really kind of mind-bending to think about. 💙

When we're depressed, we're generally not happy. We're the opposite of happy, we're unhappy. We're unhappy with our lives, we're unhappy with how we feel, we're unhappy with being stressed, we're unhappy with the environment, we're unhappy with having no goals, no motivation. 💙 We're very unhappy. And that leads people to think that as you recover from depression, you should seek happiness. But happiness is fleeting, it comes and it goes, and you can appreciate it while it's happening, but it shouldn't really be a goal because then you'll be forever chasing happiness like you chase a high from a drug or something like that. 💙 I would suggest that instead of seeking happiness, you aim for contentment. So building a life that fulfills you by doing things that feed your soul and keep you in a state of contentment with your life rather than chasing the highs of happiness. 💙

You may have heard of "black and white thinking" but have you ever thought about how it's applied to feelings? 💙 "Black and white thinking" is using words like "never" or "always" or "everything". So "everything goes against me", "nothing ever goes for me", "it will never get any better", "I'm always in this situation". 💙 So those are black and white thoughts but you can also apply those to feelings as well. If you feel bad in the moment, a black and white thought on top will be like "I've always felt bad and I will always feel bad" or if you feel unhappy "I've always felt unhappy and I will always feel unhappy, I can't ever see it getting better". 💙 So that's applying black and white thinking to feelings. Let me know in the comments if this applies to you, do you do this or is it something you've had to work around? 💙

As I healed from depression it was like life returned to me. 💙 My mind came back online, I was able to be curious, to ask questions, to take different perspectives, to make connections and join the dots. My memory and concentration improved, I could make decisions because I could understand options.💙 My body came back online, it didn't want junk food or alcohol so I haven't had any for two and a half years. It wanted to move so I started running and then lifting weights. My interest in other people came back, a genuine interest. 💙 I started taking pleasure in small things like leaves, birds, flowers, stars. I laughed at things again, even silly things like dropping a fork before that would have really frustrated me. It's simply staggering to look back and realize how much I'd lost. 💙 It's like being reborn from a death you didn't know you had. So I hope you found that interesting. Please follow for future videos and tips on mental health and depression in particular. 💙

I read a social media post the other day saying that boredom can lead to depression and I don't really think that's the case. 💙 You can feel bored in the short term if you're listening to a lecture you're not enjoying or you're listening to a friend going on about their holidays and you're not completely interested you can feel bored but that's kind of a short term thing whereas depression is a much more long-term kind of listlessness and lack of motivation, lack of goals, feeling overwhelmed and stressed and not able to cope with life so the two are quite different. 💙 I can see how someone who's depressed could use the word bored to describe what's going on for them that lack of connection that kind of numbness but I don't think that means boredom leads to depression. 💙 I think it's mixing up cause and effect. 💙

People with depression often see crying as a sign of weakness and they avoid it or suppress it when in fact crying is just a signal that we're in pain or we're hurt and it's a perfectly natural human response. 💙