Mental health includes cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and emotional wellbeing. It is all about how we act and behave in our everyday life. How we behave with the world around us depicts our mental condition or health to a great extent. But the term “Mental health” is explicitly sometimes termed as an absence of spiritual perfection or mental disorder.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization),
“…. A state of wellbeing in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities can cope with the normal stresses of life can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
Mental health
Mental health can severely affect our daily life, relationships, professional and private life,
and also most importantly, our physical health. A person with a mental disorder tends to gradually drift away from his/her daily normal life activities and loose efforts to achieve psychological resilience. Psychological experts have claimed that all human beings have the potentiality to develop mental health snags, irrespective of the age group of the candidate, the gender classification, or the ethnic group of the individual. There are many kinds of mental illness, and currently, a large percentage of our population is a victim of such mental disorders. The symptoms can be both common and rare, and unfortunately, some of them remain ignorant by us. So in this article, we thought of discussing one such most common mental health disorder, which is seen widespread nowadays and has been affecting the lives of a significant population- Clinical or Major Depression.
About and cause:
Depression can be correctly described as a mental illness or disorder featured by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in daily activities resulting in vital impairment in daily life. The possible causes include a combination of biological or psychological sources of distress. Recent researches have suggested that these causes lead to major changes in brain functioning and also include the altered activity of neural circuits in our brain. A patient suffering from such depression commonly develops a feeling of sadness and loneliness or loss of interest that leads to a noticeable range of behavioral and physical symptoms. Some common symptoms of depression are insomnia or an increase in sleep, changes in appetite, energy level, concentration, daily behavior, or self-esteem.
The most dangerous effect is that depression can lead to suicide, which is being increasingly observed every passing year, even in this advanced world. So if you are aware of someone planning to take this drastic step, kindly contact the prevention hotline of National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and save a life. Depression can be caused by a vast array of reasons or unfortunate incidents that function as a turbulent phase in human life. Loss of dear ones or some shocking incidents in life or failure is capable of damaging some particular brain cells that result in acute depression. The term dysthymia is also used for long term depression.
Treatment:
The particular treatment for curing depression is usually medication by a renowned or accurate psychologist, talk therapy that can help to normalize the victim’s brain changes associated with depression. The talk therapy works best because it helps the patient to open up about the hidden feelings that mainly work as a predator. In this case, the depressed person should be mostly kept surrounded by dear ones to avoid loneliness, which would help him/her to recover fast. Always remember that loneliness triggers depression.
News and researches on depression:
According to the popular Medical News Today, antidepressants aim to cure depression by correcting chemical imbalances of neurotransmitters that are believed to be the root cause of changed mood and behavior. The research of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) has recently stated that the percentage of people of adolescent age and overdosing of antidepressants in the United States rose from 7.7% to 12 % within just a short span of few years.
Most teenagers are common victims of depression and anxiety nowadays, which is a severe threat to our future generation. We often claim that the advanced globe’s most integral gift, that is, social media has given birth to such illness among the young generation. But new research led by Professor Sarah Coyne of Brigham Young University has studied to found that the amount of time spent on social media or in the world of internet is not at all connected to the increasing amount of anxiety and depression among teenagers. She has penned down in her publication named “Computers in Human Behavior” that mental health is a multi-process syndrome where there is no particular cause or stressor, thus rejecting the accusation on social media as the root cause behind depression. But for our help, Coyne has also jotted down three suggestions as to how to use social media effectively and in a healthy way. According to her,
- Be an active user rather than a passive one that is comment and post instead of just scrolling and stalking other posts.
- Limit the usage of social media and divert your attention to other leisure activities, as well.
- Wisely choose your intentions of using social media in the very first place.
Being the world in our clutches by just clicking a few buttons is definitely a blessing of modern science, which leads to unlimited usage of social media by each and every human being. But all of us must use it for betterment rather than leading to a destructive life.
One important thing is that our society should stop treating depression as a taboo and mislead the anxiety patients from seeking the help of psychologists. It is high time that we start helping people who have mental disorder instead of spreading wrong claims about them and their illness. Deborah Serani, psychologist and award-winning author and professor of Adelphi University, has rightly said that depressed people are scared to be labeled and deemed by the society and thus, refuse to visit psychology, concerned to be judged.
It’s not as simple as a minor fever or cold. A depressed person needs the genuine help of close ones to get over it, to be cured fast, which is more helpful than any medication.
