If you feel somber and this is a persisting feeling, you can think that you might be depressed. But what is considered to be a depression and how do we know that we are depressed? Depression namely entails much more than you might think. It is not just an unhappy feeling. Even if you feel somber for some time, it does not mean that you are depressed. Your somber feeling can namely also have a different cause. This blog post wants to help you discover what the symptoms of depression are and when you might have or not have a depression. Furthermore, we also sum up possible types of treatment for treating your depression.

Depression: symptoms

If you have a depression, you have issues with your sleeping pattern. You are constantly thinking about what you could do better or what you have done wrong that day. This way, your brain keeps busy, you keep worrying, and you can therefore not fall asleep. Your eating habits are also affected when you experience depression. Your food does not taste nice anymore you no longer feel like eating, or instead you might actually feel better through eating, causing you to overeat. Furthermore, you will not want to do anything anymore. You no longer take any initiatives. This causes you to often be at home alone without partaking in any activities. You also often have the feeling like you would rather be alone and therefore you no longer look for contact with family or friends in many cases. Even if they propose something to do, you do not want to join them. You would rather just stay at home on your own. Your work, too, can suffer from your depression. Most people namely experience issues focusing after a while, because their head is already filled with everything which they could do better or what they do wrong. Furthermore, it can be so that you start experiencing issues with your memory. Because of your constant worrying, your brain is used to such an extent that it does not have any energy left for other things, such as paying attention and memory. Because of your worrying behavior you will also find it more difficult to find solutions, because you are stuck in a vicious cycle. As a result of the isolation and your focus issues, you will notice that you look for less and less contact with colleagues and that working together on projects become more and more difficult. You namely find it difficult to contact others, because you no longer want to do things with others.

Depression: treatment

For people who do not want to go to a psychologist or would rather work on their depression from home, you can follow online therapy in order to deal with your depression. 15 Minutes 4 Me developed an online self-help program, where you can discretely work on your depression, so that you may once again find your happiness in life. It is a program which guides you in dealing with your worrying behavior, and to personally support you in finding that which makes you happy. This way you can treat your depression as well as reduce the chances of getting another depression in the future.

Depression: take the depression test

If you want to know to what extent you experience depression, you can always fill out the free online depression test. The test takes about 5 minutes of your time and will let you know your personal depression score as soon as you are done.