Depression
Depression is more than just sadness. People with depression may experience a lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.
Depression is the most common mental disorder. Fortunately, depression is treatable. A combination of therapy and antidepressant medication can help ensure recovery.
Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology
What You Can Do
- Seek the right kind of social support
Social isolation increases the risk of depression. But it turns out that spending too much time discussing problems with friends could actually increase depression as well.
- Exercise Helps Keep Your Psyche Fit
Exercise is an effective, cost-effective treatment for depression and may help in the treatment of other mental disorders.
Getting Help
- Find a Psychologist
- Depression and How Psychotherapy and Other Treatments Can Help People Recover
Depression is a real illness and carries with it a high cost in terms of relationship problems, family suffering, and lost work productivity. Yet, depression is a highly treatable illness, with psychotherapy, coping and cognitive-behavioral techniques, and medication.
News
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Antidepressants linked to hypertension in babies
January 13, 2012, ABC News
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Celiac disease in women linked to depression risk
January 5, 2012, USA Today
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Gluten-free diet linked to increased depression and eating disorders
December 30, 2011, Boston Globe
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Some depressed people do worse on medications
December 9, 2011, Reuters
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Depression may slow exercise recovery
December 1, 2011, The New York Times
Monitor on Psychology Articles
- Treating postpartum depression
February 2011
- Putting new antidepressant findings into practice
March 2010
- Astonishing shortfalls uncovered in depression care
February 2010
- Antidepressants and children: Too little or too much?
November 2009
