Depression is a chronic, long lasting or recurring and treatable disorder, where the patient experiences sadness, worthlessness, loss of motive, loss of interest and/or hopelessness.
A depressive disorder is an illness that involves the mood and thoughts and in simple words can be expressed as persistent sad mood. Depression is not a character flaw or a sign of personal weakness and the suffering person cannot make himself well by trying to snap out of it. Depression affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things.
Depression results from a complex, partly understood biochemical changes in the brain, which are influenced and supported by multiple causes inclusive of genetic trait, circumstantial factors, hormonal factors, socio-personal reasons, etc. Increased levels of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and nor epinephrine are found to improve the state of depression.
Depression is much more common than we believe. However to get precise figures in terms of its prevalence is difficult as many of them go undetected and untreated. Women are twice more often affected with depression than men.
Not everyone who is depressed experiences all the symptoms listed below. Some people experience a few symptoms, some many. Severity of symptoms varies with individuals and also varies over time.
Common symptoms include:
- Persistent sad or “empty” mood and unexplained crying spells.
- Feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, guilt feeling, worthlessness
- Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed, including sex, social withdrawal
- Loss of energy, persistent lethargy
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
- Insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping
- Appetite and/or weight loss or overeating and weight gain
- Thoughts of death or suicide; suicide attempts
- Restlessness, irritability, anger, agitation
- Persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain
Role of homeopathic treatment:
Homeopathy offers an excellent treatment for all stages of Depression, especially. Homeopathy can take care of various symptoms of depression. Extreme cases of depression or the cases where the patients are on high doses of the conventional medicines for a long time (drug dependency) may not find good results using homeopathy.
Homeopathy can positively influence personality traits that are working at the base of disease. The important aspect is that depression is a disease in which genetic make-up is topped with environmental stress result in disease. Homeopathic medicines are very deep acting and having potential to counter genetic tendencies, addressing the root cause of the disease and hence prevent the relapse and recurrence of the condition.