Depression

To talk about depression we first need to know what is a mood disorder. They are disorders that have a disturbance in mood as the predominant feature. In the case of depression, it is a BIPOLAR DISORDER, which means that it has it's ups and lows. It is estimated that there are about 340 million cases each year, and that women have a much higher risk of having a depression (with a ratio of 2:1 women to men).

How do you know you are depressed?

You must be at least two weeks with a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities. There is a lot of dabate on what really is depression and what is just a bad week.

To show depression you must have at leastour or more of the symptoms below:

1) Depressed mood most of the day, seen by you or others. In children and adolescents instead of sadness depression can be shown as irritability. 

2) Marked diminished interest or pleasure(anhedonia)  in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly everyday.

3) Significant weight loss when not dieting or the complete opposite, weight gain.

4) Lost of appetite, linked with weight loss.

5) Insomnia (not being able to sleep) or hypersomnia (sleeping all the time) nearly every day

6) Fatigue or loss of energy

7) Feelings of worthlessness or blaming yourself all the time, feeling guilty of everything.

8) Diminished ability to think or concentrate

9) Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation.

What causes depression?

1) Negative ruminative pattern of thought, specially about yourself. You believe that you do everything wrong and can't stop thinking about it.

2) Learned helplessness: feeling that you can't do anything to cope with negative events in your life

3) When negative life events have occurred like not reaching your goals or loosing something you appreciated or invested lot's of time in.