1 Easy-Peasy Way to Manage Severe Depression Symptoms
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Severe Depression Symptoms
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This is how you can master the art of delegation. Reprogram your body to protect your mental health.
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✨POV✨: You don't know if you want to call it that - depression. All you know is that your mood has been off lately, far longer than it makes sense to feel this way. You just can't help it. And no, it's not about willpower or determination. It's something else?
Labels can be tricky. For some, knowing what it is they struggle with can be the final acknowledgment they need, to know that it's not just in their imagination. While for others, the label can become a crutch that drags them down deeper. So, whether or not labels work for us is subjective. We get to choose how we wish to approach this mental health challenge.
Symptomatic treatment (treatment that relieves symptoms, rather than focusing on the root cause) is common for physical illnesses. Aspirin, Tylenol, and Ibuprofen are over-the-counter drugs that are frequently used as a symptomatic treatment for headaches, body aches, fever, and the common cold.
But symptomatic treatment for mental illnesses is not as common, although not necessarily a bad idea, especially for depression. That doesn't mean that managing symptoms is our only goal here - our slow-and-steady goal here is to wear depression down one symptom at a time. This approach reduces our risk factors (what make us vulnerable to the effects of) of depression, decreasing our chances of continuing to deal with the illness.
Severe Depression 💔
This type of depression, as the name suggests, is a severe form of clinical depression (the kind that can be diagnosed by a mental health professional, using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). It is also known as Major Depression or Major Depressive Disorder.
Common Severe Depression Symptoms 🚧
These symptoms begin to show when our naive risk factors have been attacked by depression:
- Sleep problems
- Difficulty concentrating and brain fog
- Low mood for weeks
- Appetite changes
- Feeling hopelessness and helplessness
- Feeling fatigued and lethargic
- Feeling anxious and restless
When a person's depression symptoms interfere with their day-to-day lives, making it difficult to work, maintain relationships and achieve goals, we can suspect depression.
The Easiest Treatment: Eating Right 🍲
Aka the fun part.
🧠 Why It Works
Eating right is definitely a cliche, but the kind that has some truth to it - it all comes down to the definition of 'right'.
So much of depression has to do with our brains and our guts (yep, our stomach). Did you know? Our gut bacteria produces 95% of the serotonin (our happy hormone) present in our bodies.
These two parts of our bodies release hormones and brain chemicals that set the ambiance of our bodies and minds. Imagine the brain and gut as machines that have a purpose to fulfill, which can be optimized to perform at their highest potential, but which can also conjure chaos when not taken care of.
Some symptoms of depression are triggered by oxidative stress (when the oxygen in our body is fighting against our immunity), which causes the brain and gut to develop inflammation (imagine it like a burn wound that needs soothing).
The ecosystem of our body - where the brain, gut & mental health are interdependent - needs immunity-boosting and maintenance foods to strike the perfect balance.
💪🏼 How To Do
We need to avoid processed foods (as much as possible) because not only do they have less nutritional value, but they also have the power to dis-balance our ecosystem. We need to take in the 'right' nutrients which build and not break our system:
- Selenium: It is an immunity-boosting nutrient that reduces oxidative stress and inflammation. Eat turkey, chicken, fish, shellfish, eggs, and cottage cheese.
- Omega-3 Fatty Acids: This is also an immunity-boosting nutrient that reduces oxidative stress and inflammation. It is also rich in healthy fats that support and boost brain function. Eat seafood, avocado, walnuts, and berries.
- Vitamin B9: Also known as folate, this nutrient helps rebuild cells and maintain brain health. Having low folate levels also directly reduce serotonin levels. Eat green leafy vegetables, beetroot, citrus fruits, bananas and nuts.
Last Word on Mental Health 🤍
Eating right can pump our body with feel-good hormones and brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. This helps beat symptoms of depression like low mood, fatigue and poor sleep, among many more.
To know more on the different ways in which we can improve our symptoms, click here.
Note on Mental Disorders🚩
Depression (aka clinical depression, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is a mental illness that can be of two different types - mild depression (aka persistent depressive disorder) and major depression (aka severe depression or major depressive disorder). Common symptoms of depression include prolonged depressed mood, low self-esteem, mood swings, loss of interest, and having trouble focusing. If you have symptoms of severe depression (medically reviewed and diagnosed by licensed mental health professionals) or thoughts of self-harm, please use the national suicide prevention lifeline or contact a mental health professional to seek treatment options.
It is also common for other mood disorders like bipolar disorder or premenstrual dysphoric disorder to occur alongside clinical depression. Antidepressant medications may be prescribed in the case of severe symptoms, in combination with a form of therapy such as interpersonal therapy or brain stimulation therapy.