Depression refers to mental disorders accompanied by a state of emotional depression, impaired thinking abilities and loss of interest in what is happening. Medical statistics show that depression is more common than common diagnoses such as colds and flu. A person susceptible to such mental disorders is forced to be permanently depressed and suffer from a feeling of helplessness and uselessness. How to cope with depression and stress? Advice from a psychologist and effective practical recommendations are in the following text.
Content:
- 1 What is stress
- 2 How to recognize stress
- 3 How to relieve stress using home methods 3.1 “The morning is wiser than the evening”
- 3.2 Air!
- 3.3 Listen to music
- 3.4 Get some exercise
- 3.5 Water
- 3.6 Folk remedies
What is stress? Where it comes from, how to get rid of it and whether it is possible not to bring yourself to an extreme state - let's try to figure it out together.
More positive!
Each person has his own psychology. We figured out how to remove stress. But you can make sure that the negativity does not affect you. A smile has a positive effect on every person. It can disarm absolutely anyone, and also discourage them from sending negativity in your direction. Remember that negativity only causes negativity. And stress and nervous tension are not good for anyone. This means that you need to try to protect yourself from negativity as much as possible.
It should be noted that there are people who cannot restrain negative emotions. They should not respond to their swearing or “attacks” with a rebuff. Remember that any situation can be resolved without quarrels, keeping your nerves in order. Smile or simply ignore the other person's negativity if possible. Let your thoughts not be occupied by petty troubles and problems.
↑ What is stress
Stress is our body’s response to any overstrain. A person may experience both physical and emotional overload.
Physical stress can be caused by a severe or long-term illness, cold or overheating of the body, or a feeling of hunger. In order to get rid of it, you need to find and eliminate the cause.
The same applies to psychological (emotional) stress. It can be caused by troubles in your personal life, problems in the family or conflicts at work, financial difficulties, a huge amount of information, dissatisfaction with your professional abilities, disappointments and other reasons that cause great emotional distress and overload of the nervous system.
According to the degree of intensity of emotional overstrain and its duration, several periods are distinguished:
- adaptive – when the body adapts to a new state and mobilizes its protective functions;
- short-term - if minor troubles for a short time knocked you out of your usual rut;
- long-term - if stress is not recognized in time and treated, it can drag on, which will ultimately lead to depression and major health problems.
Regardless of the type of stress, its intensity and duration, its nature is the same. Immediately after a nervous breakdown, adrenaline and cortisol levels increase in the blood.
Adrenaline increases blood pressure and increases heart rate and the need for high-calorie foods.
Cortisol, or the stress hormone, helps strengthen the body's protective functions and improves immunity.
Practice proper breathing
When a person is under stress, his muscles tense and his breathing becomes rapid and shallow. This can lead to hyperventilation and, as a result, panic. If you are not inclined to panic, then a pronounced attack may not happen, but nervous tension will still increase.
Therefore, teach yourself to avoid hyperventilation by performing these simple breathing exercises for calm and measured breathing.
↑ How to recognize stress
The release of adrenaline and cortisol is the body's first protective reaction to increased stress. They are responsible for the physical symptoms of stress that you may feel. These include the following signals:
- headache;
- high blood pressure;
- rapid breathing;
- exacerbation of gastritis or development of peptic ulcer or other gastrointestinal disorders;
- chest pain;
- muscle tension;
- feeling of discomfort, tension or pain in the spine;
- fast fatiguability.
But not only physical, but also emotional changes accompany stress. Psychological symptoms of stress include:
- depressed mood;
- increased anxiety;
- absent-mindedness - it is impossible to concentrate on doing something;
- irritability;
- sleep problems.
If you notice similar changes in yourself or someone close to you, you should definitely start treatment.
Methods for increasing stress resistance
Experts consider the most difficult thing to deal with immediate stress, because the situation cannot be predicted. But if a person has a stable mental state, the problem will not get out of control. The following help increase your resistance to difficult situations:
- Knowledge and preparation. It is important to understand that after difficulties something good will definitely come; this knowledge contributes to the quick acceptance of a stressful situation.
- Optimism. It has been proven that sanguine and phlegmatic people perceive ongoing changes much more easily, believing that everything will work out. Choleric and melancholic people are more vulnerable, because they are very emotional and have a more difficult time surviving life’s ups and downs.
- Social connections. Anxiety not only reduces your tone, but also destroys relationships with other people. But it is precisely in such situations that outside support is needed, from people who are ready to help. This increases the likelihood of a successful outcome.
- Ability to cope with strong emotional outburst. A person who cannot calm down is extremely vulnerable. After all, in a fit of anger, he can do or say something that he will very much regret.
- Feeling of control. Confidence is a quality that not everyone has. You must learn to believe in yourself: this is the only way to influence the course of events, overcome difficulties, accept stressful situations and solve accumulated problems.
↑ How to relieve stress using home methods
You can help yourself recover from stress using simple methods, most of which are available to each of us. Let's figure out how to relieve stress and calm down after a nervous breakdown.
The main thing in the fight against stress is to relieve tension, try to distract yourself and relax. You can use these methods at home.
↑ “The morning is wiser than the evening”
We remember the old worldly wisdom and put off solving the problem until the next day. It is important not to torment yourself with endless worries about what happened and how to live on, but to try to free your head from annoying thoughts.
The best way to do this is to do breathing exercises. A few simple exercises will relieve muscle tension and help you calm down. You can distract yourself by watching your favorite movie or talking with loved ones.
If obsessive thoughts just won’t leave your head, then don’t hide them, but entrust everything to paper. This will actually free your mind and maybe even look at the problem from a different perspective.
↑ Air!
Go for a walk. Just take a walk, and not run headlong from work to home or to the store. Go to the park, just walk along the streets, look at houses, passers-by, listen to the sounds of nature, breathe deeply. A walk can be considered a meditation if you focus your attention on some details: look at the leaves on the trees, shop windows, clouds in the sky, etc.
In addition, during a walk, the flow of oxygen to the head increases - you can take your mind off your worries and find the right solution to your problem.
↑ Listen to music
Music you love can lift your spirits. According to psychologists, classical music is best for relieving stress, but if you don’t like it, then just pick up any compositions that your heart responds to.
↑ Do physical exercise
When playing sports or performing any physical exercise, the body produces the hormone of happiness - endorphin. He is responsible for a good mood. The influx of endorphins can be achieved in different ways, but the most reliable effect can only be achieved through physical exercise. You can go for a run, go to the gym, dance to your favorite music, or just do simple exercises - even a few squats and simple stretching will help relieve tension and fill you with energy.
↑ Water
How else can you relieve fatigue at home and relax? The easiest way is to go to the bathroom. Water can cleanse not only the physical body. It washes away all our troubles and sorrows and copes well with emotional stress.
Take a contrast shower or a warm bath with aromatic oils or salt. If possible, go to the pool or... to the bathhouse. Hot steam will relax your muscles and increase the flow of endorphins. You will feel rested and renewed.
↑ Folk remedies
Traditional recipes for herbal infusions are very helpful in relieving stress. A decoction of valerian root or motherwort herb is very soothing and helps to relax. These plants have a strong sedative effect and are often included in sedative preparations.
Warm tea with chamomile, mint or thyme and a small spoon of honey will cope with insomnia, relieve headaches.
Other folk plants are also good cures for stress: hawthorn berries, peony flowers, verbena. Only, as in the case of medications, you should use them carefully - in some cases, even taking herbal teas can cause negative reactions.
↑ Treatment of stress with medications
All home remedies are good as preventatives or for relieving stress during the adaptation and short-term period.
If nervous tension does not leave you for a long time and no folk remedies help, you need to seek help from specialists.
Untreated stress can lead to major problems in both health and social life. Protracted depression is very difficult to treat. To treat stress, neuroses, depression, panic attacks and other nervous system disorders, various medications are used, which can be divided into the following groups:
- Neuroleptics - these medications help inhibit nervous activity. They are usually prescribed for prolonged depression and complex mental disorders.
- Antidepressants are medications that reduce anxiety and help relieve stress.
- Tranquilizers are medications that reduce excitability, normalize sleep, and suppress emotions.
- Nootropics – improve brain activity, memory, and increase concentration.
- Sedatives are sedatives that promote relaxation, reduce anxiety, and relieve stress.
- Normotimics are drugs that relieve depressed mood, restore emotional background, and are prescribed for increased irritability and nervousness.
- Stimulant drugs - prescribed for increased mental and emotional stress, help to resist stress, and have a general strengthening effect on the body.
Any medications can only be prescribed by the attending physician. Depending on the degree and type of neurological disorder, the doctor will select drugs that relieve stress, reduce anxiety, sedatives or stimulants, and more often a combination of these to provide comprehensive treatment of the disease.
Stop surfing the Internet and using social networks
Most of us do not notice how much time and energy we spend during the day scrolling through Internet pages that are not related to our work and communicating on social networks. But these efforts are colossal!
According to psychologists, we now spend as much energy on social networks and reading the Internet as we would previously have spent on 20 hours of conversations on a landline phone!
Imagine how much tension this is. Obviously, it is a very strong daily source of stress and a cause of chronic fatigue.
↑ How not to relieve stress and fatigue
Many people believe that the best remedy for fatigue and stress relief is alcohol. It will help you relax and forget about your problems. However, in reality the effect is the opposite. Alcohol puts additional stress on the body, which is already physically and emotionally exhausted.
If you are very tired, you should not use stimulants or energy drinks. Coffee, strong tea, chocolate, energy drinks only have an invigorating effect for a while, after which the situation only gets worse. At the same time, they further overload the nervous system and reduce the body’s natural ability to deal with stress.
Etiology of depression
Depression occurs due to the influence of many unfavorable factors. Physiological and psychosocial factors may underlie the disease. Doctors attribute the deterioration in human health to a deficiency of biogenic amines.
If the body lacks the required amount of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine for a long time, then signs of severe irritability and apathy, bad mood and deep despondency, fear and anxiety are observed.
The amount of necessary chemical compounds in the blood decreases as a result of certain external circumstances, for example, prolonged exposure to darkened rooms, which is typical for representatives of certain professions (miners, surveyors, ecologists). A lack of the joy hormone is observed in residents of northern regions with long winters. Thus, endogenous depression can be called not only organic, but also seasonal affective disorder, which worsens in autumn and winter.
Recently, depression has become common among young people, which is the result of side effects of medications or drugs. Iatrogenic, or pharmacogenic depression, is formed as a result of uncontrolled use of levodopa, corticosteroids, and benzodiazepines. A condition associated with constant strong nervous experiences can be completely cured after discontinuation of medications and a course of detoxification.
There is such a thing as depression due to abuse of sedatives or hypnotics. A depressed state occurs due to regular consumption of alcoholic beverages of any strength (including “non-alcoholic”), cocaine, cannabinoids and heroin, psychostimulants and amphetamines. In this case, the clinical picture of depressive disorder will be the result of persistent physical and mental dependence on a prohibited substance.
↑ Why it is necessary to treat stress
Any nervous breakdown is, first of all, energy that requires release. If this does not happen, it accumulates in the body and can lead to serious consequences: severe depressive conditions and diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, and neurological disorders.
In addition, this seriously complicates a person’s social life: a person experiencing constant nervous overload cannot normally concentrate on work or study, he is very unsure of himself, irritable and suspicious, and it is difficult to communicate with him. This leads to frequent conflicts with family, friends and colleagues.
Health implications
If the body is exposed to stress, it does not have time to recover and is gradually depleted. Constant stress that depresses the mind and body destroys the immune system. A person begins to get sick and is susceptible to various infections.
The main consequences of a long-term traumatic factor:
- Digestive problems. A person goes to a gastroenterologist, undergoes drug treatment, but the main cause is not removed. If you eliminate the source of the problem—chronic stress—treatment by a doctor becomes effective and productive.
- Reduced adaptive capabilities. This includes the inability to get together and solve an ordinary life problem.
- Mental vulnerability increases. If an extreme event occurs, the condition may worsen to an acute, critical stage.
- The harm of prolonged stress affects the skin and general physical condition. A vulnerable person begins to look older than his age, external beauty and grooming are lost.
↑ How to get rid of chronic depression
Left unaddressed, stress develops into severe depression. It is almost impossible for a person to get rid of it on his own. In this case, the help of a specialist is required. Moreover, most often, therapy is complex. The doctor will prescribe medication and psychotherapeutic methods. Yoga, herbal medicine, and physical therapy help fight depression.
However, no doctor or manual will give you an exact answer to the question of how to get out of depression, and will not help you get rid of a depressed state if you yourself do not make an effort to do this. In order to achieve success, you need to get out of your comfort zone, completely change your usual lifestyle, give up many habits and solve problems that have been put off for years: this could be a change of job and even profession, resolving family conflicts and other tasks that require which were scary to take on.
Correct prioritization
And the art of working time management. Such measures will allow you to avoid endless overtime, and will give you the opportunity to take breaks and rest breaks, but for this system to work, you need to follow a number of important rules:
- plan time systematically and necessarily consistently;
- write down an action plan for approximately 60% of your working time, set aside another 20% for unforeseen circumstances (“spontaneous” activity, for example, creativity or leadership);
- It is advisable to draw up a plan in writing; unsolved tasks must be rescheduled, indicating deadlines;
- Be sure to record not only your actions, but all your results and achievements.
- Proper distribution of working time will contribute to effective problem solving and, accordingly, increase working capacity.
Long-term planning will save you from unexpected emergency situations; for example, you can classify all your tasks into groups: “non-urgent” - those that will wait until the end of the work week, “urgent” - those that require completion in the coming days, and “super-urgent” - those that “urgent today.” Don’t put an unbearable load of work on your shoulders - really assess your strength before planning goals and objectives.
↑ Prevention of a nervous breakdown
As we know, any disease is easier to prevent than to solve. The same applies to nervous breakdowns and depression. It’s easier not to push yourself to an extreme state than to then pull yourself out of the swamp by the hair. To resist stress, you need to follow rules that are simple to the point of banality and familiar to all of us from childhood.
- Be aware. A nervous breakdown is our reaction to a situation. And only we decide how to react to it. Learn to be distracted and shift your attention from negative aspects, try to look for the good side in everything.
- Rest. Not in front of the TV and scrolling through your social media feed. Do your favorite thing, read a book, listen to music, take a walk, go to the theater or cinema.
- Relax. Meditation, yoga, warm bath, breathing exercises - any means that you enjoy are good for relieving stress, except alcohol and gluttony.
- Move more. Any simple physical exercise will strengthen not only your body, but also strengthen your spirit.
Make your work schedule more flexible
Identical, similar, like twin brothers, days of the working week have a depressing effect on the human psyche. Try making your work schedule more varied. For example, ask your boss if you can stay at work longer on Monday evening and then leave early on Friday. Or don't come to work on Thursday, but go to work on Saturday.
Of course, not all jobs allow you to take such liberties. If you work in a reputable law firm or in a factory with a strict shift schedule, you are unlikely to succeed in such tricks. However, you still need to change your working mode.
If your bosses do not approve of your unauthorized comings and goings, then you can change the duration (within acceptable limits) and place of your lunch. Try to have lunch in different places and with different colleagues. You can also try leaving the house earlier. And one day just walk longer, arriving at work on time. And on another day, drive up and be at work ahead of time. The main thing is to have variety.
