Introducing the cycle of depression

This is what happens when depression symptoms and signs of depression takes hold?

• Something happens in your life that pushes you off balance... and you quite naturally and healthily begin to worry about it, looking for a solution that will calm you and bring you back to equilibrium.
• But this does not happen and as the problem persists, it becomes harder and harder to deal with. And you are aware of those rigid thinking habits that arise whenever you are under pressure and maybe also the emotion of bad past memories - and as these impose themselves, it is even more difficult to get your life back on track.
• Then you’re sleeping begins to deteriorate and in particular you are increasingly tired and exhausted in the morning when you wake up. You may also be dimly aware that you are dreaming much more.

At this stage, a downward spiral really gets underway - the classic signs of depression.

• Your problems become harder and harder to deal and seem to be multiplying and as motivation and energy disappear, you worry more and more, introspecting and blaming yourself.

What is happening is you are locking into a depression trance, focussing internally and negatively, losing hope and as good deep wave sleep becomes pushed out by excessive dreaming, you may finally be finding that physical aches and pains add to your sense of hopelessness and stuckness - another of the signs of depression.

This used to be called a state of nervous exhaustion and you can see why. If very severe, this can even transmute into psychotic experiences. But let’s leave that for now.

Here is a very simple depression cycle from clinical depression.co.uk which explains very well the heart of symptoms of depression.

Depression is the mental and physical exhaustion caused by the body’s need to dream more than it is capable of doing in order to cope with a situation that appears increasingly out of control.

And why is there the need to engage in high energy dreaming? It is the attempt to clear excessive levels of arousal, worrying and exhaustion, which caused the problem in the first place.

And so we have a self feeding vicious circle where symptoms and signs of depression multiply.

Common misconceptions about Depression and its symptoms

Depression symptoms are caused by a chemical imbalance

Low serotonin is the result not the cause of depression – and this is why anti-depressants are rarely the answer. Anti-depressants treat symptoms and not underlying causes and seem to work by suppressing REM (or dream) sleep.

Depression symptoms are hereditary

The fact that family members may all suffer from depression is better explained by their common environments than their common genes. That it is learned – in terms of thinking styles and coping mechanisms.

Depression symptoms reflect a disease

It is not a biological disorder – there is no chemical test available or possible or yet devised that can mark a depression.

How else but through environmental factors can the tenfold increase in depression symptoms amongst those born after 1945 be explained? Surely, it is that society has changed – family breakdown, greater materialism and focus on self, a reduced sense of obligation and duty, an increasing dependence on the state – how is that for starters as the environmental factors that create worry and disempowerment – all of which make it more difficult to get our essential human needs met.

There are many different types of depression – such as Post partum, grief, teenage etc.

No, when you really investigate all depressions and symptoms of depression, they all have the same underlying causes. You might as well have a special “I have been jilted by my girlfriend” depression.

Depression counselling is the core of what Feelbetter Counselling East London does. This is because we know what a depression is, a REM sleep disorder caused by excessive worrying. You won't find many doctors telling you this. Yet it is so.

Depression relief need not be difficult and can be quick.

Go to Depression Treatment
Go to Depression Case Studies
Go to Anxiety and Depression
Go to Depression Self Help

Back to Depression from Depression Symptoms

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