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Depression warning signs
Signs of clinical depression

Sleep The depression warning signs - symptoms of depression - are tough on you, if you are the one suffering, whether or not they could be considered signs of clinical depression.

Particularly if you are having signs and symptoms of severe depression, they are also tough on your partner/spouse and other loved ones as they witness your struggles and they worry about those depression warning signs too.

I hope I can help you, and your loved ones, to understand what the warning signs of depression are and when they might be signs of clinical depression.

I would love to be able to help you get over your depression too. So, stick with me. Follow me on these pages and you will hopefully see that you can beat that depression. Can't wait? See my page: Natural treatments for depression.

Seeing the warning signs of depression in someone else?

If you are concerned for someone else, maybe your partner or spouse, then do share the link to this page with him/her. Your having taken the time to find out what the warning signs of depression are will feel hugely supportive to the depressed person.

After that - you need to take a step back - she/he now needs to take action when the time is right for them (that may not be quick enough for you, but it is important that the depressed person is in charge of their own recovery.

What is 'clinical' depression and what is severe depression

'Clinical' depression is usually diagnosed by a medical practitioner or mental health profession. Their diagnosis is based on the signs and symptoms listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (see links). They may use a checklist/test, such as the Beck Depression Inventory, a tick list with questions for you to answer by yourself. The higher your score, the more the symptoms point to warning signs of severe depression.

To me as a practitioner it matters not how high your score is, or how your depression symptoms 'should' be or have been labeled. To me it is enough to know that you are 'feeling lousy' to say the least - see my page on Depression questionnaires (link further down) - you will know exactly what I may be asking you. I will want you to get better as soon as possible.

Symptoms of clinical or severe/major depression

Here are some of the warning signs and symptoms of depression:

Have you stopped taking an interest in things you used to enjoy?
Do you feel down most of the time?
Has your appetite changed?
Do you feel tired all the time?
Do you have difficulties concentrating?
Do you have difficulties falling asleep or
Do you wake up early in the morning feeling exhausted?
Do you suffer from low self-esteem, lack of confidence?
Do you often feel guilty about all sorts of things?
Have you found yourself thinking about death lately?

Well ... just watching this video is enough to make you depressed! However, it explains the warning signs of clinical or major depression well.

I am not sure about depression having a genetic underpinning. I remember being told by a fabulous trainer (Joe Griffin of MindFields College) that the numbers don't stack up. The massive increase in the number of people suffering from depression cannot be explained by genetics alone - there were no such signs of clinical depression in previous generations.

Whether or not that is right has absolutely no bearing on how you are going to recover. In any case, we now know that genes can be switched on and off. Even if you had a 'genetic predisposition' there is absolutely no reason to think that you will therefore forever be at risk of suffering symptoms of severe depression! Change your life-style and you change your genes.

Questions about hypnosis? See: Hypnosis online FAQ.

Signs of clinical depression: feeling down or sad?

Your doctor may tell you that you are suffering from (clinical) depression. if you have answered with a 'yes' to a number of the above questions about depression symptoms, including the first two and you have felt like that for a least a couple of weeks.

’Depression’ really is what happens when essential emotional needs (see The human givens - link further down) are not being met. I hope that your doctor would reassure you that your signs of clinical depression are a normal reaction if you have suffered from a loss, you are grieving or your have been or are going through a traumatic time.

It is natural to feel sad when you have lost something or someone important to you. It is natural to feel down every now and then - life can be really hard. It is natural to feel troubled, lost and distress during and after a crisis!

At these times the symptoms aren't warning signs of depression at all - they are a sign that you are reacting as expected. Treatment is only necessary if after a few weeks or even months you haven't recovered at all.

Depression is like a prison, where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer."

Dorothy Rowe, clinical psychologist and writer

What really causes depression linking dreaming and depression

The discovery of why we dream, by Joe Griffin, has given us a new understanding of the cycle of depression.

It is likely that it all started after you suffered a setback of some kind, perhaps a loss, such as the ending of a relationship or the death of a loved one (which on its own would not cause a depression).

You might have been through a traumatic event, as I have mentioned above. However, you haven't recovered and you have landed in a cycle of in negative thinking and worrying.

The cycle and warning signs of depression

The whole sad cycle is likely to have all the following warning signs of depression:

you no longer do the things you used to do in the way that you enjoyed them, so your emotional needs are not met
you begin to worry endlessly - sometimes about the most minor stuff
now you begin to feel lethargic and ‘flat’, yet your body is flushed with stress hormones
your emotional brain traps you into black and white thinking - everything becomes: all or nothing, love or hate, good or bad
you can only focus on problems and begin to loose touch with the context - the wider view
unable to express yourself and/or resolve anything much, your brain attempts to sort it by increasing your dreaming at night. Your problems - those you have not been able to sort out in the previous day - are acted out in a metaphorical way in your dreams.
this means less time for restorative slow-wave sleep, which results in you feeling exhausted on waking. No wonder you can't get up and/or motivate yourself!
you lack of energy leads to even more worries about how you’ll cope
all this makes it even less likely that you can meet your emotional needs at all, let alone meeting them in balance
the cycle repeats itself with your increasingly becoming depressed

Depression is a debilitating condition that saps you from energy and takes away any joy in living. (See also: Bored with life)

The sooner we can deal with the signs and symptoms of depression, the better for you of course, but also your partner/spouse and other people around you, as depression often seems contagious.

If you are not recovering after a loss or traumatic event, then heed those warning signs of depression. See my pages on Natural Treatments For Depression and Natural Antidepressants.

Fine-tune your relationship and lift your spirits!

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