Ask A Healer Mental Health Series

How to tell if you are depressed. What is depression? Common symptoms of depression
Natural Depression Remedy
©Neva J Howell, All Rights Reserved

What is Depression? Depression is a psychiatric disorder characterized by a certain set of mood states, the most common of which is feeling as if nothing matters and feeling unmotivated to participate normally in life.

If you have a number of the following symptoms of depression or have any of the following mood states to the degree that your daily life function is impaired, you may be suffering from simple depression or clinical depression:

Inability to concentrate

Insomnia

Loss of appetite

Anhedonia (the absence of pleasure or inability to feel it)

Feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness

Thoughts of suicide or death.

Unexplained bouts of anger and irritability

Fatique or exhausted feeling on waking

Bad dreams or troubled sleep

Feeling empty or hopeless

Acting inappropriately in social situations

Overeating

Fast talking

Frequently anxious thoughts

Difficulty concentrating

Emotional outbursts over nothing

Source for part of this information from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition, Copyright © 2000, Houghton Mifflin Company.

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Mental Health Disclaimer: Depression is a complex mood disorder that may have many contributing causes, from physical to emotional to mental to spiritual. What depression is to me is a depressed Spirit. What depression is to you depends on the lens thru which you see life and reality. Seek the treatment and guidance that most resonates with you.