Is depression a disease?
Yes, of course, it's a disease, and it needs to be taken seriously.
Depression will affect our daily mood and life, even lead to suicide and self-mutilation, which requires strict diagnosis, treatment and management, and cannot be simply attributed to melodrama, fragile mind or personality defects.
Depression is known as the "king of heart disease", and 350 million people in the world have been troubled by depression, and the proportion of depression in their lifetime exceeds 10%.
Depression is not far away from us, even around us.
Second, the performance of depression.
For a long time (more than 1-2 weeks), I fell into strong negative emotions, which led to my inability to conduct normal social behaviors. Some of them are manifested in the continuous decline in work and study efficiency, the difficulty in doing things that were handy before, and the hesitation in doing things. Attention is not concentrated, or some people feel irritated inexplicably and can't jump out of negative emotions for a long time. Some people also have non-organic palpitation, chest tightness, decreased appetite or increased appetite. Insomnia, shallow sleep and waking up easily in the middle of the night may be depression, so you need to go to the hospital for treatment.
Serious emotions are out of control, I can't get up, I'm not interested in anything, I see that everyone and everything are in a gray state, and I have to try my best to make a small decision and behavior, and people are in a coma for a long time. When one's physical strength drops, one will easily feel tired, become indifferent to the things he was interested in before, and become sloppy in daily life.
Third, the causes of depression.
Mainly divided into external and internal causes, or influenced by external and internal causes.
External causes: such as death of relatives, economic bankruptcy, natural disasters, etc. Some surveys have found that the depression rate of the unemployed and the disabled will double.
Internal factors: personality characteristics (traits rather than defects), genetic factors, other disease factors and so on.
4. Diagnosis, treatment and prevention of depression.
(1) Diagnosis:
To put it simply: if a person is depressed or loses interest and pleasure for more than two weeks, and a series of symptoms such as emaciation, insomnia, fatigue, decreased attention, feeling worthless, and attempting suicide appear. At the same time, clinically diagnosed as depression.
The diagnosis of depression is mainly based on external manifestations, not internal physiological indexes of human body.
Cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are all called diseases in English, but depression is called disorder, which is usually translated as disorder and disorder.
At present, there are two sets of diagnostic criteria for depression in the world:
DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition) standard formulated by the United States and ICD-1(International Classification of Diseases) standard formulated by the World Health Organization. Ses 11th Edition), the two are highly consistent, but there is a slight gap. Both of them will be the reference for the diagnosis of depression in China.
At present, the way of clinical diagnosis is to answer questions, and the answer is to make a diagnosis and judge the severity of the disease according to the answers to the questions.
(2) treatment:
Drug therapy: the most important and basic treatment, taking drugs according to their own characteristics, to achieve the improvement of physical and emotional symptoms. Most patients with depression need long-term or even lifelong medication to prevent recurrence. 2-3 months in acute phase, 3-6 months in routine phase and 3-5 years in consolidation phase. Commonly used drugs: Prozac, Deanxit, Keck and Celeste. These drugs can't make people happy after eating, but they can lead a normal life after eating. Happiness still depends on other ways and means to train and perceive. All drugs should be taken according to the doctor's advice, and can't be taken without authorization.
Electrotherapy: transcranial magnetic therapy: a physical therapy method of mild electric shock from one side and relaxing the cerebral cortex, once a day for 20 minutes, 14 days as a course of treatment.
Electroconvulsive therapy: Stimulating the brain by strong electric shock, thus activating cortical nerves, achieving the purpose of relaxation, and the intensity is greater than that of transcranial magnetic therapy.
Other physical therapy: brain functional therapy, wearing a therapeutic instrument, simulating massage and percussion on the head to relax the head.
Conversation and consultation: through talking and communicating with patients, patients can change their cognition of wrong ideas or find the source of disease, and train and cultivate new feelings and habits.
Mindfulness therapy: through meditation and relaxation, patients can feel all kinds of physical feelings, spread their feelings, and let patients live in the real world, live in the present and relax. And cultivate the ability to control consciousness and habits, so that the synapses of the brain are more developed.
Other behavioral therapies: doing exercises on time every day, communicating in groups and learning depression knowledge are all helpful to the improvement of depression.
Exercise therapy: high-frequency participation in aerobic exercise can not only exercise cardiopulmonary function, but also promote the secretion of dopamine in the brain and play a role in emotional regulation. The point is to stick to it, three to five times a week, so the effect is obvious.
(3) Prevention:
According to different people, there are different ways to prevent depression. To sum up briefly, there are the following suggestions on living habits and ways of doing things:
1, live a life without complaining, live a positive and optimistic life, and don't let negative emotions bother you: learn to change your mind and don't ruminate, which leads to excessive brain consumption and depression.
2. Participate in more group activities and sports: People are gregarious animals, communicate with close friends, relatives and classmates, share and talk about trivial things in life, which helps to decompress and learn from and help each other with relatives and friends. At the same time, taking part in sports, the brain secretes dopamine, which can also play a good role in relaxing and decompressing.
3. Expand your psychological comfort zone: Don't set particularly harsh goals for yourself. The key point is to learn in smart ways, to learn flexibly in life instead of solving problems rigidly, and to have more coping styles in life. Do some healthy and beneficial things that you want to do but have been afraid to do, and expand your comfort zone. You will go further, be more stable and react better.
4. Learn psychological knowledge according to your own situation: instead of systematic learning, it is better to learn some psychological knowledge according to your own interests and state, apply it according to your own situation, and better understand yourself.
5, the law of life and rest: try to go to bed early and get up early, get up early to exercise, sleep time does not exceed 10: 30, and you can take a lunch break for half an hour when you are free at noon; Three meals should be as regular as possible. You can eat less but you can't bear not to eat. Paying attention to nutrition is helpful for the recovery of your body.