Depression

There’s a lot of confusion about depression and antidepressants. You don’t need to run to the pharmacy and grab a handful of these medicines whenever you feel weepy for a perfectly natural reason. If, for instance you’ve been through a bad breakup or lost a job it’s perfectly natural to be down for awhile. Serious depression and antidepressants are another matter entirely.

Medical depression is a medical condition with both physical and emotion symptoms. Psychically a person who’s depressed might have trouble sleeping, or they might not want to even get out of bed, some have sleep interrupted by nightmares, they might be constantly hungry or refuse to eat, they often complain of headaches, body aches, and digestive problems. Emotionally they are sometimes difficult to be around.

Crankiness, sadness, feelings of guilt or unworthiness will vie for time with angry and anxiety. It’s easy to see from these lists that depression doesn’t affect all sufferers the same way.

With depression and antidepressants it’s important to remember there’s no one size fits all solution or magic bullet. Finding a treatment plan is a matter of trial and effort, which might take some time. Depression and antidepressant information appears regularly on your TV in the form of commercials. You’ve no doubt seen a few ads showing a bouncing talking block of serotonin telling you to ask your doctor for a certain type of drug in order to get it really hopping around. What this is really all about is the chemical actions of the brain and how antidepressants can improve its function.

Chemicals carry information around the human brain. Certain chemicals have very specific jobs. It’s theorized that serotonin helps the brain remember how to be happy. When a chemical imbalance occurs in the brain and the serotonin levels slip below a certain amount this can play a role in depression and anxiety. The theory at work behind depression and antidepressants is to use various medications to raise the level of ‘good’ chemicals in the brain.

Since no two people will have exactly the same chemical makeup it’s important for a depression sufferer to be honest and work with the treating health care professional to find the best antidepressant ‘fit’. What is true for almost everyone is the benefit antidepressant can have in improving the life and health of those suffering from depression.