Mental-health-depression
By David-Mcevoy
Mental health is really about how we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us, and about how we behave and interact with others in our day to day lives. It isn't easy to define exactly what it means to have good mental health as people will interpret what it means to be mentally healthy in different ways. On the other hand, there are some signs and symptoms that can indicate when someone has a mental health problem, when their mental functions are not performing as well as they could, and we see evidence of alternations in their thinking and behaviour.

Take for example, even though there is no set pattern and each person will be affected differently; there are some simple clues that we can look out for.

What it means to be depressed

Depression is a lot more than feeling a bit fed up and down in the dumps, which is something we all experience from time to time and is a natural part of the ups and downs of life. To be clinically depressed means that we cannot just shake off our low mood and get on with our lives, the persists and starts to interfere with our normal daily routines and we can no longer enjoy activities and pastimes that used to be pleasurable.

• We may find it hard to get up in the morning to go to work or school, and we may have difficulty getting to sleep at night and when we do get to sleep, our sleep might be disturbed
• Our relationships with family, friends and work colleagues can suffer and our self esteem may be low and we don't feel good enough
• We could find ourselves worrying constantly and feeling anxious and panicky for no particular reason
• Our eating patterns can change and we could see fluctuations in our weight as we may eat a lot more or lose our appetite
• Maybe we are tearful and cry a lot, or we may find we cannot get in touch with our emotions and feel numb and unable to express our emotion
• Some of us may become more aggressive and hostile or irritable for no real reason
• Life may seem too difficult and so we struggle to cope with even minor tasks
• We may feel guilty and worthy of blame and punishment
• Our memory and concentration might not be as good as it was and we find it more and more difficult to make decisions
• Other physical symptoms such as headaches, and various other aches and pains may convince us that we have something else wrong with us

Regardless of the different ways that some of these symptoms can affect us, the main factors that point to are the same. Major is likely to be diagnosed if the symptoms of have persisted for more than two weeks accompanied by low moods and a lack

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