Help with Depression – Low Mood – The ‘Blues’ : by Dublin based Hypnotherapist Ailish McGrath

Feeling Down or Depressed?

 
Everybody feels blue, disconnected from themselves and others, worried and down from time to time. Commonly these feelings last no longer than a few days or a week, and we can get on with our lives even though we experience low mood.
 
There might be a situation or event that triggered the depressed feelings (loss of a lover, work stress, not getting on in life as we would like or have planned etc), but sometimes they just come out of the blue. We can often cope with them ourselves or with support from our family or friends.
 
Sometimes, though, if our mood is very low and is interfering with our ability to get on with our lives it may be useful to seek support from a hypnotherapist, counselor or support organization.
 
You know by how you feel if you are experiencing depression – you just don’t feel like ‘yourself’, are ‘out of sorts’, can’t seem to feel any enthusiasm or good feelings even around those you love, you feel flat.
 
However to be clinical about it you may be depressed or experiencing depression, when:

  • The low mood or symptoms of depression last for two weeks or more, and
  • The symptoms interfere with your everyday life.

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    Common symptoms of depression include:

  • Feelings of sadness, hopelessness, helplessness or despair
  • Lack of interest in daily activities and in the things you would normally enjoy
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Lack of motivation, inability to life yourself out of the mood or lack of interest in even trying
  • Sleeping too much, too little, having disturbed sleep or a lot of REM (dreaming) sleep – waking exhausted
  • Comfort eating or loss of appetite
  • Tiredness or fatigue with no physical reason
  • Suicidal thoughts, wishing it would end, unhopeful of it ending, believing others would be better off without you or believing your poor mood is harming others

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    There can also be a lot of suppressed or expressed anger at feeling low or towards the person or situation you believe caused the depression.
     
    Any of us: male, female, adult or child can experience low mood or depression at any stage in our lives. It is not an indication that there is anything intrinsically ‘wrong’ with you, you are not ‘broken’ or at fault.
    Depression can be alleviated. All that’s occurred is the mind and brain has gone into a negative loop – like an internet search engine that gets blocked – and just like a computer that’s stuck – the brain can be unblocked and ‘rebooted’ to function well again.
     
    Depression can interfere with our enjoyment of life and our ability to do the things we want to do. Getting help for low mood or depression can really make a difference. There are lots of different things that can help – some that you can do yourself and some that involve getting support from others. 
     

    Support for depression:

    When thinking about support, it helps to recognise that everyone experiences mental health problems and depression in their own way and therefore help, treatment and support also varies from person to person. What works for one person may not for another. It is useful to think about what you feel will help you, and to be reassured that you are not beyond help if a certain type of treatment doesn’t work out. Hypnotherapy, cognitive approaches, NLP (neuro linguistic programming) have all shown to provide positive relief from depression, along with other therapeutic approaches.
     
    There are known benefits from dietary changes (eating a healthy diet helps depression – particularly cutting out sugar and refined, chemical laden foods – dyes and corn syrup effect mood), body movement and exercise (especially dancing), drama, role play and other creative and expressive art also have been shown to be of benefit.
     
    Talking to friends or family – with the intent of finding productive and positive solutions or getting perspective on your fears also helps – however talking to people in a way that reinforces the limiting / depressed point of views is not beneficial.