Men are half as vulnerable as women when it comes to suffering from depression. This can actually be traced to their different dispositions. Men never like to think that they are vulnerable. This is why they are generally guarded in such feelings of depression. With time, owing to constant denial, the symptoms die down.

Sometimes though depression really engulfs a man and no amount of denial or will power helps. Perhaps only time does. What then is depression? Sometimes we make an assumption that low mood is depression. It is not so. We live stressed lives. We tend to be a part of a workplace which is constantly full of fatiguing challenges. On top of this, an average person suffers from the vicious cycle of small and large debts in today’s world. At any rate, budget constraint and failure to fulfill meager wishes add to the wretched feeling.

Stressful relationship with spouse and constantly poor academic record of a child also may induce depressive traits in a person. Most of the time, it is the money which hampers his balance. It all may start with a trivial bout of anxiety and later develop into something mammoth.

Stress changes our gait. Men become fidgety in their movements. Those men undertaking a lot of stress manifest quite a lot of pacing up and down. This further develops into loss of appetite and insomnia. All this can still be over in about a couple of months or so but sometimes a patient goes into the deep dungeon of withdrawal. When this happens, he begins to completely shell himself from outer life. As the brain withdraws from social flux, feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem and guilt conquers the mind. This automatically leads to the path of depression.

Men show reverse tendencies from a women. While the women lose their sleep and diet capacity in depression, men tend to overindulge. They sleep more and eat more. They also seem to tire less than a female who feels completely fatigued. Also, men can continue with their chores till a long time of being in depression while the women simply withdraw from social life.

This brings us to two clinical terms. Men tend to suffer from Dysthmic disorder. This is a kind of disorder in which a person can work and keep depressed at the same time. A woman quickly catches up on the chronic traits of depression. The rate of suicide is also far greater in women as they simply become vulnerable to the feeling of bleak future. As they are not able to connect with a worthy future, they feel that the only route is escape. Men more often come out of their depression in quicker time as they conjure up the will power to understand that all is not that bad after all and there is a way to go.

Depression can be treated through counseling and psychological boosting in the early stages. Later on, with increase in its depth, we have to take resort to medicines. These medicines are largely anti-depressants.

Motherhood is bliss. It is associated with one of the most coveted dream of our lives. But the time is also very new for our metabolism. It does not always feel heavy with a fetus for company. The stress and strain suffered during pregnancy gets further aggravated by the increase in levels of estrogen and progesterone. All this cumulatively have an impact of creating mood swings in women. When mood swings become too frequent and huge in proportion, they lead to depression.

It is important to tackle pregnancy right at its early stage. Depression during pregnancy is the easiest to treat as its grounds are neither psychological nor related to any traumatic experience in the past. It is caused by hormonal overflow and subsequent feelings like morning sickness.

As suggested, mood swings and depressive tendencies while pregnancy does not imply onset of a difficult disease. With some love, affection and proper exercising regimen, Depression during pregnancy can be easily tackled.

If it’s the strain that is killing you as a would-be mother, then various pacifying exercises can help. This can include taking stock of the breath and keeping a complete tab on its movement for 10 minutes a day. It can also include reading holy books; those that give immediate peace to the mind. In fact, quite the opposite idea can work as well. It might be a comic strip which brings a sense of cheerfulness in a woman. It might also be large posters of a baby girl or a baby boy which does the trick for a woman.

There is a general belief bordering on myth that depression cannot co-exist with pregnancy. This is fuelled by the fact that pregnancy is a time of extreme happiness. On the contrary, it has been found out that depressive tendencies manifest themselves during pregnancy at a higher rate. No one actually likes pondering over an unhappy pregnancy; hence people usually do not talk about such depression. Think of it in this light. If a woman begins to think of pregnancy as burden, then she would be fatigued by the fact that she has to take the burden for as many as 9 months, this realization can itself bring depressive traits.

It is extremely important to treat any depressive tendency during pregnancy. Such depression can actually stunt the growth of the fetus. Extra release of hormone in a mother travels through placenta into the bloodstream of an embryo. Moreover neurological and psychological deficits travel through a mother to a child in no time. Yes, the effects come on a far later date. It is statistically proven that most mothers who deliver a baby during depression create grounds for a mentally or physically deformed baby.

If a woman wants to keep away from any such tendency she can align to few of these techniques.

• She must enjoy her social life. Cutting away from social life only aggravates the tendency.
• She should look forward to special pregnancy massages. Professional masseurs trained in the subject should only take care of the treatment though.
• She can look forward to yoga and meditation techniques which help with keeping the mind in a cool and composed manner.

Depression in women occurs twice as frequently as it occurs in men. Women are more vulnerable to various factors associated with depression. Be it the social factor, economic factors, or psychological factors. There are three major factors that can be associated with depression in women.

Genetic deficiency- if a mother has depression; there is a fair chance that a daughter would be susceptible towards the disease. Having said this, genetic disposition might change with proper execution of will power and giving right direction to the behavioral fluctuation. The aim is to practice moderation.

Hormonal fluctuation- Estrogen plays a great part in a women’s life. Its erratic production can cause behavioral imbalance in a women.

Life experiences- There are various events which can disturb a women’s mind. This may be in relation to certain traumatic experiences that a woman has undergone in the past. Moreover, certain things that happen to a woman in everyday life can also create stress, anxiety and associated withdrawal symptoms in a woman. These can be degenerative for the mind. A woman battles her way but then she is mentally more vulnerable to falling off.

Women showing features of depression show a common symptom of extreme fatigue. For them even a small task becomes highly difficult. They feel the need to completely stretch. This brings withdrawal symptoms in a greater degree as woman themselves break away from social chores.

Women suffering from depression feel as if they have no value to add to the family and society. This makes them myopic. Because they do not envisage a proper future for themselves, they end up being suicidal in certain cases.

Depression can be a real killer and in more senses than one. Look at it this way. It breaks a woman from all social norms. In absence of a proper social impetus, they end up being more and more alone. Social life, family relationship, parental duties; each thing suffers. In the event of feeling extremely weary and purposeless, a woman might just be looking into the depths of depression. Apart from these symptoms, there are the associated symptoms of appetite loss and insomnia. Tense gait and chest burn are also related to such disorder.

Women suffer more from seasonal depression. In winter months, sunlight falls less all across the globe. This results in higher rate of depression in women in the winter months. Sad light box therapy is artificial stimulation of light in the eye. This results in getting more and more of light which helps in proper functioning of hypothalamus.

Men show exactly opposite symptoms. They intend to overeat, oversleep and take greater indulgence in every possible chore.

Depression can be countered effectively in the initial stages. This requires medicines and psychological interference. This might even require a combination of both. Antidepressants are a great help in such times of depression. They must still be taken with proper advice from doctors. It is because such medicines can have withdrawal symptoms and associated side effects.

Depression is a dreaded disease. It takes away the ability to think sharply. This way humans end up looking down the drain mentally. Slowly a rot begins to set in and a person breaks away from all kinds of social chores. Depression occurs twice as frequently in women than in men. The problem takes greater proportions when children suffer from depression. It is because they cannot actually gauge what they are going through.

Depression shows various symptoms in children. This can be crying or feeling hopeless about certain things. It also involves fatigue and steady loss of energy. As soon as it begins to affect the body, various added manifestations begin to stop the growth of children. Performance in school also drops. Rejection coming from other children gets more frequent and a child slowly begins to go into a phase of solitude. Children hitting depression or in the process of hitting depression often complain of certain physical anomalies that are just not there. They have unfounded thoughts of constant headache and nausea.

When the symptoms begin to outgrow a child, he begins to have suicidal thoughts and also gets inclined towards alcohol. Drug abuse makes the child more imbalanced and prone to further attacks of depression. Normal sadness does not mean depression. It can be owing to myriad factors. But when the symptoms of sadness becomes more persistent and begins to interfere with the normal life in a big way, then it cannot be ignored for long.

Depression also occurs in children owing to genetic vulnerability. Depression is often hereditary and runs in family. In such cases, they are treatable in early stages. When they become a lot more severe, it becomes difficult to treat them in a rush.

The behavior of a child differs from an adult while he suffers from depression. It is important for a parent to comprehend what a child might go through while being mentally imbalanced. Moreover, if they can effectively read the early symptoms, then a child might not usher into depression.

It is important to effectively barricade any such development in the initial stages. In case, depression sets deeper, it is advisable to go through a proper counseling regimen. You can obviously look forward to psychiatric help. This can include medicines. Antidepressants can help a child fare better with the disease but it is prudent to check any withdrawal symptoms or side effects.

Children can also suffer from manic depression. This is bipolar in nature. They can suffer from highs and lows. During both kinds of mood swings, they suffer from excesses of behavior.

There are many events that can cause depression in children. If the home environment is one of constant bickering and disharmony then it can add to levels of stress in a child. The child cannot easily manifest such trauma but it begins to sit in the subconscious. If the parents are undergoing some kind of a trauma like separation and divorce, it may lead to depression in children. The greatest possible cause is poor academic track record.

We live life on the fast lane. It does not let us sleep in peace. Workplace is a stressful place. There are various tensions pertaining to home as well. People are more or less mired in earthly stresses. This is why cases of anxiety are on an incessant rise these days. More and more people are complaining of anxiety of different types. Anxiety acts as a positive barometer, while it remains under a certain threshold point. In such cases they act as warning bells and suggest us of any problem that we might have. Anxiety that goes beyond the threshold level brings various kinds of stresses.

These stresses can occur as metabolic disorders. This might include insomnia, appetite loss, nervous tautness, tensed gait and erratic disposition. Mounting anxiety can completely misbalance an individual even causing nervous breakdown and complete loss of sleep.

If remained untreated, anxiety is also known to develop to depressive trends in many individuals. Such depression usually starts with withdrawal symptoms. A person goes deep inside a shell slowly and then all the attributes of balanced life ends. A person simply goes into a deep depression.

Anxiety can also evolve into certain weird traits. In fact the traits are surfacing so frequently of late that they are no more considered weird. Few such anxiety triggered symptoms are panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia and so on. In the first case a person begins to feel panic sensation under a given stimulus. In the second case a general anxiety begins to build up. This might have a sound base but at times, this may also be unfounded. Social phobias relate to steady loss of self-esteem. In such cases, a patient believes that he is most vulnerable to be humiliated in social gatherings as he would make quite many mistakes.

All these end in withdrawal symptoms. Such symptoms cause a lot of mental, physical and emotional trauma and largely end in depression. Cognitive behavior therapy is a great answer to such anxiety triggered disorders. They preach about the worse case scenario. As the patient understands what worse might happen to him, he slowly gets released from the fear. Let’s understand, the problem is not about fear. It is about fear of fear.

There are also lines of therapies which deal with mimicking the panic situation in a safe and secure clinical environment. When a patient understands his body mechanism in a safe environment, he slowly comes out of the grip of the fear in real panic environments.

Anxiety leading to depression is curable. There are various cognitive, psychological and psychiatric remedies. It is generally believed that anti-depressants are not necessarily the best line of remedy. They cause numbness in the brain and also have poor side effects and withdrawal symptoms. Despite the problem, they are still administered to people frequently for relieving them from the depths of depression. Psychological healing is also a very important facet of treating depression. While anxiety is still in its early phase, it can be rooted out by clinical analysis of problems that bring it. It can also be taken care of through natural therapies like yoga and meditation.