What are the causes of depression and natural ways to deal with it?

Today, depression has become a very common and serious disease. Psychologically, depression occurs when a person experiences 4 to 5 of the symptoms listed below on most days and for more than 3 weeks. Some of these symptoms are psychological and some are physical.

Psychological symptoms:

1) Feeling sad: The depressed person is constantly sad.

2) Feeling of emptiness and lack of motivation: a person has no motivation to do things, including progress in work, study, etc.

3) Suffering and aggression: Every little thing makes a person mad and moody and aggressive with others.

4) Despair and pessimism: The depressed person in the confrontation and analysis of personal, social, work, etc. issues always looks at the half-empty glass and therefore in various situations is struggling with despair.

5) Fear: The person constantly thinks that others intend to harm him.

6) Feeling guilty or worthless for no reason

7) Reluctance to do things of interest (for example: games and group entertainment)

8) Having trouble communicating with others in the family and workplace: The person constantly grumbles and complains about everything and everyone or expects too much from others.


Physical symptoms:

1) Insomnia and sleep related problems

2) Lack of energy and fatigue

3) Significant change in weight and appetite

4) Significant change in sexual desire and ability

Acceptance of depression

Before examining the causes of depression, the most important thing to treat is to admit that you are depressed. There are many people who are depressed, nervous, have difficulty communicating with others, do not have the patience to solve problems, and if someone even gently criticizes their behavior or even suggests going to a counselor, immediately go to the front. Instead of accepting the fact, they start criticizing others and assume that they are completely healthy. So do not spend your time arguing with these people.

A successful person is one who dares to accept reality. Of course, if one accepts the reality, one seeks a solution in the face of a problem, not an escape from it. People who run away from reality always seek justification in all matters, unaware that they are hurting themselves first and foremost.



Causes of depression

The following are the factors that cause depression.

A) Physical and biochemical factors in the body:

1. Hypothyroidism and thyroid: Hormones are secreted by these two glands that have important functions in the body, including regulating metabolism and energy production. When the level of these hormones decreases, the person becomes low in energy, gets tired quickly and loses his desire to socialize and communicate with friends and others. Many of the hormones secreted by these glands also affect human mood, including the hormone cortisol, which is secreted by the adrenal glands (adrenal glands). This hormone is a natural stimulant. When the adrenal glands become less active, its secretion also decreases and is replaced by joy, fatigue, boredom and depression.

2. Deficiency or excess of some vitamins and minerals in the body: Minerals are called body tools, for all biochemical activities such as the production of enzymes, hormones, energy production and in general for the activity of all parts of the body. For example, the body uses zinc to produce more than 100 enzymes, including digestive enzymes, protein production, food conversion into energy, sperm production, etc., from calcium to the production of intercellular chemical carriers, fat conversion It uses energy to repair bones and teeth, iron to produce red blood cells, magnesium to regulate heart rate and blood pressure, ATP production and more than 400 enzymes, and more. In other words, each of the minerals plays several roles in the body, and in the continuation of this article, we will examine their relationship with depression.

The human brain has two parts. One is called the cortex, or new brain, which is the part of the brain that deals with reason and logic, and the other is called the old brain, or the animal brain, which is responsible for emotions. The element "zinc" stimulates and enhances the activity of the new brain and the element of copper enhances the activity of the old brain. Usually, people with copper overload tend to use the brain emotionally rather than using logic and reasoning. As a result, they are more emotional, for example, nervous, irritable, emotional, and rash. Copper also stimulates the production of neurotransmitters such as epinephrine, dopamine, norepinephrine and monoamine oxidase (an enzyme needed to produce serotonin). Copper imbalance has a profound effect on the central nervous system, which is strongly associated with psychological, emotional and nervous reactions. Some of the symptoms include decreased memory, especially in young people, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and other mental disorders.

3. Deficiency of magnesium, manganese, chromium and fluctuations in blood sugar: These three elements are vital for sugar metabolism in the body. Their deficiency causes a drop in blood sugar. Brain activity is highly dependent on constant sugar levels. When blood sugar is variable, it causes a drop in energy, mood swings and a feeling of confusion, and can easily cause a person to feel depressed.

 4. Deficiency of other vitamins and minerals: Deficiency of vitamins B, C, E and elements such as magnesium and zinc, which help the body produce energy, also reduces energy and causes depression.

B) Side effects of chemical drugs:

Many side effects of many chemical medications can be depressing, such as cortisone, especially when the dose is reduced. Birth control pills, Valium, antihypertensive pills and many other drugs also have a depressant effect on humans. Before taking any medication, you should first read the list of side effects, and if depression is one of them, ask your doctor to replace it with another medication, and if you have to use it, reduce the dose to a minimum.

C) Psychological and social factors:

Many factors such as social, family, economic, stress, stress, impotence and hundreds of other factors cause depression in a person that can be discussed for hours. The general advice is to see a counselor or psychiatrist if your problem is acute and serious.

Preventive advice against depression

Here are some basic tips to help prevent social problems and depression:

1) Do not be afraid to think and always dare to accept the reality. Living with a bitter truth is better than living with a pleasant lie, because the bitterness of the truth gradually gives way to the sweetness of understanding the surrounding factors, and the lie loses its sweetness to the bitterness of facing reality!

2) Never ignore physical and mental problems and do not leave them unsolved because in the future you will face bigger problems due to not solving them. Get help from a counselor and psychologist to solve problems.

For example, there are people with behavioral disorders who marry either at the suggestion of others or at their own whim in the hope of resolving their behavioral problems. However, marriage not only does not solve their personality and behavioral problems, but also takes them to another stage of life, which itself has certain complexities, such as harmonizing and adapting to the culture, beliefs and behaviors of another person (partner). . As a result, they are exposed to new and more problems with their marriage. After a while, instead of solving the problems at the root, they have children again on the advice of the ignorant, hoping that the newborn child will warm their lives and solve their life problems. This takes them to another stage of life, which leads to more difficulties and problems, and the person enters all the personality issues and problems of his single and married period into a new and sensitive stage of his life, and the result is certainly certain. War and strife, divorce and its consequences.

3) As the elders have said, a healthy mind is a healthy body, so deal with depression with proper nutrition and regular exercise. Getting advice from a nutritionist is very helpful in setting up a proper diet and supplements.

4) Choosing the right friends: Quoted from Golestan Saadi: "The perfection of the roommate affected me, otherwise I am the soil I am." Man is a social being and to have a mentally healthy person he needs to have fun, socialize, exchange ideas and information with others. On the other hand, the human mind has the ability to emulate the behaviors of others and his psyche is very influenced by the social environment. Without realizing it, the behavior and actions of the people you associate with affect your mind and psyche. The first point is to choose honest friends and treat them honestly yourself. Associating with happy people and those who do not take life hard is the best medicine for the human psyche. Remove negative, lying and sad people from your list of friends as soon as possible.

5) Conversation: Conversation solves many problems. Remember that conversation is a two-way process: (1) speaking and (2) listening. Unfortunately, this perspective often causes us to become overwhelmed when it's time to start a project. It is very likely that others will not know about your system of thoughts, thoughts, concerns and annoyances. So talk about them with your friends and family. Choose the right time for everyone to calm down and talk in a calm tone. Then listen calmly to what the other person or people are saying.

6) Having reasonable expectations: One of the causes of unhappiness in people is having high and unreasonable expectations from others. When this expectation goes unanswered, it annoys them. Some people do not observe the balance in social relations and in their view, they love the other party too much, which in turn increases their expectations, and as the famous saying goes: "Grace be repeated, it is an inalienable right." So the other important point is to keep a balance in your behaviors. Do not expect too much from others and do not love them too much. Everything is beautiful in moderation.

 7) Realistic look: Try to have a realistic view of the other side and do not deceive yourself. Many times you see behaviors from the other side that indicate a lack or lack of honesty and do not justify yourself. Ask for a reason first. If you are sure that he is not an honest person, do not try to change him and it is better to end such a relationship. It should be added that most people have the right attitude as long as you act according to their wishes. It has been said that if you want to test someone's true personality, you only have to act against their will once. Try to have a realistic view of people in the various situations that occur in your relationship and choose the right people for your socializing.

8) Review of happy memories: Often when we go back in time in our minds and review the memories, our mental state changes depending on the type of memory we review. It is a feature of the mind that captures events and later plays back images for us. The advice is that we can help this feature of the mind in such a way that whenever a pleasant occasion or event happens to us, for example, if we go on a memorable trip or go on a nature trip or party with a friend, we take a photo of that event and then Whenever we have free time, we review the photos so that our visual memory can more easily recreate the details of that good memory. This is joyful for the mind and causes good memories to be renewed several times instead of once and its effect to be renewed and renewed. The same thing can be done with writing by writing about the enjoyable and joyful moments of life in a diary and then reviewing our writing in our spare time.



10 scientific ways to live happily

Everyone wants to live happily and never get sad and depressed. Here are 10 different ways to live happily, all of which have been proven by scientific findings.

1. Exercise more: 7 minutes may be enough.

The New York Times recently published a report emphasizing that even if you do not have much time to exercise, you can only do it for 7 minutes. Exercise has a profound effect on happiness and well-being, and studies have shown that it is an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In his book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor identifies three groups of depressed people who have treated their problem in three ways. The first group uses drugs, the second group combines drugs and exercise, and the third group uses exercise alone. All three recovered, but after six months, the percentage of depression returning to the three groups was very interesting and shocking. 38% of group members who treated their depression with medication alone re-depressed. The group that used a combination of medication and exercise experienced 31 percent of the recurrence rates of depression. But in the group that overcame depression with exercise alone, the recurrence rate of depression was incredibly low, at just 9 percent.

Scientists have done extensive research on exercise and its function on the brain, and today we know very well that exercise produces significant amounts of protein and endorphins that make us feel happy. The amount of secretion of these hormones after exercise can be seen in the picture below.



2) Sleep well: You will be less sensitive to negative emotions.

When you sleep well, your body will be less affected by negative emotions. A study by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman published in the medical journal Nature Shock found a scientific link between sleep deprivation and depression. The amygdala or amygdala is responsible for processing negative stimuli such as fear and anxiety. The hippocampus is responsible for processing positive and neutral memories. Lack of sleep puts more pressure on the hippocampus and destroys it. As a result, those with severe sleep deprivation have a hard time remembering their good memories, and instead have sad, sad moments.

3) Live closer to your place of work: A short walk is worth a big house

Long distances between home and work can have an incredible impact on your happiness, especially when you live in crowded and polluted cities. The fact that you have to take a busy route 2 times a day and 5 to 6 times a week is no longer a surprise if over time the joy and energy of your being disappears.

According to The Art of Manliness, long-distance travel gradually deprives us of an understanding of how and to what extent this destructive effect destroys us: “... many voluntary situations Happiness does not diminish us in the long run because we get used to them. However, people never get used to the jogging path between home and work, because sometimes the traffic is awful and sometimes it is not (and this is an obstacle to conditioning). Or, as Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard University, says, "Driving in traffic every day is a hell of a day."

Usually people try to make up for it by having a bigger house and a better job, but often this strategy does not work.

 4) Spend time with family and friends: Do not eat these moments in bed.

Maintaining a close relationship with family and friends is one of the five major grievances of the dying. "We are happy when we have a family," says Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard University psychologist and happiness specialist. We are happy when we have friends. "Everything else we think makes us happy is all the only way to reach a bigger family and more friends."

In a study called The Terman Study, mentioned in The Longevity Project, having different relationships and how we help others are important factors in living long and being happy. "We thought that if Terman research volunteers really thought they had friends and relatives who could rely on them in times of need, then they would be healthier," the report said. We also predicted that those who were loved and cared for would live longer. But we were surprised to find that our prediction was incorrect ... The benefits of social communication did not come from the large social network around the person, but from the fact that he could and wanted to help those around him. Those who arrested their friends and neighbors and gave support and sympathy to others lived longer than others.

5) Get out of the house: Happiness peaks at 13.9 ° C.

In his book, The Advantage of Happiness, Sean Ecker states that spending time outdoors enhances your happiness. According to the book: "Spending 20 minutes in the fresh air not only intensifies good moods and feelings, but also increases the power of thought and strengthens active memory."

Also, according to a 2011 study by the American Meteorological Association, the effect of temperature on our happiness is greater than the effect of other variables such as wind speed, humidity or even the average temperature during the day. This study stated that happiness in humans reaches its maximum at a temperature of 13.9 degrees Celsius. So the next time you want to breathe for 20 minutes, first check the temperature and then leave the house.

6) Help others: 100 hours a year is a magical number.

Again, when we look back at Sean Ecker, we see that one of the best possible tips for increasing happiness is to help others. In fact, 100 hours a year (or two hours a week) is the best time to dedicate our time to catching others to make our lives richer. According to research published in the Peugeot Journal of Happiness Studies, when people buy gifts for friends and family or help them solve their problems, they become so happy that for a few days This happiness keeps their energy at a high level.

7) Practice smiling: It will reduce your pain.

Smiling in itself can make us feel better, but when we reinforce it with positive thoughts, the effect is doubled. According to a study by Michigan State University conducted by a business and marketing expert, salespeople who have a fake smile on their face and only pretend to smile are discouraged after a while and They quit their jobs. But those who smile positively, such as tropical tour guides or training instructors in children's singing groups, feel better every day and are less likely to quit their jobs out of frustration.

So it is better to have real smiles that come from real positive thoughts. It is not very difficult to distinguish a real smile from a fake one, and you can see this in the photo below.



8) Plan a trip: But you don't really have to travel.

Research shows that planning a trip makes the trip happier than the trip itself. A study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life shows that the greatest level of happiness occurs when a person is planning a trip, that is, when anticipating the joys of a trip. He has a sense of happiness. According to the study, the subjects experienced a feeling when they waited for the holidays and travel to arrive, which could increase our happiness by up to eight weeks. But after returning from vacation, the person suddenly experienced a decline in happiness.

In the same vein, Sean Ecker conducted a study that shows that people who thought they were watching their favorite movie had 27 times more endorphin secretion.

These findings reflect the fact that we must constantly expect positive things and wait for good things to happen to us. Let's think about the details of the trip that we will go even next year from now on. Or include a foreign trip in our next year's schedule right now. There is no problem at all if you do not have the money for this trip now. Just thinking about it gives you positive energy and what did you see of God! Maybe by next year the travel money will be fine.

 Practice meditation: Adjust your brain for happiness.

Meditation is usually touted as the best exercise to improve your concentration and discipline as well as increase your range of accuracy and relaxation. But the findings show that meditation also enhances happiness and prevents depression.

In a study conducted by the Massachusetts General Hospital research team, brain scans of 16 people were performed before and after participating in an 8-week course of meditation and mind control. The study, published in the January issue of the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, concluded that by completing the course, parts of the brain related to empathy and self-awareness had grown, and parts that were subject to stress had grown. The connection was depleted.

Meditation in the strict sense of the word clears the mind and calms you. The following photo clearly illustrates this point:



10) Practice appreciation: Increase both happiness and life satisfaction.

There are many ways to practice gratitude, from writing a list of things you appreciate to sharing three good things that happen a day with a friend or partner, or thanking those who help and helping them. Tell me how grateful you are for them.

The Journal of Happiness Research published a study in one of its issues that examined whether writing letters of thanks and appreciation helps increase a sense of gratitude and, consequently, a sense of happiness. Participants in the study included 219 men and women who were asked to write 3 letters of appreciation to anyone they wanted within 3 weeks.

The results showed that writing letters of appreciation increased the sense of happiness and life satisfaction in the subjects and at the same time eliminated the symptoms of depression in them.

I hope you consciously pursue happiness and positive energy in your continuous life.