Let’s talk about depression.

Sitting in front of a person who suffers from depression can be heartbreaking. The overwhelming feeling in my clients’ stories is of despair, helplessness, and isolation from friends and family. Sometimes it feels like no-one can really understand you. They say, “Don’t worry, be happy,” or, “Just pull yourself together.” But all those suggestions just make you feel even more isolated. Then there’s the physical pain and exhaustion.  Plus that underlying question, “Why me?”

• Why do I have depression?
• Is something wrong with me?
• Is it all in my brain? My genes?
• Will I have to keep this fake smile all my life?
• Will I have to keep taking pills that just make me feel numb to the world and give me side effects?

Ok, here are some words about myself.

From the beginning of my career as a Brief therapist and solution-focused hypnotherapist (or a counselling therapist if you like) in 2008, I was passionate about depression. Actually, let me paraphrase, I am passionate about helping people to step out of depression and have a better life. To really make a difference. We have evidence now that there are particular kinds of therapy or counselling which make a difference in treating depression, ^{1 2}

Not all therapies are made the same

 while some therapy has proven to be counterproductive. ³I have been trained in an approach to treating depression that focuses on getting you feeling better quickly. Often the first step is to address the stress levels which are exhausting your body and mind and to make sure that you understand how depression works and why you are feeling the way that you do. This approach is based on the latest scientific research in the areas of neuroscience and psychology. ⁴

But really it is about you

Once you have a clear picture of what depression is and what causes it, you can start to take control of it.  Many of my clients report a positive change already after the first session. My aim is not only to lift depression as fast as possible, but also to empower you with the tools to keep depression at bay in the future. But of course, depression doesn’t disappear overnight.  Below I outline some basic strategies that we will work on together.

How to get out of depression

Understanding the cycle of depression is the first step in defeating it.  The next step is to look at different aspects of your life and discover together how to break that cycle in as many places as possible. Since we are looking at a system here, changing one aspect will create a domino effect that will have a positive effect on other parts of your life. We will work together to:

• reduce the amount of worrying and introspection you are doing
• resolve any practical problems that are causing you stress
• if you have suffered past trauma (PTSD) we will decondition your brain (de-traumatize) using the safe, relaxed and very effective hypnotic Rewind technique
• work on any relationship difficulties you may be having
• help you balance your thinking so you are not plagued by negative thoughts
• as you feel better, gradually introduce elements to your life that will protect you from becoming depressed again

I use hypnosis to deeply relax the exhausted brain, to rehearse new behaviour and to create change in the instinctive (unconscious) part of your brain.

Book a session today and begin your journey to a healthy happier life.

Why am I depressed? Knowledge is power.

Below is a more in-depth explanation of the cycle of depression. it will help you to understand depression symptoms and the steps to step out of it.

I know it can look a bit much. Especially if you are stressed or exhausted it is hard to take in information sometimes. Don’t worry, if you just get the gist of it that’s fine. It is here to give you a basic overview and we will walk through it in the session.

What is Depression?

Depression is on the increase.  People born after World War 2 are ten times more likely to suffer depression than those born before. ⁵ In Western society, about one in 10 men and one in 4 women will have a major depression in their life (with men being more likely to commit suicide). Currently, 300 million people suffer from depression globally. ⁶ Depression can really ‘suck’ the life force out of a person leaving him/her feeling helpless, empty and exhausted physically and emotionally. This rapid increase in depression shows that the cause of depression is usually not biological or genetic, genes cannot change in such a short time. ⁷

To understand and treat depression we need to look at a bigger picture.

Here are some reasons why people may become depressed:

• Breakdown of the extended family and community creates feelings of isolation. (In closed societies like the Amish in the US or remote tribes in New Guinea depression is unknown).
• High-stress levels for a long period of time, creating an increased amount of stress hormones.
• Negative explanation of the self and of events in the world.  (This can be learned from parents/caretakers, and is the reason why depression ‘runs in families’).
• Excessive worrying and ruminating on thoughts of the past.
• An increased focus on material wealth.
• Overwhelming negative information presented in the news.
• Unrealistic expectation and standard presented in the media.

Common signs of depression.

• You feel miserable and sad
• You feel exhausted a lot of the time, mostly in the mornings
• Sometimes even the smallest task can seem impossible
• You rarely enjoy things you used to enjoy
• Feeling anxious, like something is going wrong but you don’t really know what
• You find it difficult to think clearly
• Feelings of guilt and failure
• Afraid to be a burden on others
• You sometimes feel like life is not worth living
• Feeling like there is no future, no options or hope
• Feeling more irritable and angry
• Very jumpy, especially with loud noises
• You feel you have no confidence
• Spending a lot of the time thinking about what went wrong in the past or will go wrong in the future
• You feel that life is unfair
• Find it difficult to sleep, or wake-up very early in the morning and are unable to go back to sleep
• Feel more physical pain with no apparent physical cause  It is this broad spectrum of symptoms that keeps people confused about what depression is. No explanation so far really explains it fully. Naturally, as an individual, you might experience only some of these symptoms or a variation of them

How does the cycle of depression work?

Having a good night’s sleep is important for our wellbeing. We all dream every night, yet people have asked why we dream since the start of humanity. One of the reasons that have been found recently by scientists like Joe Griffin from the Human Givens Institute is an unfulfilled emotional expectation that we accumulate but don’t fully resolve. does that mean?

Well, for example, if you are worried about something but then either calm down about the situation or actively problem solve, then you have completed an emotional circuit and your brain is clear, it is resolved.

When the brain is on overload

If you don’t manage to relax or problem-solve, then those worries will need to be completed and ‘flushed out’ which happens naturally through the REM state while you’re dreaming.

However, if you worry a lot and explain your situation through a black-and-white, all-or-nothing lens, and ruminate  (chew on ideas and memories mostly about past events that you can’t change), then emotional expectations are not resolved which creates a lot of emotional stress and release of stress hormones such as cortisol. ⁸

The more unresolved emotions we have in a day, the more we will dream at night in order to flush those emotions out in preparation for the next day. Indeed researchers have found that depressed people will dream 75% more per night than people without depression. ⁹

The all-important serotonin

While dreaming (REM state) the brain is very active, similar to awake times, and it stops producing serotonin ( a feel-good hormone) which is responsible for moods, pain control and motivation to move.

A depressed person will have more dream time and less deep calm sleep. Deep calm sleep is responsible for the recuperation of the body and immune system. In the morning the person will wake up feeling exhausted, lacking motivation and with physical pains. This will cause more negative thinking and worrying, more emotional arousal and so the cycle continues.                                                          

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Let’s look a bit deeper into that cycle.

Of course, that cycle will have an effect on many aspects of our life. Serotonin regulates our feeling of satisfaction. The lack of it will make activities that we used to like seem tasteless. In turn, we will tend to withdraw and further isolate ourselves, which will create even less satisfaction and get in the way of meeting our basic needs. ¹⁰ Here is a list of our basic needs as humans,

• Giving and receiving attention
• Taking care of our bodily physical needs (exercise, fresh air, good sleep, good nutrition)
• A sense of safety and security
• Sense of belonging to a community and making a contribution
• Need for challenge and creativity
• The need for intimacy
• Basic sense of control
• Status – a sense that your opinion is important
• Need for meaning — purpose and goals
• Quiet time, time for self-reflection

Below is a more elaborate version of the cycle of depression.

As you can see depression affects many aspects of your life and creates additional downward spirals (marked by the different coloured arrows). It is enough to look at this diagram to get overwhelmed! Not to worry, I would mainly like you to notice the orange blobs that represent where we can begin to create change.

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