Mental Health and Me

Chapter 4: Depression

Depression affects around 240 million people, getting through depression isn't always that easy fix and learning to get through these tough times is essential for your mental health. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 15-29 with almost 800,000 people die from suicide every year and this is the most important reason why we should keep our mental health in check.

From my experience my college days have been some of the times I've felt my lowest, but I've always got myself through it and picked myself up and go again. Life is like a rollercoaster full of ups and downs and nothing is easy and getting through these tough times can help improve your mental health and how you feel.

Everyone feels low at times but there are many ways to get through it and help you feel much better. First things first is thinking about what's putting you down and sometimes the best thing is to actually write it down and this allows you to get this off your chest; sometimes this feels like less of a weight is on your shoulders and how you really feel is written down. Once you have written this down the next step is to think about what's making you feel this way and how we can combat that. Just like previous chapters opening up to someone is key, you are not just the only person who's going through this and so supporting each other through these tough times helps. Opening up to each other about each of your problems allows you both to work together on how you can get through these situations.

Keeping these negative emotional feelings will just be made worse by keeping it to yourself, you need to let it out. Just because you feel down don't let it come out as anger or frustration because you won't feel better. There are better ways to let your emotions out and try to clear your mind of these negative emotions. One of these methods is exercise and I'll talk about this in further detail and another chapter but going for a walk or playing sport not only releases endorphins, which boosts mood but enables you to clear your mind through exercise. Spending time with your friends or doing something that keeps you occupied. The main benefit of this is that your mind is focused on what you're doing instead of the thoughts in your head and this can boost your mood and you start to forget about the negative thoughts. Spending time doing what you love can massively boost your mood because you are enjoying yourself and this brings back more positive thoughts and mood.

Sometimes it is why you are feeling these negative emotions is another way to actually improve your mental health. As said in previous chapters overthinking the negative aspects of a situation can be something that makes you feel more down than realistically you should be feeling. When looking at the situation you are in now think about both the good and bad aspects, critically looking at the bad aspects will make you feel down but there are always good things about the situation as well. Being able to mentally weigh up both aspects is essential in staying positive and not feel down.

Let's look at an example here like an exam result if you don't get the grade you want don't let this disappointment feeling bring you down and leave you there. First look at what went well and what didn't go so well and so we can use this to understand better what we can improve on and what we are doing well. this helps to maintain a positive mindset that we can constantly improve as people. None of us are perfect and we all will not accomplish things first time and make mistakes and so we can all improve as people and realising that when you feel down picking yourself up and going again is what's going get you through these tough times.

Especially when you feel low and depressed sometimes your feelings can go to the extreme. Even my own experience I've felt some extreme thoughts including cutting myself and not being here anymore and some of you have probably felt the exact same. You should never act on these thoughts because they can be life threatening and can have long term effects. Sometimes you feel life can't get worse and nothing's going change but it will life does get better, these hard times may last longer than you want but having that mindset to keep going and knowing life will get better will get you over this dip in your life. Self-harm can have longer terms effects than you first realise, once you do it at first then you will be addicted to doing it and actually in the long term this doesn't make you feel better at all.

We cut ourselves because we are angry or upset but having that coping technique so that you don't actually cut yourself and some of these techniques are simple but effective. Especially when you feel angry you need to relax and one of my suggestion is a stress ball just squeezing something releases them angry emotions into something else and not on yourself. As well as this you could phone a friend who you can open to and rant and let out these emotions because when these emotions are out you can clear your head and this can boost your mental health.

When you feel upset one method is actually having a warm shower, this can actually help you to relax and freshen up and feel a lot better this can help your mood to be more relaxed and brightened. Another method is in fact listening to music because what this can further calm you. Listen to the music that makes you feel happy and good, what this does is calm your mind and brings about more positive emotions.

If these things don't work seeking medical advice is another option, speaking to professionals will allow you to get another opinion on how to improve these feelings and boost your mental health. They could also prescribe you medicine to help with your mental health. Having the confidence to open up to a professional here will help you because they will understand your situation and will advise you on what you can do. But don't feel forced to take medicine or aren't confident to have therapy because the best remedy is you and your mind because if you stay positive and keep trying you can get through anything.

There are more ways to help with depression and that is in fact creating goals of what you want to achieve, these can be so small like tidying your room or getting an essay done. This can help you boost your mood because you then feel like you've accomplished something that day which makes you feel a lot better. As well as this short term and long-term goals set can help motivate you to achieve more but achieving these goals can massively boost your self-esteem, mood, and your mental health. Feeling low and bad for yourself and not doing anything will not help your mental health at all, setting these goals for something to strive to helps to keep your mind off these negative thoughts and emotions.

Having enough sleep is also another way to boost your mood, some of us stay up late play on Xbox, sit on Tiktok but not having enough hours sleep can further make you feel worse. When you feel worse you have less energy you feel abit lethargic and you feel less motivated to do anything. Each day you may do less and less, this can dampen your mood massively because you are doing less you may be staying in bed all day and these negative emotions are far more prominent. Getting more sleep allows you to be more wake and ready for the day, you can get more things done and these bring about far more positive emotions from your day not only boosting mood but also meaning you feel less negative thoughts.

Finally, a more balanced diet can also help your mood, eating fewer fatty foods including chocolates and crisps can help your mood. Eating foods that makes you feel better and energised allows you to accomplish more and boost your mindset for the day. Eating lean meats and vegetables are a good start to eating more healthy and a healthy body is a healthy mind.

The message for this chapter is that we all feel low and down and it might seem to not get any better but there are many coping strategies to get through it and finding yours is essential. But you need to fight and keep going because without the mindset to keep going you'll be stuck like this.