Hi, I just wanna ask how to overcome depression? I have a friend and she keeps telling me that she don't to live anymore and that it is better to die, she has lot of problems but she just keep it on her own, she is so depress and i can't find the right words to make her feel better. And also can't a person overcome depression on his/her own?
Depressions aren't all the same, just like people aren't all alike. About a third of depressions will lift on their own after weeks or months with no intervention. Another third benefit somewhat from treatment, but not enough to lift them out of their depression. Finally, there is an unlucky third group that won't respond to conventional treatment at all.
There are a number of things you can do to help your friend out:
- Physical exercise, from walking and on upwards, is one of the most effective means of combatting depression, and has been shown to be just as effective as antidepressants (for mild and moderate depressions -- severe clinical depression can be so damning that an affected person might not even respond to questions or orient towards a speaker, never mind get out of bed.
- Make activities easier for her to do. Like some wise man said a couple of posts above, doing this will always help. But its unlikely that she will initiative such things herself. Perhaps you could buy some movie tickets and bring them over to her in your car/carshare, so all she has to do is roll out of bed and into the taxi.
- Meditation helps many people with depression, because it enables you to view your emotions at a distance, rather than as a permanent part of yourself.
- Even being in nature for small amount of time seems to help.
- Some depressions are aggravated by diet, since your gut has more than 100 million neurons which also produce neurotransmitters relevant to depression, including serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and GABA. Eating healthier can have a rather large effect rather quickly.
