Depression and Homeopathy
Depression is an annoying state, an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts, that affect the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be wished away. People with a depressive disease cannot merely “pull themselves together” and get better. Without proper theray, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Depression is an episodic illness. Episodes can last for weeks or months or years, and are interspersed with more or less symptom-free periods.
Depression is more than a just a sad feeling, it’s a sad feeling that lingers on and disrupts our daily routine, our moods at all times, our eating habits, sleep pattern and almost everything that involves a daily healthy life of a person. Not that these symptoms are permanent, they might come and go or might alternate with episodes of happiness or just symptom free periods.
For most people, the misconception is that depression is all in the mind – yes it is in the mind but not always within our control. It is a scientific fact that there is a deficiency of serotonin, a hormone released in the brain, when depression strikes.
More than just a bout of the blues, depression isn’t a weakness, nor is it something that you can simply “snap out” of. Depression is a chronic illness that usually required long term healing.
Though there are no clear cut stages of depression but there is a pattern among the way that depression progresses among people. Here are the basic issues that may lead to depression in many people:
Feeling frustrated or overwhelmed – When life begins to become burdensome, you can begin to have troubles dealing with the emotions that come along with this anxiety.
Sense of sadness at the way things are – Feeling like everything is out of control, you begin to feel sad and despondent.
Loss of interest in things you enjoy – You begin to isolate yourself from others and from the things you love to do.
Changes in eating and sleeping – You might begin to change the way you eat and the way you sleep as a way to cope with the burdens of your feelings.
Feelings of hopelessness – As you continue to feel bad; you might begin to see things as hopeless and beyond your control. You begin to not care about anything. You might stop bathing or handling even mundane tasks.
Feelings of death and suicide – Those who feel like they are completely alone and have no one to turn to will often begin to have thoughts of death and finally ‘ending’ it all.
Depression can be triggered due to many reasons; it can be any unpleasant situation in life, death of a close person, disappointment in love, financial losses or any other such factor. Depression can come at any age or stage of life. Even children are not spared, even though it is considered that children cannot go into depression. Children can develop depression when they are neglected by their parents, when they do not get the unconditional love or when they cannot cope up with school pressures and also when they are unable to meet up with the expectations of their parents or even themselves. Teenagers can go into depression and are in fact more prone to depression with their changing physical and emotional needs. The most trivial of reasons such as their appearance can lead to a depressive state in them. Women go through various types of physical and emotional changes at different ages of their lives. At puberty they experience the changes in their physical being due to hormonal changes, some females are able to cope up with these changes in a happy and health way but many may find it difficult and may lead to emotional disturbances. Then marriage brings in many changes and so does child birth. Depression post child birth is fairly common and is commonly known as post-partum depression. Depression at the age of menopause is of course well known.
Homeopathic approach for Depression*
Homoeopathy plays very important role in effectively managing cases of depression. Homoeopathy forms a holistic and harmless mode of therapy in the healing of depression. Where conventional medicines are habit forming and thus can lead to harmful side effects, it should not be the medicine of choice for most people. It should be opted for as a last resort, where the stage has reached a point that nothing else is working and there is a threat to the life of a patient. In such cases also, homoeopathy works on the vital force of the patient and gets him back to his normal state. But it is seen that most people do not want to wait till that stage, more their family, so they go in for conventional medication. In such cases homoeopathic therapy and conventional treatment can be continued simultaneously. Homoeopathic remedies are like stories themselves, where each homoeopathic remedy describes a personality and how each personality reacts to a circumstance and can fall into a state of depression. There are different homoeopathic remedies not only for different stages but also for different types of people.
Homoeopathy has remedies for the depressive states prescribed according to the symptoms, the age, the gender, the causative factors and keeping many other aspects in mind.
Homeopathy Medicines for Depression
Acid Phos, Aconite, Arg Nit, Alumina, Ammon carb, Ars Alb, Aurum Met, Causticum, Conium, Gelsemium, Ignetia, Kali Phos, Lycopodium, Murex, Natrum Mur, Ntrum sulph, Thuja, Nux Vomica, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, Sepia, Staphysagria, Sulphur, Tarentula, Zincum Met ect.
Consult a Qualified Homeopath for the appropriate treatment.
Self medication is not advisable.