Types of depression test. Clinical tests to determine the level of depression and anxiety online. Hamilton Depression Test

With this test you can find out with a 100% guarantee whether you have depression. If it turns out that it does not exist, read the article at least so that you know how to convincingly simulate this illness if something happens.

Andrey Nevtonov

Attention. If you came here just for the test, you will find it below. But first, let’s talk a little about what depression is.

At all times, there were diseases with beautiful names, which were not so prestigious to be ill with - rather, it was fashionable to say that you have them, or to replace real ailments with them. As soon as you said “monstrous influenza” instead of “terrible snot”, those around you immediately began to respect you and your delicate organization.

Today, the disease that everyone talks about, often without understanding the original meaning of the name, has become. It’s customary to blame everything on her: impotence, missed emergency jobs, and reluctance to go to an alumni reunion. At the same time, few people know that depression is a very specific illness caused by such complex biochemical changes in the nervous system that an ordinary person cannot cause them even for money. It is actually quite difficult to contract depression, and what is considered to be depression is, as a rule, a depressive accentuation of the personality, a bad mood, or even ordinary hatred of people.

Do you want to know the whole truth about whether you have depression? You have two scenarios to choose from: either you go to a psychoanalyst, and he gives you a clinical test that is 100% guaranteed to diagnose depression; or you pass exactly the same clinical test that we took as a souvenir when we went to get checked ourselves.

Yes, and keep in mind: the causes of depression are usually very specific - prolonged mental stress, overwork, chronic brain injury, severe and long-term diseases of internal organs, surgical operations, lack of blood supply to the brain and congenital neurochemical disorders. If you don’t have and never had any of the above, then most likely there’s no need for any tests. Just stop pretending to be depressed and it will go away!

According to the international classification of diseases “ICD-10”, depression is not even one disease, but seven different ones. In the sense that it is divided into groups.

Due to the occurrence

Neurotic D., caused by internal conflict. Reactive D., which is a reaction to mental trauma. Endogenous D., which is generally easy to treat, since it has neurochemical causes.

According to the nature of the flow

Classic D. Hidden D.

By severity

Small D. Large D.

Of course, these types can be combined. For example, major depression can be both classical and reactive. But that's not all. Only for MAXIM readers! Having caught hidden depression, you get two more types of the disease as a gift!

Jokes aside. Hidden depression can be somatized (this is when, in addition to a bad mood, you are tormented by some physical ailment such as stomach disease or dystonia) or masked. In this case, you will have all the symptoms of another disease - for example, appendicitis. However, an autopsy will show that you didn't have one.

What illnesses does depression like to disguise itself as?

1. Abdominal syndrome

Pain, heaviness, bloating, cold or heat in the abdomen, nausea, loss of appetite. Of course, the culprit could really be expired mold on the cheese. However, depression often uses these symptoms to lead doctors down the wrong path. The condition of your stomach worsens in the morning, and by the afternoon you again begin to pick at the contents of your plate with a sad look, feeling relieved. Patients are admitted to hospitals with suspected acute appendicitis and cholecystitis, but surgical intervention does not bring relief.

2. Headache

A person cannot say where exactly it hurts. More often, the pain appears to him in the form of iron hoops squeezing the skull, or something that is crawling inside the head. The condition, as in the case of the stomach, worsens in the morning and goes away in the evening. Such patients are diagnosed with “migraine” or “vegetative-vascular dystonia”, and then they take useless painkillers for years.

3. Facial pain

Sly depression mimics trigeminal neuralgia (it runs from the ear to the eyebrow and lower jaw) and inflammation of the temporomandibular joint. Desperate patients ask dentists to remove their completely healthy teeth, which sometimes, by the way, brings temporary relief. The mask of depression also causes a surprisingly vivid sensation of roughness and hairiness of the tongue.

4. Cardialgia

Imitation of interruptions in the functioning of the heart, burning or cold behind the sternum. The results of the cardiogram do not correspond to the patient’s complaints, but out of pity the doctors prescribe him heart medications. They reduce pain, but do not remove it completely.

5. Arthralgia

You think that you have radiculitis, joint diseases and neuralgia. But the doctors, having looked at your x-ray, twist their finger at your temple. At the same time, your joints hurt not where they should be, but a few centimeters higher.

6. Insomnia

Depression without sleep disorders is like Fyodor Konyukhov without legs. Moreover, sometimes insomnia may be the only symptom of masked depression. In this case, you will wake up unrested, have breakfast with an aversion to food, and then arrive at work already tired and immediately turn to a cigarette or a cup of coffee. Peaks of activity are possible, but usually they occur at 10-12 o'clock in the morning, and at this time you are still sleeping, because in the evening, despite being tired, you could not sleep and tossed and turned all night. And so every day.

7. Phobias

You understand that there are no sharks in soup, and the majority of aliens do not want to kill you. But this does not help overcome groundless fear. However, exotic phobias are rarely characteristic of depression. More often it causes fear of death from cessation of breathing, panic attacks. The phobia usually intensifies at night and in the morning.

8. Sexual disorders

Weakening erection? Accelerated or, conversely, delayed ejaculation? Don't rush to bequeath your penis to science. Perhaps it is again a matter of depression. By the way, the famous “demon in the rib” (or, in scientific terms, the desire for increasingly strong sexual stimuli) is also a sign of depression, and usually the earliest one.

9. Drug addiction and alcoholism

Indulging in bad habits brings short-term relief. A hangover or withdrawal symptoms are accompanied by monstrously violent symptoms taken from the previous eight points.

Clinical test for depression

Instructions

There are 44 groups of statements in front of you. In each of them, choose one answer option that best describes how you feel. Remember, your task is not to win, but to find out the truth. Answer sincerely. To make it easier for you to do this, we didn’t even intrusively “make fun” of the answers, as we usually do.

Test

Depression

1/44

How to deal with depression

This part will be of interest primarily to people who have scored significant amounts in the test. If, according to the results, you do not have depression, you can read this block with detached schadenfreude. So, getting out of a sad state on your own can take months and even years, and even then only on condition that you protect yourself from stress - preferably with a monastery wall or grove of palm trees. It’s easier to see a doctor, because depression is treatable. In fact, it is a metabolic failure. Doctors will treat you not only with pills, but also with intimate conversations (the most unpleasant part). Without the simultaneous elimination of physiological and psychological factors, it is impossible to cure a person.

Your best friend for the next six months should be a psychotherapist. Experienced mental trauma, mental stress, quarrels with others and internal conflicts, difficult worries about one’s own health - all this can be the basis of depression. Treatment only with powerful pills (without psychotherapy), of course, helps, but after stopping the drugs, the disease can visit you again.

What will they give you?

Sometimes particularly skillful psychotherapists lift their unfortunate patients out of depression without medication at all. Alas, in some cases it is impossible to do without medication: an advanced disease destroys the brain so much that the balance of neurotransmitters is not restored on its own.

Antidepressants

The basis of any course of treatment. Side effects and doses may vary, but the drugs have one purpose - to eliminate the biochemical basis of depression.

Vitamins and biostimulants

And these useful pills will help you improve the supply of energy and other useful little things to your brain cells. Actually, these are not some secret substances, but the same vitamins that healthy people drink to increase stress resistance and immunity.

Tranquilizers

These powerful medications alone do not cure depression. But they struggle with its symptoms (and sometimes even succeed in this): melancholy, fear, bodily manifestations. Antidepressants do not have an immediate effect, so to make it more fun for you to wait for it, the doctor will probably prescribe you “trunks”.

Neuroleptics

In fact, these are ordinary sedatives, but they are so strong that they can drive even an elephant into a calm state, which has just lost all its relatives, both tusks and a share in the business. Neuroleptics reduce arousal and eliminate fears, remove the patient from a mental impasse and reduce the physical manifestations of masked depression.

However, it may not come to neuroleptics. Doctors usually start the course with a cocktail of antidepressants and biostimulants. And only if it doesn’t work, two other components are added.

Why might this not help?

Pills are almost useless if the psychotherapist has not eliminated the personal causes of depression - for example, he has not forced you to quit.

You have untreated thyroid disease, diabetes, hypertension and other illnesses that cause depression.

You stopped the course too early, overjoyed at the improvement. If you stop taking antidepressants before they have a lasting effect, depression will develop again.

Sometimes the disease returns a year or two after completing the course, because you stopped seeing a doctor and taking antidepressants for preventive purposes. And they give you the test again...

Sheehan Anxiety Scale

If the first test gives a negative result, proceed to the second. The Sheehan test will help you find out whether you have at least anxiety, a condition that precedes depression. If you don’t score enough points here, then, alas, you are a mentally healthy person, who now only needs to come up with new excuses for your impotence and innate laziness.

The tests presented on this page have been tested and have high sensitivity and specificity. This means that the likelihood of not detecting depression is - test sensitivity, or to reveal it where it is not - test specificity, are quite low. However, it is important to understand that the result given by a depression test is not yet a clinical diagnosis. Only a doctor - a psychiatrist or psychotherapist - has the right to diagnose depression from a medical point of view.

Before taking a depression test, it is important to know:

Depression tests, just like medications, are undergoing clinical trials!

The purpose of online testing is to determine whether you are at risk and whether it is time for you to think about choosing an adequate treatment method.

Suitability for self-diagnosis	Prevalence in Russia	Peculiarities
Absolutely suitable	Below average	The first self-diagnosis test.
Almost suitable	The tallest	This is the test most often chosen by the psychological community.
Doesn't fit	Average	Requires a specialist to conduct the survey. Used to evaluate the effect of antidepressants.
Fits	Extremely low	Meets modern definitions of depression. Incl. - atypical depression. Suitable for teenagers (from 13 years old)
Fits	Average	The fastest. (+ additional report on anxiety)

Think before you take the depression test, are you ready for the next step? For example, to seek help from a specialist if the test result shows a high level of depression? (From personal experience, receiving test results confirming depression made me feel even worse, even more depressed)

Depression test. Which to choose.

All depression tests presented here have reasonable reliability (sensitivity and specificity). The difference between them lies not in the likelihood of identifying depression, but in how much they are recommended for self-diagnosis of depression and for which age group they are more suitable. The online test itself, in most cases, will not take much time – 5-15 minutes.

Beck Depression Test.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)

Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II)

This scale for assessing the severity of depression was developed in 1996, taking into account comments from the American Psychiatric Association. Some items from the first edition of the test were removed, some were added or modified in order to more accurately and completely reflect the modern understanding of depression by the professional community and meet the requirements of the current editions of the DSM and ICD. In particular, this version of the test addresses a larger number of depression-specific, including atypical, symptoms and is based on an assessment of a person’s condition over the past two weeks (unlike the first edition of the test, where patients were asked to evaluate their feelings over the past week). If you are taking the test “for yourself,” then this is a good choice.

The Beck Depression Inventory-2 is suitable for testing depression in adolescents (from age 13).

Zang Self-Rating Depression Scale.

This scale was developed by William Zang of Duke University and can be used effectively in a variety of situations: in clinical research, to monitor the effectiveness of various treatments and medications, and as a screening tool in general practice. The difference from other tests is that the Zang Depression Scale was originally developed for self-assessment of depression levels. In particular, the wording of the questions is more understandable to a “non-specialist.”

The Zang Scale is also a simple tool for monitoring changes in depression severity over time. The scale contains 20 questions, the test takes about 10 minutes.

Hamilton Depression Test.

The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale is the most widely used survey scale to measure the severity of depression. in hospital. It was developed in 1960 in the UK to measure a patient's degree of depression before, during and after treatment. Since then, many versions have been adapted, including structured interview guides, self-report forms, and computerized versions. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale contains a relatively high number of somatic symptoms and relatively few cognitive or affective symptoms.

The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale was originally designed to be administered by an experienced clinician experienced in treating psychiatric patients. Currently, it is mainly used in medical institutions of the relevant profile and by pharmaceutical companies to analyze the effectiveness of antidepressants. (For reference, a 3-point change in test results is proof of the effectiveness of the antidepressant.)
Therefore, you should not recommend this test for self-testing, unless you have received instructions from a specialist to choose this particular test.

Hospital Anxiety and Depression Test

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was developed for the purpose of rapid testing of clinic patients (hence why it is called the hospital scale) by doctors who are not specialists in psychology and psychiatry. It's no secret that our state of mind greatly affects our ability to endure pain, cope with the unknown and fight various diseases. And, it is reasonable to assume that if the doctor knows about our psychological state, he will be able to more accurately diagnose the underlying disease (as if by adjusting for our anxiety, pessimism, fear of the future, etc.) But the accuracy of the test turned out to be very, very high, therefore, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale has become widely used.

In addition, anxiety and depression often occur together. According to the monoamine theory of depression (and the entire antidepressant model is built on it), increased anxiety would be a consequence of low serotonin levels.

What to do after a depression test.

First of all, if your test result shows depression, do not rush to get upset.

In modern conditions, depression is quite well treated. Depending on the severity of your depressive disorder, experts recommend seeing either a therapist, a psychologist, or both.

In case of severe depression, it is difficult to manage without the medicinal help of a psychotherapist (antidepressants); most likely, you simply will not have the strength to work on yourself independently or to work with a psychologist. Subsequently, I recommend involving a psychologist in the treatment - statistically better (and faster) results are achieved by specialists using cognitive behavioral therapy methods.

For moderate to mild depression, you can choose the services of a psychologist as your first choice. But when making such a choice, be sure that you have ruled out possible somatic causes of depression - many diseases can produce symptoms similar to depression, and simply be its cause.

Know that you are not alone.

Only according to official statistics, according to data provided to WHO, in Russia 5.5% of the population suffers from depression. But, knowing how few people turn to doctors with their symptoms, many experts believe that this figure can be safely multiplied by two.

Think about it - about every tenth person in your circle is experiencing depression right now. Before my depression, I didn’t notice such people - they tend to be unnoticed. But after my recovery, I see them, I assume that I see them - there really are a lot of them.

Remember, or better yet, write down the result of your depression test.

They say depression has no color. Complete leaden greyness, hopelessness and gloom, through which not a single ray of hope can break through. Therefore, we often do not notice whether we are getting better or worse, even if we take some steps towards healing. But there are still shades of this grayness - if you are undergoing treatment, it makes sense to periodically (for example, once a month) take the selected depression test again.

Changing results may be the ray of hope breaking through the fog of depression. Even a small, but monitored positive change can have a large therapeutic effect.

Depression needs to be stopped in time. To do this, take the test online for free and determine your level of depression.

July 02, 2014

Symptoms of depression
Depression is not just a bad mood. Depression is a serious illness that can and should be treated.

How to distinguish depression from ordinary bad mood? The main symptoms of depression are:

reluctance to move or do anything;
melancholy, despair, causeless anxiety and irritability;
loss of interest in favorite activities, communication and sex life;
feelings of guilt and inferiority;
a gloomy view of the future;
increased attention to one’s health, suspiciousness;
sometimes even thoughts of death and even suicide.

Very often, depression is accompanied by a number of disorders of the autonomic nervous system. A person constantly feels tired, squeezed like lemon, and cannot concentrate on the tasks at hand. Blood pressure may rise, appetite may increase or, conversely, decrease, and sleep may be disturbed.

If you cannot come to your senses within about two weeks, then you are depressed.

A depressed mental state lowers immunity, so during depression, chronic diseases tend to worsen.

Causes of depression
Until now, experts are not unanimous in their opinion on why a depressive state occurs, what is the cause of depression.

Some experts believe that the main causes of depression are external causes: stress, family and household troubles.

Another part believes that the main reason is a person’s inability to react correctly to a situation, his internal complexes, and inability to adapt.

But most experts believe that the main reasons are stress and prolonged physical and nervous stress.

Prevention of depression
The best prevention of depression is a healthy lifestyle and positive life attitudes.

Firstly, normal sleep. Chronic lack of sleep quietly undermines the nervous system and can cause depression.

Secondly, to avoid depression, you need to learn to relax, rest, and not focus on any one problem, but switch from one problem to another.

Thirdly, as for nutrition, there is no special diet to prevent depression - the main thing is that the diet is balanced and varied.

At the stage of business growth, an entrepreneur may become depressed and his activities may lead the organization to a crisis:

Take a depression test
Forewarned is forearmed. To find out if you are prone to depression, take this test.

INSTRUCTIONS: Remember your feelings of the last month. If you agree with the statement, then select "Yes", otherwise select "No".

Depression can occur for a variety of reasons. This could be the loss of loved ones or other tragic events. Symptoms of depression can also occur due to chemical imbalances in the human body. Every person should know how to deal with depression, for what reasons it occurs, how to independently fight depressive conditions, what needs to be done after getting out of depression, etc.

Research by the World Health Organization shows that by 2020, the most common disease on planet Earth will be a disease called depression. Already today, experts have calculated that there are only 3% of people left on our planet who are not susceptible to such a harmful condition as depression. The remaining 97% of the population are former, current or future victims of depression.

Symptoms and main signs of depression

Psychologists and psychiatrists have long classified depression as a negative and painful condition that, even if a person has the desire, cannot cope with on his own.

The main symptom of depression is a depressed state of mind that lasts from several days to several weeks. In many cases, this condition (if left untreated) gets significantly worse over time. Among the main signs of depression is anxiety. A person who has been depressed may experience incomprehensible and causeless anxiety or a feeling of severe despondency. Many people experience so-called situational depression, which occurs as a result of negative and even tragic life events in a person’s life. Sometimes such a strong negative emotion cannot be associated with any event that recently occurred in the patient’s life. Signs of depression may occur, for example, in a person who lost his job the day before. Problems more often arise as a result of long-term, protracted and uncontrolled depressive states. In addition, you should also think about treating a depressive state when it interferes with fully performing your daily functions and engaging in work activities.
Signs of depression also include problems concentrating. A person suffering from depression focuses only on his own experiences, but solving work problems becomes an impossible task for him. Due to the fact that it is impossible to focus on work-related tasks, a person constantly experiences problems with decision-making. If one of the symptoms of depression is a high level of anxiety, then the patient often overreacts emotionally to the most ordinary things.
Anxiety disorders often also accompany the course of depressive conditions. They typically have trouble sleeping at night and symptoms such as moodiness and high levels of irritability throughout the day. Although if we consider this problem purely from a medical point of view, there is no clear and scientifically based evidence that one disorder gives rise to another. But there is a lot of evidence that, for example, people who currently suffer from depression with anxiety symptoms have previously experienced anxiety disorders.
It should be noted that symptoms of depression can be not only psychological (mental), but also physical. For example, depression is often accompanied by high blood pressure or hypertension. In such depressed states, a person loses interest in food, appetite decreases and sudden and large weight losses occur. Patients suffering from depressive and nervous disorders may generally lose interest in life, ceasing to monitor their own appearance. Friends, family and loved ones who detect such symptoms in a person should immediately seek help from a medical facility.

Major depressive states and what is known about them

Major depression is one of the most dangerous conditions for a person. It is divided into three main types. People suffering from bipolar disorder often experience periods of deep depression.

For many people, depression is nothing more than a seasonal disorder. Those suffering from it begin to experience severe negative states at certain times of the year (only in winter, only in spring or only in autumn).

It is very rare, but a psychotic type of depression still occurs. This is one of the most severe forms, when a person constantly experiences hallucinations and loses touch with reality. However, it should be noted that the symptoms of major depression should not be confused with a common depressive state (for example, seasonal autumn depression). If such a negative state has really gone deep, then the patient often experiences uncontrollable bouts of crying, extreme fatigue, sudden weight loss or, conversely, a strong increase in weight. People suffering from depression may also experience attacks of chronic pain. Most of the day in such a patient is spent sleeping. The presence of deep depression will also be indicated by regularly occurring thoughts of suicide.

Symptoms of major depression only get worse if left untreated. And because of this, ordinary depression develops into a nervous or mental disorder. This stage will be indicated by the patient's long and deep sleep, sometimes lasting up to several days. A person loses interest in performing everyday activities, he ceases to be interested in family, close people and friends, and signs of paranoia often appear. In addition, the patient suffers from uncontrollable and sudden outbursts of aggression, he may experience severe hallucinations and hear voices in his head.

Experts advise a person who has been suffering from deep depression for a long time to see their doctor or psychologist. The doctor will be able not only to work on eliminating the symptoms of depression, but also to help his patient identify the factors that cause such a negative state. Psychological consultations with people suffering from depression can be carried out individually or in the format of group psychological sessions.

Testing to determine the presence of depressive conditions

You can determine whether you are really depressed yourself by using a special test to determine whether you are depressed. The fact is that the presence of individual symptoms may not mean that a person has become depressed. However, if the answers to more than half of the questions in the test proposed below are positive, then this will still indicate that the individual is susceptible to a depressive state.

So, we invite readers to answer the following questions to determine the presence of depression:

Do you find it difficult to fall asleep at night?
Do you often feel tired or very emotionally exhausted?
Do you often have nightmares in your sleep?
Has your weight changed significantly over the past six months, up or down, but you are not following any diet?
Have you ever had a situation in your family where your close relatives (parents, sisters or brothers) were diagnosed with a mental disorder?
Has your sex drive decreased recently?
Are your daily stress levels moderate to high?
Does it happen that as the cold season approaches (autumn or winter), your mood changes for the worse?
Do you experience auditory or visual hallucinations?
Do you often feel like your life has no meaning?
Do you often try to hide your own experiences from your family and loved ones?

This is just one of many examples of tests to determine depression. Similar or other options can be found on the Internet. And if you want to assess your own emotional state in more detail, use professional psychological tests offered by specialized medical publications.

Treatment of depression

Treatment of depressive conditions is best, of course, carried out under the supervision of specialist doctors. A doctor prescribes a certain course of treatment for a patient suffering from depression, but the person must understand that even he cannot give an instant result. It is likely that you will have to try several types of antidepressants to find a drug that is truly effective for an individual’s body. All medications will have to be taken not just for one day, but for several weeks or months (depending on the complexity of the condition), before the benefits and first results from their use are visible.

The main thing that is required from the patient is patience. He must trust his own doctor, and at the entire stage of treatment tell him in detail everything that is happening to him. Only if absolute trust is established between the doctor and the depressed patient will the doctor be able to select the best result of treatment procedures against depression.

Depressive conditions in people are often treated with special medications called antidepressants. They not only alleviate the symptoms of depressive conditions, but also significantly increase morale. Only a qualified doctor can choose a good antidepressant that would have the minimum number of side effects on the human body, but at the same time be as effective as possible.

How antidepressants work

Before we consider the principle of action of antidepressants on the body of a person suffering from depression, we will tell you a little about what provokes the occurrence of such a negative state. Experts link depression to three chemicals called neurotransmitters. Serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine help transmit electrical signals between brain cells. After many studies, scientists have come to the conclusion that there is a relationship between depressive symptoms and an imbalance of these chemical components in the brain.

Drugs called antidepressants increase the availability of neurotransmitters while changing the sensitivity of the receptors that sense those same neurotransmitters.
There are other ways to treat depression, such as psychotherapy. Its main task is to develop an effective strategy that would help a person effectively counteract a negative and difficult emotional state. This strategy will help kill two birds with one stone, namely, increase the effectiveness of drug treatment for depression and cope with stressful situations that happen to a person every day. Psychotherapy in its modern interpretation is represented by various types (group, individual, family). Only a doctor can tell which of these varieties to choose, taking into account all the individual characteristics of the body and circumstances.
Electroconvulsive therapy is used to treat particularly severe cases of depression. In medical circles it is also known as electroshock therapy. Before this procedure, the patient is given anesthesia, and then the doctor applies a short electrical discharge to the human brain, passing it inside through the scalp. The result of this effect is convulsion. Electroconvulsive therapy is a very effective method of treating severe depression, when the state of the body becomes so negative that it no longer responds to other forms of therapeutic intervention. Doctors also carry out electroshock therapy in cases where the patient poses a serious threat to the people around them and the entire society as a whole, and doctors do not have time to wait for the medications to take effect.
Another way to combat depression belongs to the category of relatively new ones. Many medical institutes approved its use only in 2008, calling the method transcranial magnetic stimulation. It is intended to effectively treat those people for whom no other antidepressant can help. This method of brain stimulation is used more often to treat various types of deep depression that demonstrate resistance to drug therapeutic procedures.

Features of independent struggle with depression

You can fight depression on your own if it is still in its infancy, and there is still a long way to go before it reaches its deepest stage. Of course, in order to successfully cope with such a negative state, a person will need to make some changes to his usual lifestyle, change some of his foundations and habits.

Self-resistance to a depressive state involves a complete rejection of harmful foods and a transition to a healthy diet. And the first thing you should exclude from your diet is refined sugar. The fact is that depression is very closely related to a decrease in the hormone serotonin in the brain, and the entry of sugar into the body causes a short-term surge of this hormone. This explains the insatiable craving for sweets in many people experiencing depression. However, it is worth understanding that the increase in serotonin levels will only be short-lived, and after that the condition will worsen again. You cannot cope with depression with the help of sweets!
When a depressed state occurs, you should immediately reconsider your diet. It should contain only balanced food, the right products. It is very important that such a diet contains a sufficient amount of vitamins. Remember that if your diet is varied and correct, then your body will feel good, which will eliminate the likelihood of depression.
Fighting depression on your own also involves regular sports and physical exercise. It is sport that helps increase the level of adrenaline in the body, which significantly improves your mood for several hours in advance. In general, regular exercise becomes not only an effective remedy against existing depression, but also a preventive measure against it.

What to do after depression

Have you managed to overcome depression? Well, this is a very good result on the road to recovery, but it remains at risk without taking certain preventive measures subsequently. It is very important not only to drive away depression, but also to maintain a stable emotional state at the same level, so as not to become despondent again.

To save your body from returning to depression, you should give yourself as much sunlight as possible. Take daily walks, which are sure to improve your mood. Even a short stay outdoors under the sun's rays will help quickly drive away the blues and bad mood.
After treating depression, you should also take care of getting enough sleep. If you sleep little, the functioning of your body will invariably be impaired, which will lead to irritability and then depression. Normal sleep time is considered to be 7-9 hours during the day. With this number of hours, your emotional background will remain at the same level. If you feel tired, then, regardless of the time of day, lie down and rest a little.
Another important criterion for maintaining the body in good shape after getting out of depression is the correct organization of your own time. It’s better, of course, to make a list of your goals for the near future, writing it down on paper. Psychologists advise starting life planning with short-term and easy goals, which will not be difficult to achieve for a person weakened by recent depression. An excellent option would be to use a reward system after each achievement.

Sadness and slight sadness are not yet a reason to seek help from a specialist. All people experience negative emotions from time to time. But, if depression for a long time prevents you from living normally, working, enjoying simple things, then the cause may be a real illness. In this article you will learn how to identify depression yourself. Also on this page you will find a useful test that will help make a preliminary diagnosis.

Attention! To accurately identify the disease, it is not enough to take tests on your own. You should definitely contact a professional psychologist.

Women are more emotional and prone to sudden mood swings, so you shouldn’t immediately mistake any weeklong blues for a mental disorder. When apathy and feelings of sadness are pronounced and do not leave you for more than two weeks, this may already be a sign of depression.

Main symptoms:

Depressed mood, melancholy.
Feeling of despair, loss of taste and meaning of life.
Significant worsening of fears and feelings of shame.
Anxiety, misgivings, tension.
Irritability, sudden changes in emotions, for example, from despondency to aggression.
Self-flagellation, continuous feelings of guilt.
Uncertainty, low self-esteem, dissatisfaction with oneself. Constantly looking for flaws in yourself. Fear of making mistakes.
Hobbies, favorite foods, TV series or music - everything that previously brought pleasure ceases to please.
Dullness of feelings, periodic apathy.

Physiological manifestations

An important sign of depression is the presence of the following health problems:

Sleep disturbance. Excessive drowsiness or insomnia.
Malfunction of the digestive system. Most often it is constipation.
Excessively increased appetite or its complete absence.
Libido problems: complete lack of interest in sex.
Increased fatigue. Habitual stress causes impotence.
There are unpleasant sensations or even pain in the muscles of the skeleton, stomach, and heart.

Behavioral signs

Usually a woman tries to eliminate physical discomfort, but the disease continues to develop. Even if the physiological symptoms disappear, depression can be identified by the following behavioral characteristics:

Apathy, lack of initiative, reluctance to set goals and actively achieve them.
The woman loses interest in communicating with friends, prefers solitude, and avoids contact with society.
Conscious refusal of entertainment.
Tendency to use intoxicating substances: alcohol, drugs, various stimulants.
Sloppiness appears, the woman stops striving to look attractive, and even neglects to observe general hygiene rules.

Several symptoms relate to thinking patterns. The following cognitive signs indicate that a patient is suffering from depression:

suicidal thoughts often arise;
awareness of one’s own uselessness, insignificance, powerlessness;
thinking slows down, attention deficit occurs;
negative perception of oneself and others prevails.

Types of depression

If you are interested in what forms this disease can occur, check out this table:

Type	Peculiarities	Treatment
Light form	Symptoms are mild and occur rarely. May be chronic. If a woman suffers from the disease for several years, this may serve as a basis for a diagnosis of dysthymia.	Therapeutic and preventive measures are desirable. Medicines are usually not used
Moderate depression	Low labor productivity, many actions performed automatically. The woman seems to be half asleep, deeply immersed in her joyless thoughts.	Regular psychotherapy sessions are indicated. It is necessary to take a course of antidepressants. Gradually, the use of medications is replaced by enriching the diet with foods that stimulate the production of serotonin
Severe form	Typical symptoms of depression are extremely pronounced. Possible suicide attempts, delusions, hallucinations	It is necessary to undergo a long course of treatment in a hospital

The main causes of depression in women

The development of the disease is usually preceded by tragic events. This could be the death of loved ones or problems in your personal life, followed by a whole range of unfortunate circumstances.

Attention! There are people whose personality has already developed with a predisposition to depression due to psychological trauma received in childhood. In such individuals, one small stress can trigger the disease mechanism.

Most often, the appearance of depression in a woman is caused by the presence of one of the following factors:

Don't forget about old age: in old age, women have to experience the death of close friends, acquaintances, and often husbands. Loneliness is followed by a feeling of helplessness, uselessness, abandonment.

Video - What is depression and how does it manifest itself?

Test for determining depression in women

Try taking the questionnaire created by the famous American psychotherapist Aaron Beck. The test consists of 21 points, with several statements below them. For each item, you must select one statement with which you agree.

For each first statement you select, you receive 0 points. Second – 1 point, third and fourth – 2 and 3 points, respectively.

Attention! The test results should not be interpreted as an axiom. They can only serve as a hint in deciding whether to visit a specialist.

№	Answer #1	Answer #2	Answer #3	Answer #4
Question 1. How do you feel?	I feel myself good	I am disappointed	I constantly feel sad, I can’t calm down	I'm unbearably unhappy
Question 2. What do you think about the future?	Everything will be alright in the future	The future makes you think	I have no future, everything will be the same	My fate is hopeless, it can only get worse
Question 3. Do you feel like a failure?	I don't feel like a failure	I've always been less lucky than others	I've had a lot of failures	I'm a complete loser
Question 4. Your attitude towards life	Life is as good as before	There is less pleasure in life	I feel dissatisfied	I'm not happy with anything
Question 5. Do you often get irritated?	I'm no more irritated now than before	I've become more irritable lately	I constantly feel irritated	I don't care anymore
Question 6. Your attitude towards other people	I'm interested in other people	People used to be more interesting to me	Everyone is almost indifferent to me	Not interested in others at all
Question 7. How do you make decisions?	Sometimes I don't make decisions right away	I used to make decisions faster	It has become more difficult for me to decide on anything	I can't decide anymore
Question 8. How do you feel about your appearance?	I look fine as always	It bothers me that I'm older and not as attractive anymore.	I know for sure that I have become uglier	I look really terrible
Question 9. Your level of performance	I work as productively as always	To do something, I need to force myself	I find it difficult to force myself to work	I can't do anything
Question 10. How do you sleep?	I have quite normal sleep	I slept better before	I sleep less and it’s become more difficult to fall asleep	I wake up much earlier than usual, and then - insomnia. Or, on the contrary, I sleep 15 hours a day or more
Question 11. How quickly do you get tired?	I'm no more tired than usual	I'm getting tired faster now	Everything I do makes me very tired	I can't do anything because I'm always tired
Question 12. Has your appetite changed?	My appetite hasn't changed	I'm eating worse than before	You have to make an effort to eat something	I can't bring myself to eat
Question 13. Do you often feel guilty?	I haven't felt guilty in a long time	I often feel guilty	Remorse makes me uncomfortable	The feeling of guilt never leaves me
Question 14. Do you feel punished?	I can't be punished	Someone can give me what I deserve	I'll definitely be punished soon	I'm already punished
Question 15. Are you satisfied with yourself?	I'm happy with myself	I feel disappointed	I feel disgusted with myself	I hate and despise myself
Question 16. Do you feel worse than others?	I'm definitely no worse than everyone else	I make mistakes more often than others and show weakness	I'm doing everything wrong	I'm to blame for everything negative
Question 17. Did you want to commit suicide?	It never occurred to me to commit suicide	Sometimes I think about suicide, but I won't harm myself	I would like to lose my life	I'll destroy myself when the opportunity arises
Question 18. Do you often cry?	I'm no more whiny than usual	I became more tearful	I'm completely lost, I cry every day	I can't even bring myself to cry to make myself feel better.
Question 19. Are you losing weight?	I haven't lost any weight lately	Lost 2 kg	Lost 5 kg	I began to weigh 7 kg less
Question 20. Do you have any health problems?	I have no more health problems than ever.	I am worried about pain, diarrhea, constipation	I am very worried about my health and it is difficult for me to switch my thoughts to something else	I can't think about anything else except my physical condition
Question 21. Your attitude towards sex	I don't feel like I'm any less interested in sex than before	I used to be more interested in intimacy	I'm not interested in sex right now	I don't feel the need for intimacy at all