Unlock Mental Health: Proven Strategies and Realities on Depression

  •   Thu, Apr 24 2025
  •   By Shobana Vidhya Somasundaram

April 24, 2025 

  1. Introduction:

Mental Health is a concept that involves the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of an individual and one’s ability to respond to stress and disturbance. If well-being is affected, one is prone to severe mental health disorders such as depression. Depression is a condition characterized by prolonged sadness, mental exhaustion, and one’s ability to lose interest in life. 

  1. Difference between Sadness and Depression (cdc.gov)

 

  1. Types of Depression. (Cleveland Clinic). 

 

  1. Signs and Symptoms of Depression: 

 

Why is Depression serious?

  1. Statistical Data on Depression

 The graph is built by categorising people of age with the total numbers (280 million) having depression around the world. 

The graph shows 18.4% affected by depression at the age of 45- 64 and 65 and above (Forbes). 

These statistics hence show that depression is a serious disorder. 

How to identify and cure Depression?

Some proven intervention techniques to identify and cure depression

  1. Intervention: Promotion, Prevention, and Maintenance and Psychological Strategies (aihw.gov)

        

Promotion (Universal targeting) involves the general public, Prevention (Specific Targeting) applies to those whose risks are higher, and Maintenance (Indicated targeting) aims at people who are already carrying symptoms.

Promotion: The primary aspect of promotion is to raise awareness through newspapers, magazines, articles, social media, etc, regarding the illness.  

Prevention: This strategy primarily focuses on individuals who are at risk. It helps people who have faced a recent loss or trauma, or some serious medical conditions, with coping mechanisms.  

Maintenance: This intervention is for those who already have depression. Here, the focus is mainly on preventing the illness from relapses and recurrences.

Psychological intervention: The Depression Guideline Panel in the US recently undertook an extensive literature review and concluded that psychotherapies, such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) (Improve one cognitive skill) and Interpersonal Therapy (IT) (helps to improve relationships with others), talking therapies found to be more effective than drug treatments for depressive disorder.                          

  1. Barriers to Treatment:                                                                                                    



    What causes Depression?

  2. Some Proven Causes of Depression (Poem part 1):

Imagine that you are assigned to complete one task at a particular time. You spend a lot of time worrying about whether you can do it rather than how to do it. In addition to that, you remember a past incident where you were unable to complete a task on time, which creates self-doubt and a loss of confidence. The pattern repeats again and again, making you anxious and sad all the time. So, as a result, you end up failing to do your current task. This habit of not being able to get over the past and worrying too much about the future by thinking about too many unpleasant events (overthinking) is what we call anxiety, and anxiety is one of the major reasons for depression. A poem follows from here.

There is hope and a way.

See.... 

Day in and day out, come by, 

Pass it out with silent weeps and cries

Slowly, slowly, it turns to worry and

Worry you do has become your actual enemy. 

The overthinking brain and the work it does

Can sometimes be a big, big fuss. 

Unpleasant events come again and again.

Leaving you either in the past or in the future makes you go very insane. 

Sleep or sleepless nights turn out to be your only friend, 

The food you eat and eat some more or less can never end. 

Real-world seems more difficult to live in, 

Leading this life is pretty combative.  

Generally, saying “No” or “to set boundaries” is not taught. Over a period, it can be very difficult to object, especially if you are one of those who often question your worth. You kind of hold back from being assertive. You are on the quest to seek your self-worth from people around you rather than within. It is also a fact that a person with depression has low self-esteem and allows people in their territory to seek validation. 

There is another term called “People Pleasing,” where you go out of your way to help people and suppress your feelings. This kind of mind burnout is called mental exhaustion. Mental Fatigue is also another major cause of depression.  

Understand that 

Your emotions are indeed underrated, 

Your goodness and niceness are never noted. 

  1. Facts and Realities on Depression (Poem part 2)

Have you ever wondered why we are not able to remember each and every moment? Everything is materialistic today, and the money we earn equals success. As the saying goes, “Your success is measured and your failures are criticized”.

On top of that, you have to exert too much to fulfill everyone's expectations. When looking back, the momentary happiness of life is missing. Henceforth, reality has gone far beyond our reach. 

So, it is very important to have some reality checks.

  • Understanding your capacity is necessary, and if someone is pushing too much work on your side, politely refuse.
  • Don’t live life seeking validation.
  • Self-love and Self-care are essential, which help you prioritise things.
  • You should also know how to balance emotions and rationality.
  • Lastly, accepting and allowing yourself to move from the past and live each day improves your inner personality. 

There's nothing wrong in saying no.

Set your boundaries straight so that people know. 

Do not let yourself be immersed in seeking validation. 

As it lessens your everyday self-motivation.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," is a factuality

Nothing you envisioned can be a possible reality.

Don't think too much about destiny

Enjoy every minute of your beautiful journey.  

10. Conclusion (Poem, part 3)

As a whole, depression is serious but there are ways in today’s age and time to seek help. Mental health care facilities should involve complete screening so that more people get their diagnosis and treatment. 

Once the seriousness is comprehended, proper care, kindness, and reassurances are given so that the person can get through depression easily.

Be kind to the people around you.

You may never know what they are going through

Life is not something so hard as everyone says

Live it's full...coz there is always hope and a way. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
By Shobana Vidhya Somasundaram
Shobana Somasundaram is a researcher and certified content writer. She has three years of research experience Gland Pharma Limited (2021-2022) and Vellore Institute of Technology (2022-2024). Her contribution was published in the Latin American Meeting Biological Inorganic Chemistry (LABIC) book of abstracts 2023. She aims to create awareness on mental health through her articles.
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Title: Unlock Mental Health: Proven Strategies and Realities on Depression



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