Posted by: Uticopa in mental health, depression on
Jul 22, 2008
For the first time ever, consistent global research has suggested that it is during our mid-life years that we are most vulnerable to depression. The University of Warwick in the UK and Dartmouth College in the US surveyed two million people from eighty countries in a recent study, and a clear pattern emerged to suggest that the age at which we are most likely to become depressed is 44 years old
This shows very different results to previous studies, which suggested that depression was not age-related and had an even chance of happening at any time in our lives. This latest study clearly shows a marked increase in probability of the condition whilst in your mid 40s. The other fact of note is that depression does not care where you live, whether you are rich or poor, married or single, with or without children Depression can affect us all.
Though we understand very little about why some people bounce back and others sink into a depression, the researchers have a few theories. One such theory is that whilst in our 40s we subconsciously re-evaluate our lives and shed any long-held dreams of potential that we can no longer see as a possibility at this time in our lives, and this loss of dreams and aspirations could trigger strong emotions in us.
Posted by: Uticopa in self help, mental health on
Jun 29, 2008
Psychologists believe that we all have different degrees of ‘self-efficacy’, which is our belief in our ability to succeed in specific situations – a belief, that all reactions to life challenges have an affect and a meaning.
Work on your Confidence and Self Esteem
Having good self-esteem provides a robust support system that enables you to deal well with day-to-day problems that can otherwise have a negative and in some cases detrimental effect on your emotional and physical health. Confidence and self esteem is something that you can work on and there are number of therapy and life coaching techniques that can help with that.
Make sure your expectations are realistic
Your expectations and judgement of a situation are very important when trying to create a healthy outlook and perception of any given situation. In psychology it is called ‘appraisals'. Situations such as ‘long queue at the Post Office' or a ‘traffic jam' aren't a problem unless you perceive them as such. When your appraisals are realistic, then you will be able to respond to daily challenges better and keep a sense of perspective.
Irrational Belief Systems
The ‘appraisals' you make come from your long formed belief system. If you have rigid and unrealistic belief system, then your judgement might not be suitable for the given situation. An indicator of the rigid belief system is when you often use ‘musts' and ‘shoulds' or ‘have tos', stressing importance of perfection, which is often difficult or impossible to accomplish (especially if your idea of perfection is distorted). 'I must be looking immaculate all the time' or ‘I always have to be liked by people around me'.
