The word «depression» means dispirited mood. If more exactly – it is a triad of events in the person’s state: the deceleration of physical, mental and psychical activity. Here we give some common symptoms which have most of patients. There isn’t any power to do something; nothing please you; very usual duties become beyond your strength; you have frequent fits of anger and aggression to entourage; you get into a bad mood even in the mornings; you want to lie in the dark room the whole day, and so on, and so forth. All that includes also a physiology with its symptoms – insomnia, light sleep with anxiety dreams, headaches, pressure changes, pains in stomach and heart.

Do you recognize your state? Do not be frightened. Let’s take a closer look at this «depression», the enemy should be known by sight. For one thing, the physicians do not use the diagnosis «depression». With a word «depressed» we can describe different effects: congruent behavior after bereavement, conflict reactions and neurosis, personalities and of course the disease.

In fact, the disease happens rarer than you think, about by four patients from 100. In this case we are really speaking about mental disease, but not about temporal state. The disease is lasting for years and is treated only with a help of medicaments and under the care of a physician. Other 96 patients who complain about the same symptoms, in all probability have neurotic reaction of varying severity to some life’s circumstances. In this case our mind and physiology are able to cope with some difficulties independently. You should only help. The main thing is to notice signals, which our wise organism is sending long before «avalanche» of stated above symptoms.

We got accustomed to another course of events. We do not pay attention to bad spirits, hoping that everything is going to be alright. You have not let it run itself. The fact is that protracted depression has a good chance to turn into serious disease called «Major depressive disorder». You can not cope with this state alone. And there are some words how does depression originate.

How do we react in such a way? The question is in stress. At that, it isn’t referred to one-time shock, but to so-called “accumulative” stress, which has a lot of small “blows” on our psychology. It may be burned omelet, quarrels with neighbor or with beloved person, or even dissatisfaction with oneself. All our life is a complete stream of these stresses. It affects everybody in spite of the age and social status.

A human – is a cat with nine lives and one of the survivable species, so at the very least it can cope with a number of stresses. But a state of chronic stress is accumulated and from time to time our mind (and after that a whole organism) is failed. It is called neurotic reaction. I can safe say that every person has got under its control just once in his life.

As a matter of fact, all stressful situations may be relatively divided into two types. The first of them is social conditions. In this case we can hardly change something. These conditions are simply thrust. Whether you like it or not, you have to learn how to survive. A research worker of one of the universities in the U.S. has made an investigation where we can see a quite definite connection between ups and downs in the American economy and sickness rate of mental diseases. According to his data, during business depression a number of mentally diseased has been increased up to 150 – 200%. The result of economic recessions leads to inevitable ending – a nervous breakdown. You can observe it by people who are absorbed with a crisis situation. The author writes that these people blame themselves. They believe that they have weak points and they are not able to make progress in this financial race, but in most cases they are only innocent victims of society.

These studies show that the more the American has succeed in this race for subsidiary earnings, the greater are his chances to go mad in case of ill effects. According to statistics, the mental diseases happen during economic dislocations by men of substance, who really have something to lose. All these circumstances cause a constant emotional overload and make neurosis as a norm by a definite number of the population.

There is one more important reason of neurotic depression – it is a morbid tendency to move up the career ladder. Theoretically, a conception about career or careerism is not at variance with morality. Why is it bad that person is trying to be successful or he wants to make his family be independent of financial instability? It is bad when this aim becomes the only important thing for him. Such people have so-called «career disease».It is painful both for careerist and for his relatives, as well as it leads to nervous disorders. They are especially discernible by the overthrow of career plans.

The discrepancy between our production commitments, our interests, personalities and even sportsmanship also causes the development of neurotic reaction. For a long time accumulated negative emotions can lead to neurotic disorders. They also provoke a necessity to be engaged in several things simultaneously (at that, all of them are pressing business) – not having time to concentrate at one thing, a person has to switch over another. In this case you get a broken search order and information analysis, you do not have a satisfaction, because you fail to finish the thing which you have started before. You have quickly to redirect and adapt yourself to new conditions.

The second group of reasons of neurotic disorders is personal relations. Here the first place take emotional experiences concerning loss of near relations, love-affairs, adulteries, intrafamilial disputes, as well as alcohol abuse of one family members. Our lives are full of private reasons of one or another varying severity.

One more cause which has an influence on the development and acuity of neurotic reaction – is peculiarity of our nervous system. These peculiarities are innate, that is why they are not liable to variation. According to reaction type to inductive stimulus we are divided into people with type of strong nervous system and weak nervous system.

The people with strong nervous system have high working capacity, especially if it requires staying-power and purposefulness. They do not lose presence of mind in difficult situations. They are enterprising, persistent and independent. They do not like to complain about the shoals of life, as well as they do not seek support by inner circle. These people have rare nervous breakdowns.

The people with weak type of nervous system, on the contrary, have low working capacity. They are lack decision and always try to avoid responsibility and difficult situations. Usually they tend to inadequacy. They can not defend believes and are easily surrender themselves over to somebody’s influence.

Antidepressants are conditionally divided into groups in accordance with the chemical agents which they affect (pharmacodynamic principle). There are several different types of antidepressants, including:


1. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

• Citalopram (brand name Celexa)
• Escitalopram (brand name Lexapro)
• Fluoxetine (brand name Prozac)
• Paroxetine (brand name Paxil, Pexeva)
• Sertraline (brand name Zoloft)

Side Effects of SSRI’s

Compared with side effects of others antidepressants, the side effects of these medicines are insignificant. These are some side effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors:

• dry mouth
• sickness
• nervousness
• sleeplessness
• sexual disorders
• headache

2. Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs)

• Amitriptyline (brand name Elavil)
• Desipramine (brand name Norpramin)
• Imipraminum (brand name Tofranil)
• Nortriptilin (brand name Aventyl, Pamelor)

Side effects of tricyclic antidepressants

The most common side effects of tricyclic antidepressants:

• dry mouth
• loss of one’s eyesight
• diarrhea
• painful feeling by urination
• exacerbation of glaucoma
• disorder of thought process and rapid fatigability.

These antidepressants also affect blood pressure and heart rate.


3. Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI)

• Venlafaxine (brand name Effexor)
• Duloxetine (brand name Cymbalta)

The most common side effects of Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor:

• sickness
• appetite loss
• anxiety and nervousness
• headache
• sleeplessness and rapid fatigability

Such effects like dry mouth, diarrhea, weight loss, sexual disorders, heart-rate acceleration and increase of blood cholesterol level are also possible.


4. Norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitors

• Bupropion (brand name Wellbutrin)

The most common side effects of norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitors:

• anxious excitement
• sickness
• headache
• appetite loss
• sleeplessness.

Some people can have rise of blood pressure.


5. Combined reuptake inhibitors and receptor blockers

• Trazodone (brand mark Desyrel)
• Nefazodone (brand name Serzone)
• Maprotiline
• Mirtazapine (brand name Remeron)

The most common side effects of combined reuptake inhibitors and receptor blockers: drowse, dry mouth, sickness and giddiness. Nefazodone is counter-indicative for people with kidney diseases. Maprotiline is counter-indicative for epileptics.


6. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors

• Isocarboxazid (brand name Marplan)
• Fenelzin (brand name Nardil)
• Tranylcypromine (brand name Parnate)

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors are less widespread as compared with others antidepressants. They also can have serious side effects, including weakness, giddiness, headache and tremor. The combination of monoamine oxidase inhibitors with others antidepressants or flu medicines, which are dispensed without prescription, can cause dangerous reaction. Prescribing antidepressant, a doctor must tell, which food and spirits can not be taken with monoamine oxidase inhibitors. You can take this medicine only if you are ready to respect doctor’s recommendations. If you take monoamine oxidase inhibitors and your attending physician wants to change or prescribe another antidepressant, then at first you should stop take the first one and only after a time you can take the second one. This time is required for completely leaving of monoamine oxidase inhibitor out from an organism.