What can you do to help deal with teenage depression?
- Updated on 19 Jan 2021
- Parents Corner
- Pallavi Gulati
Introduction
Teenage depression is the most serious mental health issue that causes a constant feeling of sadness and loss of interest in several activities. It also affects the way of their thinking, their behavior, and it also causes several emotional, functional, and physical problems.
In a teenager’s life, problems like peer pressure, academic performance are very common, but for some, it is more than a temporary feeling which ultimately takes them to the stage of depression. These teenage depression symptoms lead to long term consequences in their life. Therefore, you must learn the way of how to help teenage depression and help them to tackle depression.
In order to detect signs of depression, it is important for you to keep an eye on teenage depression symptoms. You must learn about all the major symptoms that your teen may face when he is going through the phase of depression.
There are two types of Teenage Depression.
Major Clinical teenage Depression is characterized by combining a mixture of symptoms that affects an individual’s ability to figure, sleep, study, and eat. It is diagnosed in adults as young as 19 year old.
Known as dysthymia, it is characterized as a type of long-term depression. It shows less severe symptoms. It is clinically found that people who are suffering from dysthymia experience one or more episodes of major teenage depression during their lifetime. The difference between Dysthymic disorder and depression is that the person can still find some joy in their life.
What are the Causes of teenage depression?
Before we proceed toward the symptoms, we must first focus on its causes, which are:
- Several hormonal changes occur during the teenage years.
- Depression is most commonly found among those people whose parents and grandparents also have the same condition.
- Any Traumatic events that occur during childhood, like physical or emotional abuse, or loss of the most lovable person, have a tendency to cause changes in the brain that may lead them towards depression.
- Change in Neurotransmitters (naturally occurring brain chemicals that carry signals from the brain to the body). When this chemical gets impaired, then the function of the nerve receptors and nerve system changes, which leads to depression.
What are the symptoms of identifying depression in a teenager
After knowing the causes, here are some symptoms that you help you in identifying depression in a teenager:
- Teenager with depression suffer from sadness and hopelessness;
- Frequent crying
- Irritability, Anger
- hostility, agitation
- Withdrawal from friends and family,
- efforts to run away from home
- sudden changes in eating habits and sleep
- Teenager with depression and anxiety may face Restlessness;
- Loss of interest in enjoyable activities
- Feelings of guilt, feelings of worthlessness
- The fatigue, lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, persistent boredom
- Thoughts of death, thoughts of suicide
- Self-injury, self-abuse, self-destructive behavior; Frequent fear
- Poor communication, difficulty in maintaining relationships; Criticizing others
- Poor self-esteem,
- frequent absence from school;
- Poor performance at school
- Consumption of alcohol and drugs
- Poor Concentration
The solution to overcome the Teenage Depression
If your teen is suffering from depression, the best thing you can give them is support and love. Given below are the solutions that can help you in knowing the answer of how to help teenage depression:
Establish social interaction
One of the best ways to overcome depression is by establishing social interaction with people. Do the things that make your teen get connected with others. Encourage them to participate in those activities that provide them with an opportunity to connect with other kids.
Talking to teens is important to overcome teenage depression
Try talking to your teen at least once a day without any distractions. Talking to them will make a lot of difference in their speedy recovery.
Encourage them to involve in extracurricular activities
Get your teen involved in extracurricular activities like any sports activity, dance activity, and many more. Making them enrolled in several activities will make them feel better, and they start gaining their enthusiasm. It is the other way of knowing how to help teenage depression.
Healthy environment is important
Provide them a healthy and supportive home environment.
Nutritious and balanced meal is important
Provide them a nutritious and balanced meal and be ensured that your teen is getting a proper amount of food that makes them healthy.
Encourage for regular exercise
How to help teenage depression is by encouraging them to do regular exercise.
Enough sleep is important
Make sure that your teen is getting much-needed sleep.
Medical advice is important
Seek medical advice, they know better than you do.
Conclusion
Not paying too much attention to your teen’s depressive behavior can open the way for several functional and physical problems. Therefore, it is important to take teenage depression seriously because if it is left untreated, then its consequences are quite damaging. Help your teen to come out of depression by reading some above-mentioned tips.
Give your child the treatment they deserve from a mental health professional. Teenage depression is a disorder that cannot be cured by a layman.
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