I don't want to go into the definition of depression, as I think many of you who are visiting this site already know what depression is and may be experiencing some of the signs of depression. The question in your mind is not what depression is, but how you can defeat depression and live the active life you so desperately want to live. 

When I first entered into the career field of hypnosis, I found it to be very exciting and rewarding.  I soon learned however, that to be truly successful in the field of helping others accomplish their goals I had to be able to offer other tools to my clients that would help them discover their potential.  I began learning NLP, then moved into Emotional Freedom Techniques, and Guided Imagery.  I am still constantly pursuing new methods and techniques to improve the quality of service I can provide to my clients.  In other words I found that Hypnosis was a great tool, but it was not the only tool I needed to be successful.

The same can be said about the tools one should use to defeat depression in thier life. There are many forms of depression. The severity of the state of depression that you are experiencing helps determine the best course of action that can be taken to alleviate you of your symptoms. 

Depression is like a nasty little bug or parasite that feeds on your body and mind.  It slowly drains you of energy, makes it harder for you to concentrate. It affects your memory, it affects the way you react to things. It silently moves with precision to weaken you in almost every aspect possible, taking away your self esteem, your self confidence, your will power, your strength to fight back.  You can begin to feel isolated, misunderstood, and eventually find yourself lost, as if there is no way out of this miserable condition.

The absolute worse thing that you can do for your depression is "nothing", and  I say this with a heavy heart of understanding. Statistics show that over 80% of people suffering from depression do not seek help of any type.  The biggest reason for this is that most people, 54% according to surveys feel that depression is a personal weakness. 30% of the population of women suffer from depression, but 41% of those suffering are to embarrassed to seek help.

The frightening fact is, that by 2020 depression will become the second highest killer of the population, second only to heart disease.

The most important thing you can do, right now, to begin your path to recovery is to admit to yourself that you are suffering from a disease.  Toss out those ideas that depression is a personal weakness that you should easily be able to overcome.  When your episodes of depression are lasting longer then a couple of weeks, then its time to seek help. 

Take action.

Talk to your Doctor about what you are experiencing. Together you can work out a plan that will help you on your path to recovering from depression. Communication is vital to your success!  If you feel that your Doctor for some reason is not sympathetic to your issues, find another Doctor.  

There are many issues that can cause the onset of depression. The list below gives an example of some of the life experiences that can lead to the spiraling effects of depression. This is just a small list, the causes of depression in each individual can be as different as night and day. Don't be fooled into thinking that if you have never experienced any of the issues below that there is no help available for you.  Discovering the root causes for your depression begins the healing process. 

• loss of a loved one or friend
• loss of a job
• family history of depression
• relationship issues
• financial issues
• health problems
• loneliness
• lack of a social support system
• childhood trauma or abuse
• drug or alcohol abuse 

Just as there are many things in life that can cause a person to suffer from depression there are many choices a person can make to begin healing and recovering.  Listed below are a few of those choices.  As stated above the more tools that you use to help in your recovery, the more successful your recovery will be. 

• anti-depressant drugs
• meditation
• self affirmations
• counseling
• exercise
• change of diet
• build supportive relationships
• learn how to manage and reduce your stress
• practice relaxation techniques
• break free from your addictions
• group therapy
• interpesonal therapy

How can Hypnosis, Guided Imagery, NLP and Emotional Freedom Techniques help you on your road to recovery?

Hypnotherapy, Guided Imagery and NLP can treat the subconscious using the techniques of repetition, positive suggestions, and symbolic language to replace negative thought patterns with positive thought patterns. 

Your subconscious mind is easily the most powerful force known to man.  When you can learn to harness the power of your subconscious mind you can begin to create change in your life that you did not think possible. Hypnosis, Guided Imagery and NLP help you learn how to harness that power!

When you are repeatedly thinking negative thoughts, or feeling negative emotions your subconscious stores those thoughts and those emotions, and helps you feel those emotions. The reason that it does this is because the subconscious works very hard at giving you the results you program it to give you. 

For instance, watch a child learning how to walk.  When they first begin the process, walking is a very difficult task to achieve.  They have to learn which muscles to use to control movement, balance and coordination.  As you watch you can see how many times they fall, pick themselves up and begin the process again.  As they do this the subconscious mind begins to log what is working that accomplishes this task and what is not working. It stores all of this information so that once your have learned the task of walking the subconscious already knows what works and what does not work.  The process of walking then becomes automatic, where we do not have to give much if any focus on the act of walking with our conscious mind to achieve the results. We simply have to make the conscious choice that we are going to walk, the subconscious automatically begins controlling all muscle functions, coordination and balance requirements to achieve the task for us. It does this because we told it this is what we want to accomplish.

It only makes sense that if we want to change the information that we have stored in the subconscious mind, that the fastest and easiest way to do this is dealing directly with that part of the mind.

Emotional Freedom Techniques use the power of positive affirmations and tapping on key energy points to repair the negative influences we have created within ourselves. The use of these techniques can have astonishing results.

Refrences:

1. https://health.google.com
2. www.depression.com
3. www.upliftprogram.com