Depression is a feeling of sadness, futility, unworthiness, and despair, that may make you feel unable to cope with normal life.

COMMON CAUSES
• Some major event in a person's life such as bereavement, divorce, or loss of employment, job failure, or death of a near and dear one.
• In female during premenstrual period.
• External factors like work tension, monetary problems and professional insecurities in a highly competitive world also play an important role.
• Post-menopausal period, where a woman may equate her loss of fertility to a loss of femininity.
• Heredity plays an important role. Depressive tendencies seem to run in certain families.
• Hormonal changes after childbirth.

COMMON TYPES
There are two main types of depression
• Reactive Depression is caused by extreme reaction to a specific emotional blow, such as death of loved one, the end of a love affair, or a financial loss. Neurotic people sometimes over-react to such misfortunes, and the result may be mental break-down. Such people are normally aggressive, brutally frank, and intolerant of opposition. When their schemes don't materialise, they feel terrible and depression sets in.
• Endogenous Depression usually occurs without apparent cause, but it has sometimes been known to follow a viral infection such as glandular fever. It may also result from hormonal changes after childbirth.

COMMON SYMPTOMS include Overriding melancholy, Loss of appetite, Insomnia (sleeplessness), Indigestion, constipation, Headaches

SEVERE PSYCOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS
Guilt
Loss of touch with reality
Many believe that they are being unjustifiably persecuted or that their bodies are rotting away
Hallucinations
The gravest risk is suicide, the last resort of someone who finds life unbearable.

Conventional treatment with anti-depressants can cause a lot of side-effects like weight gain, high blood pressure and blurring of vision.

After taking homeopathic medicines, the person experiences a general feeling of well being. He develops a positive attitude to life and enjoys life to the fullest. His lost vigour returns and begins to develop interest in everything he does. Dependency on sedatives and anti-depressants is also reduced. Homeopathy helps ably in various forms of depressions. Consulting a homeopath in time can often eliminate the need for strong drugs like anti-depressants which have lots of side effects and are habit forming. Homeopathic medicines produce a definite and evident change.