Depression and anxiety are common mental health conditions that many people experience at some point in their lives.
Depression
Depression is when a person feels low on an ongoing basis for more than two weeks.
Depression can cause changes in your thinking, affect what you do, and impact how you are feeling physically in your body. People often describe depression as feeling like a dark cloud, like something heavy is weighing them down or a hollow or empty feeling.
For some, it can seem as if there is no apparent reason for these feelings. For others, a life event or other trigger may have changed how they were feeling.
Depression can result in a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, a lack of motivation and avoidance of situations. These things can have a serious impact on your life. For example, a person with depression may be unable to work due to a lack of energy or difficulty concentrating. As a result, they may develop anxieties around losing their job and finances.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a normal human response to danger or threat. Anxiety helps protect us from harm and makes it more likely that we’ll survive. In other words, it helps keep us safe.
In fact, anxiety can be good most of the time. If you came face to face with a tiger, anxiety would tell your body to prepare to fight or run away. If you feel anxious about a job interview, you will likely prepare carefully. This could increase your chance of getting the job.
Some people experience some people might experience depression, and then anxiety may develop due to the impact of the depression on their lives.
On the other hand, anxiety, and then depression develops because anxiety has such a strong impact on their lives.
For example, they may lose contact with friends and family by avoiding certain situations or they may be unable to work. Many people have been struggling with anxiety for a long time and often feel hopeless about their recovery.
All of these factors can result in low mood and symptoms of depression.
Many people experience depression or anxiety at some point in their lives. You may know friends or relatives who have experienced them.
When you feel depressed or anxious, it can seem as though you are the only one who feels that way. In reality, depression and anxiety can affect anyone at any time.
We have partnered with Sivercloud to offer you free access to a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) self-help programme, designed by clinical experts using proven methods for helping people, all with the aim of empowering you to think and feel better.
This programme is based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
CBT consists of two key steps to feeling well:
- Understanding what’s going on inside you
- Making changes to feel better
The key idea behind CBT is that your emotions, thoughts, behaviours and physical sensations are connected, and affect each other.
Simply choose your programme on SilverCloud. When prompted to sign up, you will need an access code to enable you to create your account and use this resource. The access code is kwnelselfhelp