We started off the year with great plans, jumped to February with great expectations of celebrating love and pushed to March with expectations. Many of us are happy with the progress, some are not there yet but are hopeful while others are feeling overwhelmed. They probably feel stressed.

By all means stress is good because it motivates you. But then at what point do you know that it is getting out of hand or further still how do you know you are just not stressed and are probably experiencing depression. We have had many recent cases of suicide, attempted suicide related to depression. The question I have been getting is how can I know if someone is about to commit suicide?

But before we get the suicide part let us explore the topic of depression. How do you know that you are not just stressed but are probably getting into depression?

Stress is the feeling that you are under too much mental or emotional pressure. Stress can cause changes in your body that affect your overall physical, mental, and emotional health. It is triggered by something in your life happening that feels too much for you personally to handle, regardless of whether others can or cannot. This might be a work issue, dealing with relationship problems or financial problems. This gives you a low mood.

We all have times when our mood is low, and we are feeling sad or miserable about life. Usually these feelings pass in due course. Feeling stressed out is usually associated with feeling overwhelmed or under pressure. “stressed out” is a generalization we use to really just say that we are having a hard time coping with distressing emotions such as fear or sadness.

when you don’t manage these emotions effectively they can transform from a single episode of feeling overwhelmed into a chronic mood that feels more severe and lasts longer.  That’s when stress turns into depression.

Depression is more than just a passing bad mood. It is a low mood that lasts for more than 2 weeks and affects your everyday life.

But if the feelings are interfering with your life and do not go away after a couple of weeks or if they come back over and over again for a few days at a time, it could be a sign that you are experiencing depression.

In a mild form it can mean low spirits. It does not stop you from leading your normal life but makes everything harder to do and seem less worthwhile such as getting out of bed, going to work, eating or taking a shower

At its most severe form, depression can be life-threatening because it can make you feel suicidal or simply give up the will to live.