Blues; Gloom; Sadness; Melancholy

Healthy lifestyle habits can help prevent depression, or lessen the chances of it happening again. Talk therapy and antidepressant medication can also lower the likelihood of your becoming depressed again.

Talk therapy may help you through times of grief, stress, or low mood. Family therapy may be particularly important for teens who feel blue.

Maintaining connections to others is particularly important in preventing depression.

Fava M, Cassano P. Mood disorders: Major depressive disorder and dysthymic disorder. In: Stern TA, Rosenbaum JF, Fava M, Biederman J, Rauch SL, eds. Massachusetts General Hospital Comprehensive Clinical Psychiatry. 1st ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier; 2008:chap 29.

American Psychiatric Association. Practice guidelines for the treatment of patients with major depressive disorder. 2nd ed. September 2007.

Images

Depression and heart disease

Depression and insomnia

Depression in children

Depression and the menstrual cycle

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Depression Treatment

Review Date: 03/31/2010
Reviewed By: David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc., and David B. Merrill, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY.

A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)