Feeling fatigued every day? Don't feel like coming into work? Do you have body pain in the neck, shoulders and the leg, very regularly? Before you start popping pain killers, pause for a moment. You could be suffering from Depression, something that affects over 15 million Americans but surprisingly is not acknowledged as much as it should be. The typical symptoms of depression are being in the office in body but not in mind, working very dispiritedly, regularly coming late to work, irritability and feeling tired, all the time.

As workforce stress increases and the traditional 'safety valves', such as family and social structures, become inefficient, the individual is forced to cope with the everyday pressures on his/ her own. An inability to deal with the dynamics of a fast paced work life and a dysfunctional support system leads one to a general feeling of helplessness. And when solutions are not found to alleviate the situation, it can quickly degenerate into a feeling of depression, of being useless, leading to frustration. At a physical level, it manifests itself as body pain in the neck, shoulders, legs, stomach, feeling tired in the morning as soon as you get up which persists throughout the day. Since the body as well as the mind gets affected, this leads to further anxiety and leads to what is typically called a 'downward spiral'.

Many US companies are now coming to terms with this situation, realizing that it is a psycho-somatic disorder which can be corrected only after due intervention by a qualified doctor. However, the first step in this direction has to come from the employee herself. He/she has to first acknowledge that there is a situation that needs to be corrected. Once that realization dawns, then a qualified medical practitioner can then proceed with a diagnosis of the precise nature of the ailment and provide medication as well as counseling which can put a person back on track.

Depression