Depression
The feelings of low motivation and low energy that characterize depression make it especially hard to take care of yourself and pull yourself out of your slump. Fortunately, even small but consistent efforts toward recovery can yield a significant improvement in your symptoms faster than you might expect.
Key points
Depression is one of the most common mood challenges, affecting millions of adults each year.
Depression can drain motivation, reduce pleasure, and make it harder to function at work, at home, and in relationships.
Shifts in daily routines and thinking patterns — even small, consistent ones — can create meaningful changes in mood and energy.
Structured, skills-based therapy that targets the beliefs driving low mood is highly effective and can help you move toward a more balanced, connected, and fulfilling life.
Overview
Depression is the most commonly occurring mood disorder, affecting between 5 and 10% of adults in the US. Depression saps your enjoyment in life and affects your ability to function effectively at work and maintain healthy relationships. Fortunately, depression tends to respond well to treatment, often without needing medication.
Symptoms of depression
Low moods, feeling sad or gloomy without a specific reason, lasting at least two weeks
Low motivation and difficulty completing even basic tasks
Feeling tired or lethargic even when you get enough sleep
Difficulty getting adequate nutrition and gaining/ losing weight from not eating enough or making poor food choices
Reduced pleasure from activities you usually enjoy
Withdrawal from social activities
Causes
Experiences such as loss, transitions, career changes, relationship shifts, or identity adjustments may influence mood, but they do not determine it. Depression develops when these events are interpreted through rigid, extreme, or self-demanding beliefs.
Common belief patterns that fuel depression include:
“I must not experience hardship.”
“If something painful happens, my whole life is awful.”
“Being alone means I’m unworthy.”
“I can’t stand going through this change.”
While biological or contextual vulnerabilities may make someone more susceptible to depressive thinking, REBT emphasizes that it is the internal dialogue—not the event—that creates unhealthy negative emotions.
Risk factors for depression
Risk factors that increase your likelihood of developing depression include genetics (having at least one family member with depression), environmental factors (a history of abuse or trauma, undeveloped life skills, and lack of a suitable support system), and biological factors (certain medical conditions, brain chemistry or certain medications that you might take to treat other conditions).
Diagnosis
In order to make an accurate diagnosis, it’s important to see your healthcare provider for a proper evaluation. Clinical depression will be treated according to what type of depression you have. For example, Seasonal Affective Disorder (a form of depression that develops with colder weather) will be treated differently from postpartum depression (depression after giving birth). Similarly, depression that occurs alongside another mental health condition will need to be treated differently from depression caused by an underlying medical condition.
A qualified healthcare provider will do a thorough evaluation of your symptoms, health status, family history, and any other factors that might have contributed to your depression and will make recommendations accordingly. Sometimes, bloodwork is required to rule out any underlying health condition that might be causing your depression. Once medical causes have been ruled out, your doctor will likely refer you to another service provider, such as a therapist or psychologist.
Treatment for depression
Depression is highly treatable, especially when treatment looks beyond symptoms and focuses on the beliefs and patterns that keep you feeling stuck. Whether your experience feels like a dull, constant heaviness or a deep sense of emptiness and disconnection, there are practical ways to find relief and slowly reconnect with motivation, purpose, and hope.
At Restartt, therapy for depression is structured and skills-focused. The work often centers on understanding how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors interact—and how harsh inner messages such as “nothing will ever change” or “I’m a failure” can drain energy and worsen mood. Using Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, along with cognitive behavioral techniques, rational emotive imagery, motivational interviewing, and strength-based strategies, treatment helps identify and challenge these beliefs, build more balanced ways of thinking, and create small, doable steps that fit into daily life.
For some people, consulting with a medical provider about medication can also be an important part of care, especially when symptoms are severe or long-lasting. When skills-based therapy, healthy routines, supportive relationships, and (when appropriate) medication work together, it becomes possible to manage depression more effectively and move toward a life that feels more engaged, meaningful, and satisfying—one step at a time.
Depression and other mental health challenges
Depression very often occurs together with other mental health disorders, such as anxiety and OCD. Sometimes, depression is caused by trauma or triggered by bereavement or a breakup. People with depression are prone to alcohol abuse or other unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Working with your mental health professional, you can disentangle the complex web of cause and effect that often surrounds depression. Together, you can navigate through your challenges and develop strategies to help you heal from depression and create a fulfilling life.
References and further reading
Cuijpers, P., Karyotaki, E., Wit, L., & Ebert, D. (2020). The effects of fifteen evidence-supported therapies for adult depression: A meta-analytic review. Psychotherapy Research.
Cuijpers, P., Oud, M., Karyotaki, E., Noma, H., Quero, S., Cipriani, A., Arroll, B., & Furukawa, T. (2021). Psychologic Treatment of Depression Compared With Pharmacotherapy and Combined Treatment in Primary Care: A Network Meta-Analysis. The Annals of Family Medicine.
Pablo, G., Solmi, M., Vaquerizo-Serrano, J., Raduà, J., Passina, A., Morsillo, P., Correll, C., Borgwardt, S., Galderisi, S., Bechdolf, A., Pfennig, A., Bauer, M., Kessing, L., Amelsvoort, T., Nieman, D., Domschke, K., Krebs, M., Sand, M., Vieta, E., McGuire, P., Arango, C., Shin, J., & Fusar-Poli, P. (2021). Primary prevention of depression: An umbrella review of controlled interventions. Journal of affective disorders.
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