When I think and do good things, however, I finally feel good. Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies. Unlike the flu, however, major depressions often last for months. Unfortunately, because depressed people think negatively about depression and its treatment, they don't get help, which allows the depression to worsen, which leads to more negative thinking, which produces a vicious cycle of suffering. Allow me to clear up some of the most popular myths.
Depression is a mental illness.
Specifically, depression is the body's failure to maintain the proper level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are the fluid through which the brain communicates with its many cells. When the level of neurotransmitters is too low, communication falters, brain functioning becomes inharmonious, and depression results. Depression cannot be easily treated. That was true just a few years ago, but medical breakthroughs since 1987 make depression among the most easily and successfully treated of all major illnesses.