How to treat menopausal depression? Please remember these reliable methods

Many women will experience depression during menopause. At this time, they not only need the help of their family, but also self-regulation, such as changing their self-cognition and making active self-adjustments in behavior and consciousness. This is very important.

1. Cognitive Change

Patients with menopausal depression lack interest in daily activities and experience little pleasure in entertaining or pleasurable things. Often feel inferior, self-blame and guilt. I often feel that my brain is slow to react and it is difficult to think about problems. They always think the worst when things happen, lose confidence in life, think that their future is bleak and hopeless, feel that life is meaningless, and even attempt suicide.

How to treat menopausal depression

2. Changes in Will and Behavior

Patients have reduced willpower and find it difficult to concentrate on their work. Although they may have lofty ideals and ambitions, they rarely put their feet on the ground to do it. They want to socialize, but lack the courage and confidence to do so. The patient behaves passively and overly dependent in every aspect, and the psychological problem lies in his unwillingness to take responsibility. Generally speaking, patients with depressive neurosis rarely commit suicide, but some patients feel that life is empty and boring and claim that they want to die.

How to treat menopausal depression

3. Changes in Emotions

The most prominent symptom of the patient is persistent depression, manifested as gloomy expression, listlessness, drowsiness, easy tearfulness and crying. Patients often use words such as "depressed", "sad", "dull", "empty", "lonely", and "as if there is a wall between you and others" to describe their mood.

4. Drug treatment for menopausal depression and anxiety

Psychological experts say that among all treatments for menopausal depression and anxiety, drug treatment may be the fastest, most convenient and cheapest.

Commonly used drugs for menopausal depression include amitriptyline, doxepin, trimipramine, etc., and can be combined with hormone therapy.

Commonly used drugs for menopausal anxiety disorder are mainly represented by benzodiazepines, which are a class of drugs that are currently widely used in clinical practice and come in many varieties. There is also a non-benzodiazepine drug that belongs to the new generation of anti-anxiety drugs, and some antidepressants can also be used depending on the symptoms.

5. Psychological treatment for menopausal depression and anxiety

Menopausal depression and anxiety symptoms always go hand in hand. Therefore, when applying psychotherapy, psychologists often use supportive therapy, cognitive therapy, relaxation therapy, behavioral therapy and other methods based on the patient's depressive and anxiety symptoms, and achieve the purpose of relieving and eliminating depression and anxiety symptoms by acting on different aspects of the patient's symptoms.

For example, patients with depression do not understand or have incorrect understandings of anxiety disorders. Psychologists should give reasonable explanations to patients' emotional experiences and physical sensations to eliminate or reduce their excessive worry and tension about the disease, thereby mobilizing patients' initiative to actively participate in treatment.