The most common types of depression are:

Major Depression, which is characterized by sadness, sleep disorders, and a decreased or absent appetite. Often when a person is in a major depression, the person feels an utter lack of motivation and drive and the sufferer lacks the desire to participate in life. Some people are completely disabled by depression, and some even contemplate suicide.

Dysthymia: This is a less severe form of long term depression that typically does not completely disable a person. But it keeps the person from feeling motivated and functioning at their best. Sometimes people who are struggling with Dysthymia are also afflicted with Major Depression, and when this is the case, it is referred to as double depression.

Manic Depression is also known as Bipolar Disorder. This type of depression is not as common as major depression or Dysthymia. It involves phases of the manic state, alternated with the depressed state. This is often a long term chronic disorder. Sometimes the mood swings are very rapid. But more often onset tends to be gradual.

There are a number of variations of depression; the types described here are only three of the most common.

Some symptoms of depression are:

Anxiety; pessimism; sadness; insomnia and sleep disorders; feelings of worthlessness; guilt; fatigue; weight loss; restlessness; pain; headaches; and thoughts of suicide.

Sources of Depression:

As previously stated, there are several types of depression: Major Depression; Manic Depression; and Dysthymia being three of the more common forms.

Many types of depression are hereditary. Living in a stressful environment can lead to depression. A trauma such as a serious loss, financial trouble, or problems in a relationship can also lead to depression.

Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men are, but scientists do not know why.

If you are suffering from depression, you will want to seek the advice of your physician. Your healthcare provider may prescribe drugs for you. But you should keep in mind that every drug causes side effects.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could control and eliminate your depression just by thinking certain thoughts? I know that this might sound too simple, but very often, many types of depression are caused by having negative thoughts.

You can see this for yourself firsthand, right now. It's really quite simple and basic. Just use your imagination to think about something that you feel is very sad or troubling. Go ahead, think about it right now! Then return to this article.

OK, so what happened? If you truly focused and visualized the sad situation, you started to feel sad and a bit depressed. The longer you allow yourself to stay in that pattern of thought, the sadder you will feel. As you stay in negative thoughts and keep feeling sadder, you lead yourself into a gradually deepening depression.

The good news is that if you focus on a positive thought, then you will displace that depression and sadness and replace it with happy feelings.

Listen carefully now, because here are the keys to ending your depression: Our most pervasive thoughts emerge from our unconscious. These are the thoughts that we find ourselves automatically thinking about throughout the day.

If the persistent thoughts that keep popping into your mind are about your sad experiences or problems, then you raise your levels of anxiety, stress, and depression.

But here is the 'Light at the end of the tunnel': Since hypnosis can be used to change our unconscious thoughts, NLP and self hypnosis stress management CDs can rapidly change the way that you feel, think, and behave. The interesting thing is that the same exact techniques that work for stress management also work equally well for eliminating depression!

Now I am going to tell you exactly why and how it's going to happen. Hypnosis is a natural state of mind. Specifically, it's the Alpha state of consciousness. We go through the Alpha state as we are falling asleep at night. And we go through it once more as we awaken in the morning. We also enter the Alpha state when we are imagining and daydreaming.

The unconscious is the seat of our emotions, and it's like a computer; the input controls the output! Hypnotherapy is an excellent tool for reaching directly into the unconscious and reprogramming it to automatically divert you from negative thoughts, and towards positive thinking. It's a tool that allows you to bypass the consciousness to create positive expectations, which will in turn generate positive feelings. You can overcome depression through using hypnosis therapy.