Our depressed clients frequently complain of wanting to sleep all the time or of staying in bed for many hours each day. Sleep is natural and healthy in the normal course of a day or after you have expended a great deal of energy. When you are depressed, it can feel like the depression is taking its toll and sapping your energy. How do you know, then, when sleep is necessary for refreshment or when it is avoidance?

Again, to determine if your behavior is helping you to avoid something, you can examine the circumstances and the consequences of your behavior. In terms of circumstances, if you have been working hard at work all week, or you have had particularly taxing life experiences during the day, you may feel tired because your body needs the sleep. However, if you have averaged twelve hours of sleep for the past five nights and are in good physical health, the feeling that you need to sleep may be depression, not a true physiological need.

This is the difference between feeling sleepy and feeling fatigued. The former is the normal state of having been awake for a complete period of time and needing the restorative function of sleep, and the latter is a state that is as much psychological as it is physiological.

Another medication effective for depression treatment is Paxil, also available at the leading online pharmacies.

In terms of consequences, although it is not true in every instance, you can often tell by how you feel upon waking whether sleep is avoidance. If you are in good physical health, and you sleep for seven to nine hours and awaken feeling refreshed (perhaps not immediately, but after fully waking up), then the sleep was probably necessary. If you awaken and feel tired, and just want to turn around and go back to bed, this consequence of sleep may signal that you are experiencing fatigue, not sleepiness.

Keeping Out of Harm’s Way

There are many things in life that people have to face each day. Work contains some level of stress for everyone, no matter how simple your job. At other times there can be troubling life events or obnoxious individuals to face. When you are depressed, even simple tasks can seem monumental. Do you change your life so that you don’t have to face things? If so, you may be stuck in an avoidance pattern. If you spend a great deal of time trying to keep away from confrontation or hassle, there are clearly situations or feelings that you are motivated to avoid.  Effexor can help overcoming depression.

Complaining May Be a Clue

Again, some of your symptoms can serve as avoidance. Complaining can occasionally function as avoidance-you reduce your stress or anxiety temporarily by engaging in behavior that cannot have any impact on the situation. If you find yourself complaining about things all the time, it could be a sign that you are avoiding something. There may be a more adaptive and successful way of dealing with the situation.