It is not uncommon to feel down after suffering from a mild head injury.

You might have thoughts like these:

These thoughts can lead you to feel sad, frustrated, hopeless and lonely.

Feeling like this will probably make you stay in the house, stay in bed, keep to yourself and stop doing the things you use to enjoy.

As you can imagine, this can become a vicious circle, leading to more negative thoughts and feelings.

Am I Depressed?

If you’ve been feeling low for more than two weeks, take this short test to find out if you might be depressed:

What Can I Do to Help Myself Get Better?

If you are feeling low or depressed, there are things you can do to help yourself get better:

• recognise and change gloomy and unhelpful thoughts about yourself, the world and the future
• get back active, by making a list and plan exercise and activities
• try to notice and pay more attention to your qualities and achievements

This might be easier said than done. Luckily, there are some very helpful self help guides to help you:

Moodjuice Depression Self Help Guide

Moodjuice is a website developed by Choose Life Falkirk and the Adult Clinical Psychology Service, NHS Forth Valley. Their depression self help guide explains about depression and provides lots of tips and exercises to cope with it:

On the website of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, a wide range of self help leaflets is offered. This one contains information on depression and covers some basic tips to challenge negative thoughts and increase activity.  

If these tips are not helpful (enough) or you can not bring yourself round to doing the exercises, do not hesitate to ask your GP for help. He or she can suggest treatment options, like taking medication or talking to someone.

Further reading

Mind – Mind is an organisation providing advice and support to empower people with mental health problems. Their website is full of useful information and stories. It also contains a nice page on what friends and family can do to help.

NHS – The NHS website has a page on depression with information and useful links.