- Knowing that there's a lot of things that contribute to our wellbeing, and when we speak about mental health, it isn't always just a diagnosis.

I'm Dr. DeAnn Bullock.

I'm the emergency department medical director here at Nashville General Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.

So diagnosis of depression takes a true professional to diagnose it.

There are certain signs, there are certain symptoms, there are certain time periods that we are able to listen to somebody and form a diagnosis around what their actual disease process is and do they really have a mental health diagnosis or are they just simply showing signs of different stressors and different coping challenges that they're facing around potential circumstances.

Some of the common signs that we find around depression in kind of all different stages is people will have low energy, they'll have lack of interest in certain hobbies or interests that they do.

They may have changes in their sleeping behaviors, they may sleep more, sleep less.

They may have changes in their eating behaviors, they may eat more, eat less and it's just overall a general feeling of sadness for really kind of a short to an extended period of time depending on what their stressor may be.

A true diagnosis of depression is not necessarily cured, but people with medication, with therapy and kind of chronic management of their depression symptoms, they can actually lead really fruitful, productive lives.

Mental health has a direct relationship on physical health.

If you are not mentally healthy, you're not eating well, you're not sleeping well, you're gonna be physically not healthy and the same is the same as the reverse of that.

If you're physically unhealthy, you may not be able to get up and go do the things you wanna do.

You may not be able to participate in things that you need and then that has a direct reflection on your mental health as well.

For patients that are experiencing depression, support around them is really about giving them the opportunity to know that you wanna help them, that you wanna support them.

It includes asking questions, it includes listening, really allowing them to be able to speak freely knowing that they're in a non-judgmental space.