You find no motivation to open a textbook, interact with friends or get out of bed. Are you depressed?
According to mental health experts, the answer is maybe -- depending on the duration and intensity of such symptoms.
While it is sometimes hard to determine what behavior is normal and what behavior should prompt concern, counselors say there is an important, although sometimes complicated, distinction between going through a rut and being depressed.
"Depression is an illness, having a bad day isn't," said Dr. Michael Hertzberg Ph.D., a psychiatrist based in Alexandria, Virginia. "Everyone has bad days. To really diagnose depression, the symptoms have to be present for at least two weeks."
"A classic symptom of depression is diurnal mood variation, or when day after day, a person wakes up and feels horrible in the morning, better by the afternoon, and alright by the evening, but then the next day the same thing happens again," Hetzberg added. "If someone has that problem they need medication."
Abnormal sleep patterns -- including excessive sleep or inability to sleep -- are some of the most telling signs of depression.
"Early morning awakening is a hallmark sign of depression, when someone goes to bed at 3 a.m. and wakes up at 6 a.m. and cannot go back to sleep, you worry about depression, you almost never see that in people who are not depressed," said Dr. Mark Reed Ph.D., director of Counseling and Human Development at Dick's House.
"Sleep is often hard to judge with college students," Reed added. "But if someone is sleeping through classes or [sleeping though] going out with friends repeatedly, there may be something to be worry about."
Counselors say that isolation and not enjoying everyday life also indicate depression.
"It is a bad sign if someone can't answer the question, 'What do you do for fun?'" Reed said.
Inability to concentrate is also often associated with depression.
"Every student has at one point in time read pages and not remembered anything," Read said, adding: "But for students with depression, they will work at 130 percent effort with a 30-40 percent efficiency."
William Morris, a professor of Psychology at Dartmouth, does not necessarily believe that using a list of clear-cut symptoms is the best way to diagnose depression. Morris said that the diagnosis should "not simply be a counting up of symptoms but a subjective judgment by someone who sees things deteriorating rather than improving."
Morris, who specializes in mood disorders, believes that if "the signs are not enough, you have to look at what is going on in someone's life, is the problem commensurate with the reaction? It is important to try to find out what it means to a person to be in certain circumstances.
"Often we can't deal with the problems so we try to fix the symptoms. What is missing are the kinds of problems afflicting lots of college students today -- what can we do about these? Why do they procrastinate? Why are they so concerned with grades? Someone needs to think about these problems," Morris said.
Morris posits that "there is a problem when there is an inability to cope with certain situations, and when this persists over time and/or deteriorates."
Saying bad days are normal, especially if there is a good reason for such feelings, Morris explained, "It is not bad to have the symptoms if they relate to real world circumstances. What you do is get through them and they become one of the problems in living."
Reed added that low energy and loss of appetite are similarly common symptoms of depression.
However, Hertzberg noted that this tendency could also go the opposite direction; people may be anxious and overeat, specifically craving chocolate and sweets.
Some of the more obvious indicators that a person should seek professional help are hopeless and suicidal thoughts.
But there is a difference between passively and actively thinking about suicide.
While some people may experience fleeting thoughts of suicide, Hertzberg said, such ideas are not necessarily worth worrying about. "The most troubling would be any attempts, followed by suicidal thoughts that can't be escaped, coupled with specific plans for suicide," he explained.
According to Reed, people are at a high risk for suicide when "they are depressed and then carefree the next day, also when there is a clear change in their personality, or if they make off-handed comments that show no future orientation, thoughts of helplessness, or suicide."
