This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Toronto chapter.

Depression is a common problem on university campuses. Things are vastly different from your high school life: you may have moved away from home, you may be lonely and have issues socializing when left to your own devices on a campus of this size, you have to struggle with dealing with issues with grades and how to succeed – and even then, you can get incredibly discouraged when life doesn’t go your way.

It’s not a unique problem to have at all. One in four college students suffers with depression or another form of mental illness. Not to mention, a U.K study also said that the current generation of college and university students are at higher risk for mental illness because of our lifestyles. Perhaps we are more unprepared for the changes university life brings and we can’t deal with the resulting stress.

Depression is a common problem that people tend to stay silent about. But with recent campaigns, like the recent Bell Let’s Talk day about mental illness, it’s evident things are starting to change.

Let’s try to sort out what makes depression different than a regular bout of sadness, and exactly how talk therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy are scientifically proven to help you – not a useless experience like some people are inclined to believe.

What is Depression like?

One of the common misconceptions about depression is that it isn’t necessarily sadness at all. It could be grouchiness, irritability, or a feeling of being numb. It can make you lose interest in many activities you used to enjoy, make you fatigued, and spend hours upon hours in bed. It can interfere with schoolwork because you can’t stay concentrated either.

What Happens in Your Brain?

Depression can interfere with your life this much because it actually does physically affect major areas of the brain.

The hippocampus is in the central area of your brain and it’s involved in storing memories and regulating a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that is released when you’re physically and mentally stressed. People with depression have more cortisol released in their brain, which can cause neurons in the hippocampus to shrink and also result in memory problems.

Your amygdala processes your emotions. With depression, the amygdala becomes enlarged and more active because of the increased amount of cortisol. Increased activity of your amygdala can cause disturbances in sleep and activity patterns.

Also, your prefrontal cortex found at the front of your brain, which has the function of regulating emotions, decision-making, and forming memories, appears to shrink when exposed to cortisol.

Depression can have physical effects and the overexposure of cortisol is very unhealthy.

How Do Talk Therapies Help?

One of the most common therapies used by psychologists in the treatment of depression is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It sounds a bit intimidating, but isn’t at all.

Here’s how it works.

In CBT, there are two parts: the cognitive component, and the behavioural component.

In the cognitive component, you learn how to recognize the distorted thoughts that are causing your depression. If you get back some grades you’re not proud of, then you may start to think, “All the work I’m putting in is worthless” when confronted with a new assignment. With the cognitive component, you learn to recognize overreactions like that and transform them into a more balanced thought like, “I may have had trouble on the last assignment, but that doesn’t mean that this one will turn out the same way if I work hard.” Overall, you would be learning how to question the core beliefs (in this case, perhaps, “I am stupid”) that lead to your depression as your therapist learns more about what kind of negative thoughts you’re having. By learning how to fix these beliefs and thoughts, you hopefully won’t be as depressed.

For the second behavioural component, you work together with your therapist to see how different activities affect your mood, and what you might need to do to improve it. You develop a list of goals to achieve that will improve your situation and your mood. The more goals achieved, your confidence improves and the feeling of depression lessens.

A study in the U.K showed that even internet administered CBT had improvements on anxiety (which it was used for in the study), and with an MRI, scientists realized there was a reduction in amygdala size. That’s an improvement, because the amygdala becomes more active and larger with the introduction of cortisol.

CBT also reinforces neural pathways by changing the way you react to different situations. By doing so, you become better at dealing with stress and negative thoughts, meaning that there is a reduced amount of cortisol released. It helps rewire you rewrite your brain function to recover from depression and become more resistant against negative thoughts!

Getting Help Isn’t Pointless

Getting help for your negative thoughts may seem useless, but they are scientifically proven to help you. Just talking with a therapist can have visible improvements on the way you think about yourself and your situation, making life a lot less miserable.

Moreover, recognizing you’re not alone on a university campus experiencing this is important. It’s exactly why there are resources available to help you out! There are a lot of people who suffer from it, many who don’t get help, and plenty more who do and recover from their depression.

Deciding to step into a therapist’s office is a big step, and it can even seem a bit strange at first – but the rewards are much better than letting the problem fester. Don’t convince yourself it’s useless to try when science tells you that even talking to someone improves your brain function.