THE March meeting of the Stroud Depression Support Group was held on Tuesday, March 4.

One of the things discussed was how retirement can sometimes result in the onset of depression and possible reasons for this.

For instance, there can be situations where the world of work has effectively taken over the life of a person who may not have any other interests outside of work so that when work ceases, there is a void to be filled.

Another possible cause in this situation is the possible loss of a social circle of people since there is always a social aspect to the working environment.

Also, a person in a work situation may have a certain status which upon retiring, disappears and people have been known to struggle with this transition.

There has been a lot of talk about effective work-life balance and such a balance is essential if people are going to make a trouble free transition from work into retirement.

After all, retirement is the time to enjoy doing all those things that work prevented you from doing in the first place and not something to be depressed about.

The next meeting of the Stroud Depression Support Group will be on Tuesday, April 1 at 7.30pm.

To obtain details of meetings, people can either ring Rose or Huw on 07428102477 or email: stroudalliance@yahoo.co.uk