Low spirits
despair, despondency, sadness, sorrow, unhappiness, gloom, dejection, melancholy, misery, wretchedness, trouble, mortification, worry, discouragement, dispiritedness, hopelessness, pessimism, distress, desperation, desolation, dreariness, heaviness of spirit, dullness, disconsolation, downheartedness, woefulness, lugubriousness, moroseness, cheerlessness, disconsolateness, melancholia, dolor, dolefulness, darkness, bleakness, oppression, low-spiritedness, lowness, gloominess, glumness, disheartenment, hypochondria, vapors, malaise, clinical depression, dysthymia, slough of despond, Weltschmerz (German), doldrums, dumps*, mulligrubs*, blues*, blue devils*, horrors*, blue funk*, blahs*; see also gloom 2, grief 1, sadness.
Antonyms joy*, elation, satisfaction.
Period of commercial stress
economic decline, recession, slump, economic downturn, unemployment, slack times, hard times, bad times, inflation, crisis, overproduction, retrenchment, slowdown, economic dislocation, economic paralysis, economic stagnation, financial storm, business inactivity, panic, crash*, bust*, Black Friday*, stagflation*; see also bankruptcy.
Antonyms prosperity*, good times, boom.