Things about Depression that you must know

It is common to feel low, exhausted, and loss of interest in daily activities as a sign of regular depression that everyone goes through in their lifetime. But if these continue for a longer period of time and affect your life, then you may be suffering from clinical depression and requires treatment. It can affect anyone of any age group and the reasons are not always known.

Depression or Clinical Depression is the most common but the most serious type of mood disorder. It is not the common sadness phase that passes by, but it is a persistent condition that lasts for months or years and should be treated. The treatment may be medication from psychiatric or Psychotherapy. It interferes with our ability to think, feel and behave and disrupts our functionality to carry on our lives.  

There are many types of depression, some of which results from the experiences in your life while the others are caused by the chemical changes in the brain. Bipolar Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder are the most common ones.

Depression can be caused due to many reasons and are not always preventable. Some of the common causes include:

• Imbalanced Neurotransmitters in Brain: Neurotransmitters are the chemical substances in the brain that helps in communication of brain with different areas and involve in mood regulation. So the imbalance in neurotransmitters or the shortage may lead to clinical depression.
• Female sex hormones: Women suffer from depression about twice as often as men especially during their reproductive years. The occurrence peaks during their menstrual period, childbirth, and perimenopause. This suggests that the hormonal flux can be cause of their depression. Eventually, the woman's depression risk declines after she goes through menopause.
• Poor Diet: From our childhood, we are always said to have balanced diet as the poor diet leads to many adverse effect in our body. Depression is also one of them. A variety of vitamin and mineral deficiencies are known to cause symptoms of depression especially the diets low in omega-3 fatty acids and high in sugar and simple carbs.
• Physical Health problems: The physical and the mental health go hand in hand and both can trigger each other. Depression can cause certain heart diseases and dementia. Similarly, certain illnesses, such as thyroid disorders, Addison's disease, and liver disease, can cause depression symptoms.
• Drugs: Alcohol and drugs leads to many depressive disorders but some of the prescribed medicines such as anticonvulsants, stimulants, benzodiazepines, and many more drugs are also the contributing factors. Thus, it is always advised to review your medication.
• Stress: In today’s life, Stress has become one of the major contributing factor of mental illness. Researchers suspect that that during stress, there is an increment in the level of hormone, called cortisol which affect the neurotransmitter serotonin and contribute to depression.
• Grieves: Grieving over the loss of loved ones, are expected to subside over time. But when symptoms get worse, it may turn into depression.