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.
