The Uphill Battle called Depression

Depression is a type of mental disorder that affects a person's mood. It can affect your thoughts, feelings, behavior, and overall health. Normal feelings fall along a continuum from mild to intense, and the same is true of depression. It's normal to respond to losses in ones life with sadness and gloom. But when these feelings block a person from performing their everyday activities or are out of line with the reality of a person's life, they are considered symptoms of a 'depressive disorder'.

There are many factors in depression that could cause you to become depressed. Genes are one factor; and research has shown that if depression runs within your family you could actually get the genes that make you more likely to have depression. Emotionally challenging event of life such as a death of someone within your family or friend could trigger depression. If you are also in a negative, unhappy, stressful atmosphere it can harm the self-esteem of an individual leading to depression. Poverty, homelessness and violence within a family, in a relationship, or throughout a community can also cause depression. Certain medical conditions can cause a person to have a hormonal misbalance and have an effect on their moods. Hypothyroidism has been known to have some affects on depressed moods for some people.

Certain neurotransmitters can help regulate moods, and if you happen to run low, people may experience depressed, stressed, and also anxious feelings. Some people experience depression without any particular stressful or sad events occurring. Some may actually encounter genetic predisposition to depression could become more likely to have an imbalance of the neurotransmitter activity which can be a part involved with the depression.

There are many symptoms which one can experience during his or her depression. They are:
• significant weight loss or gain
• inability to concentrate
• irritability, anger, or anxiety
• withdrawal from friends and family
• lack of energy or feeling exhausted on regular occasions
• drastic changes to certain sleep patterns such as the ability to fall asleep, wake up in mornings, or even stay sleeping
• pessimism and indifference
• aches and pains that don't actually have a medical cause known
When someone experiences five or more of the above symptoms for a period of two weeks or more they are more likely to become depressed.

Depressive disorders could appear with many different forms with three of the more common forms being Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and also Dysthymia. There are many different variations for each of these forms of depression varying within the type of symptoms, the persistence of the depression and also the severity of things. The more that we can understand what those that are affected by depression are going through, the more we can help them and those that love and care for them.

For more information on symptoms and treatments, visit Symptom Sleuth, the online resource for self-diagnosis.

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