DEPRESSION AND HEALTH

Depression and anxiety is a mental health disorder with characteristics of hopelessness, continuous feeling of sadness, low-spirited and lack of interest in activities or negligence in relating with people. It can affect one negatively on thinking capabilities, feelings of emotion, relationship and even complicate the physical health conditions in some cases. In worse case scenarios, it leads to suicide or harming oneself. Symptoms may be loss of interest in activities (that were previously enjoyed), feelings of sadness, hopelessness or emptiness, insomnia, narcolepsy or to oversleep. There would be changes in appetite and definitely weight, fatigue, feelings of inferiority, excessive guilt, despising oneself. It becomes challenging to concentrate, make decisions or remember things. One develops quick excitability to annoyance, restlessness sets in not excluding headaches or digestive problems that fail to respond to treatment. Depression affect people differently in terms of duration and symptoms. It can be triggered by various factors such as trauma, stress, medical conditions, abuse of certain substances and environmental or genetic factors.

DEPRESSION AND MENTAL HEALTH: Depression can have deep-seated effects on mental health, evading various parts of a person’s cognition. It can impair cognitive functions such as focus, decision-making and amnesia. This can be seen or portrayed as bad attitude to the society. People suffering from depression have a hard time doing things normally, for instance, they cannot retain or process information appropriately, they have negative impact in their workplaces or schools. It makes people think in a negative pattern such as having low self esteem, feelings of degradation or worthlessness. These thought patterns are harmful as they can strengthen the ability to be non-motivated towards anything or anyone.

DEPRESSION AND PHYSICAL HEALTH: Depression can lead to complicated risk of certain health conditions such as inflammation of the heart, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular health as a whole is endangered. Diabetes, obesity and chronic pain disorders are inevitable. These factors can compromise physical well-being and quality of life. Depression can cause stress to weaken the immune system making depressed people susceptible to various illnesses. Sleep disturbances such as narcolspsy, insomnia or over-sleeping which can impair the cognitive functions as well. Due to inability to eat or over-eat, there would be changes in weight (significant weight loss/gain). This eating factor may further lead to severities such as pica or anorexia bulimia. Low energy levels are experienced by depressed individuals even after resting. The feelings of lethargy and disinterest make it impossible to engage in daily activities. There is presentation of decreased physical activities due to lack of motivation. Above all is the risk of harming self or suicide. Suicidal thoughts especially radiate from negative thoughts.

DEPRESSION AND RELATIONSHIP HEALTH: This can cause social withdrawal and isolation. These individuals disconnect from others and fear for being judged or rejected. I call it relationship numbness. Relationship numbness make depressed individuals detach from people and the world around them. This can make it challenging to engage with others or seek help for their condition.

DEPRESSION AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH: Depression can cause persistent sadness, emptiness and hopelessness. These factors can intrude all aspect of one’s emotional life and it becomes difficult or impossible to experience happiness, satisfaction and one cannot ?derive joy in any activity as well, no matter how interesting it may be. One can easily get susceptible to anger. One gets irritated at slight things. Frustration is inevitable. All these make one overwhelmed by minor stressors leading to increased emotional distress. Feelings of guilt and low self esteem make one blame him/herself persistently and tag themselves as chronic failures in life.

REFERENCES: Mostafa, A.M, Hafez, S.M, Abdullah, N.M and Fouad, Y.T (2024). Fatigue, depression and sleep disorders are more prevalent in patients with metabolic associated fatty liver diseases. European journal of gastroenterology and hepatology, 10.1097.

Huizi, L.C, Wenyue, H.X, Shaoshan Z.Z, Jialong, X.C, Yue, Y.S and Zheng, Z.C (2024). Childhood abuse and disordered eating behaviours in female college students. Where does depression and anxiety come from? Research article CCBY 4.0 license.