6 Important Symptoms of Depression
World Health Organization (WHO) has listed depression as an illness that is the leading cause of disability and also as the most common illness around the world. It is estimated that 350 million people globally suffer from depression.
Suddenly feeling down, feeling sad, losing your interest or pleasure in your everyday activities are a few mood changes which we have all experienced now and then. But if you feel that these feelings are there for longer than usual you could be suffering from depression.
1. Anxiety
Most often depression is coupled with anxiety. Both depression and anxiety are a result of stress that could even date back to your childhood. Anxiety is usually characterized as a feeling of uneasiness, worry and nervousness about the outcome of specific events in your life. Depression and anxiety go hand in hand in almost 70% of the cases.
2. Depressive Mood
Depression is characterized by phenomenal changes in your mood including persistent sadness, empty mood or even constant anxiety. Most patients suffering from depression are able to give a much better picture of what they are going through. It is something that is much worse than feeling sad or empty all the time.
3. Fatigue or Loss of Energy
In contradiction to most other medical symptoms, fatigue can be a very normal phenomenon in specific situations. Occasionally all of us are prone to get tired, but this is usually forgone by taking proper rest or getting a good night sleep. But chronic fatigue is a symptom of depression which does not get better by getting some rest or proper sleep.
4. Thoughts of Suicide
Patients going through depression very often have recurring thoughts about depression. Their idea about suicide and the risk of suicide attempts is something we have to watch out for in patients suffering from depression. Depression patients often come to the conclusion that their life has become something unworthy and that their friends and family would be better off in their absence.
5.Ruminative thinking
These are repetitive negative thoughts that occur in a depression patient’s mind. The patient repeatedly focuses on only their negative experiences in life and keeps brooding about that.
6.Neurocognitive Dysfunction
Patients with depression are commonly noticed to have neurocognitive dysfunction (Difficulty in Concentrating, Remembering or Making Decisions). A few noticeable signs are memory loss, lack of ability to focus, and less concentration, weak problem-solving capacity, and fluency. Also, people with depression will deprive the ability to focus. Hence, they lose the pleasure of reading as they feel difficult to grasp and remember what they read.
