What Are the Physical Symptoms of Depression?
Depression can be defined as a state of sadness. Depression is however much more than just feeling a bit sad. Besides extreme sadness there are also physical symptoms that are associated with depression. What are the physical symptoms of depression? Fatigue, inactivity and a lower immunity against sicknesses are some physical symptoms of depression. Others are problems with eating, sleeping, suicide thoughts and unexplained pain. Here we will give a short description of phsyical depression symptoms.
Fatigue
Fatigue is probably the physical symptom that is the most associated with manic depressive disorder. By this we don’t mean tiredness after running or after a fitness training. Fatigue is a state where you don’t have the energy to do anything. Al you want to do is lay in bed and stay there because you feel to tired to get up and even make a cup of coffee. It is associated with loss of energy and no interest in anything around you. The sad thing is that Fatigue leads to more fatigue and eventually even going to the bathroom is too much. This is why the first thing psychologists do in therapy is increase activity.
Headache
Chronic headaches are highly associated with manic depressive disorder. Chronic headaches are defined as headaches that returns 15 days out of the month for at least 3 months. Patients with chronic headaches often see there headache disappear in the same time when their depression is treated.
Sleeping disorders
Sleeping orders is a very important physical symptom of depression. When a person is sleeping too much it is often not notices that this could be a sign of depression. Often patients just think they are tired and they need some more sleep. Sleeping too much is just as bad as sleeping too little and both are an important symptom of depression. Sleeping disorders are often associated with a lack of energy and fatique.
Eating disorders
Eating disorders are also a very important physical sign of depression. Often it is seen that a patient with depression will loose weight or gain weight because the eating patterns are not functioning any more. When a person feels sad he often does not feel hungry and if he feels sad every day he will loose weight. Sometimes eating too much is also an expression of feeling sad as this might be the only thing that relieves the sadness. Eating snacks like chocolate or chips give a nice feeling but after they are finished, the sadness increases as they are not happy with their physical appearance.
Body pain
Body stress and body pain are highly associated with each other. When you work under a lot of stress you often get headaches or pain in the neck. Feeling depressed is some kind of stress to the body and the body will react to this with a sensitivity of unexplained pain. This pain can present itself in the neck joints, lower back, but also internal in your stomach, liver, kidneys. Patients often don’t feel they are taken seriously when a doctor sends them to a psychologist for unexplained pain sensations but very often a psychologist gets more positive results with these patients than a doctor.
In this article is written what are the physical symptoms of bipolar depression. Next to the emotional symptoms of sadness, physical symptoms are very important to notice for a diagnose of depression.
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