Depression is a mental health condition that affects millions of people every year. It can cause a person to feel sad, anxious, or irritable for long periods and can interfere with their ability to function normally in daily life. Depression symptoms can vary from person to person and may not be easily evident. Learning about the most common signs and symptoms can help determine if you or someone you know is suffering from the condition.

How does depression affect your body and mind?

Depression is a severe illness that can affect your body and mind in many ways. It can cause you to lose interest in things you used to enjoy, like playing sports or going out with friends.

Depression can affect your sleep, too—you may have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Your appetite might also change: it could go up or down depending on how depressed you are at any given time. In some cases, postpartum depression symptoms can lead to chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia or migraines. The condition can also cause people to withdraw from everyday life and social interaction, leading to feelings of isolation and loneliness.

What are the symptoms of depression?

If you’re feeling depressed, it can be hard to ask for help, especially if you don’t even know what depression is. But the first step to getting better is understanding what’s going on inside your body. Here is the list of symptoms of depression in men and women to guide these changes.

Feeling sad, down, or empty .

You may feel like you’re just having a spell of bad days. However, feeling down is one of the postpartum symptoms of depression. If you feel sorry for yourself and are completely unmotivated for more than two weeks, it could indicate depression.

Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities

When you experience a loss of interest in things, extreme mood swings, and low energy, it can be a more severe form of bipolar depression symptoms. It is unwise to think this disinterest stems from boredom or influence by antisocial elements; however, it can also be caused by an underlying health condition or by the side effects of another treatment. Loss of interest may also indicate that you are not taking care of yourself properly.

Trouble sleeping or oversleeping

When you don’t get enough sleep, your brain doesn’t produce enough of the neurotransmitter serotonin. That can lead to depression, which can make you feel even more tired or cause you to oversleep. In addition to the mental toll that insomnia and oversleeping take on your mood, sleep deprivation also affects your physical health. It increases inflammation in the body, resulting in heart disease and diabetes.

Trouble focusing, remembering things, or making decisions
Facing troubles concentrating can be due to the chemical changes in the brain that occur during depression. Depression can also cause memory loss, which often increases feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

Fatigue and low energy

Fatigue and low energy can enhance depression in several ways. First, when you’re tired and have a hard time getting through your day, it’s not only more difficult for you to do the things you want to do but also more difficult for you to feel like doing anything at all. That can lead to feelings of sadness and isolation, two key symptoms of depression .

Second, fatigue and low energy may be caused by depression itself. The condition affects how your body functions in many ways, including how well it produces chemicals that regulate sleep and wakefulness, how quickly it responds to stress hormones, how efficiently it uses energy in muscle tissue and organs throughout the body, etc. These changes can cause fatigue or low points as a symptom of depression in women and men.

Feelings of worthlessness or guilt (even when there is no reason to feel guilty)

When you feel like your life has no value, it can be hard to see any reason to get out of bed in the morning. It can be not easy to even care about the things that used to bring you joy—even if you know they’re essential. You might have trouble concentrating or focusing on tasks because your mind is too busy thinking about how worthless you are. And when these feelings become overwhelming, it’s hard not to fall into a cycle where your self-esteem drops and depression deepens, these extreme lows can be one of the symptoms of bipolar depression.

People who suffer from depression may have thoughts of death or suicide.

When people are depressed, they often experience negative thoughts about themselves and their lives. This could lead them to believe that life is not worth living anymore or that they might be better off if they were dead. These thoughts can make depression even worse, as the person may begin to feel guilty or ashamed for having these thoughts.

Summing it up

Depression is a severe mental health condition that can affect anyone, regardless of age or gender. Depression symptoms are unique to the individual, but they often include changes in sleeping and eating habits, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and feelings of sadness. If you’ve been experiencing these symptoms for more than two weeks, you must talk to your doctor about how to manage them and get the right help.