Stress and Depression
There is a lot in the media about depression, the following may give an insite into what depression is and how stress may lead into depression.
What Is Stress?
Stress is a feeling that’s created when we react to particular events. It’s the body’s way of rising to a challenge and preparing to meet a tough situation with focus, strength, stamina, and heightened alertness.
Stress can occur as a result of pressure. A job or report you are working on at work is not going right. This can often cause stress. Stress can often be fairly easily dealt with. Mostly you will recognise the cause. The work situation can be dealt with by just walking away from your place of work for a short break, go and make a coffee before re-attempting that task. Often that would be all that is needed. Talking can also help with stress.
The most natural form of stress coping is relaxation, as a person cannot be both stressed and relaxed at the same time. The condition of relaxation is unspecific, it is not really important how one relaxes but that one relaxes.
Planned relaxation calms anxiety and helps your body and mind recover from everyday rush and stress. Music, a long soak in the bath, or a walk in the park do the trick for some people, but for others it’s not so easy. If you feel you need help with learning to relax, try a relaxation or meditation class. Your GP and local library will have information about these.
What is Depression?
Depression is far more serious. It builds up gradually, possibly over several years. It is much more difficult to deal with yourself.
You feel severe despondency and dejection, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy. It is a condition of mental disturbance, typically with lack of energy and difficulty in maintaining concentration or interest in life.
The sufferer may not even know of the cause or when it first started.
If you are affected by depression, you are not ‘just’ sad or upset. You have an illness which means that intense feeling of persistent sadness, helplessness and hopelessness are accompanied by physical effects such as sleeplessness, a loss of energy, or physical aches and pains.
Sometimes people may not realise how depressed they are, especially if they have been feeling the same for a long time, if they have been trying to cope with their depression by keeping themselves busy, or if their depressive symptoms are more physical than emotional.
Whether you are stressed or depressed, to treat, the cause needs to be found and the patient be shown that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Counselling can be a valuable and often desirable tool in dealing with stress and depression. Depression can and does lead to suicide if not faced and dealt with. Talking through your problems is good.
Can stress lead to depression? We look at the link that exists between the two.
Stress can be good for you. It keeps you alert, motivated and primed to respond to danger. As anyone who has faced a work deadline or competed in a sport knows, stress mobilizes the body to respond, improving performance. In the far distant past, when man was the hunter and was also the hunted by predators, stress triggered the fight or flight reflex (the body’s stress/ response mechanism). Even though we now get our food from supermarkets, we still have that instinct.
Yet too much stress or chronic stress may lead to major depression in susceptible people.
A little stress is good for you but too much is bad. Even positive events, such as getting married or beginning a new job, can be stressful and may lead to an episode of major depression. Yet about 10% of people suffer from depression without the trigger of a stressful event.
The Stress/Depression Connection:
Stress, whether chronic, such as being a full time carer of a parent or loved one, or acute, such as losing a job or the death of a loved one, can lead to major depression in susceptible people. Both types of stress lead to over-activity of the body’s stress/ response mechanism.
Sustained or chronic stress, in particular, leads to elevated hormones such as cortisol, the “stress hormone,” and reduced serotonin and other neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine, which has been linked to depression. When these chemical systems are working normally, they regulate biological processes like sleep, appetite, energy, and sex drive, and permit expression of normal moods and emotions.
When the stress response fails to shut off and reset after a difficult situation has passed, it can lead to depression in susceptible people. This can show as, for example, ‘comfort eating’ leading to obesity.
No one in life escapes event-related stress, such as death of a loved one, a job loss, divorce, a natural disaster such as an earthquake, or even a dramatic dip in your income. A layoff , an acute stressor, may lead to chronic stress if a job search is prolonged.
Loss of any type is a major risk factor for depression. Grieving is considered a normal, healthy, response to loss, but if it goes on for too long it can trigger a depression. A serious illness, including depression itself, is considered a chronic stressor.
Stress and Depression: Lifestyle Factors
The connection between stress and depression is complex and circular. People who are stressed often neglect healthy lifestyle practices. They may smoke, drink more than normal, and neglect regular exercise. “Stress, or being stressed out, leads to behaviours and patterns that in turn can lead to a chronic stress burden and increase the risk of major depression. Losing a job is not only a blow to self-esteem, but it results in the loss of social contacts that would normally buffer against depression. You feel very much alone.
Interestingly, many of the changes in the brain during an episode of depression resemble the effects of severe, prolonged, stress.
Depression is a terrible affliction; it is painful, you can see no way out of it and the depressions get worse over the years.
It is important that you or the sufferer recognises that you have stress or depression and go and see your GP. Recognising your stress or depression is the first step but help with finding the cause is most important.
Michelle Dibble
