What Most People Don’t Know

Even though you have learned a lot about depression and are steadily walking down the path to a happier, healthier life, there are many myths and misconceptions, surrounding depression. To help you gain further insight and an even better handle on your struggle, below you will find some facts about depression, which most people are unaware of.

Depression and Anxiety Are Related

First of all, both have profound effects on our overall mood, and may lead to severe negative changes, if not coped with properly.

Second of all, the catastrophic thoughts associated with depression often result in constant worrying, which is the main indicator of anxiety. In fact, most experts agree that people who struggle with depression will also experience some form of anxiety, as well as the other way around.

Depression Emerges Abruptly

At least so it seems! Although depression is the result of various psychological factors, the underlying cause is not always that obvious.

Sometimes it may seem impossible to understand why your attitude towards life, yourself and others has suddenly changed for the worse.

Provided you are willing to work with an experienced psychologist, you will likely be able to arrive at the source of your depression, with some time and effort. However, it is also important to focus on effective coping strategies, such as the ones provided here.

Depression Clouds Your Mind

Leaving aside the obvious emotional damage, depression can also negatively impacts your cognitive abilities, such as memory, decision-making and attention.

By disrupting the brain circuits responsible for memory encoding, depression impedes the brain from retaining useful information.

For those who struggle with depression, not being able to remember “the good old times” is a major disadvantage. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why they’re so focused on the negatives.

Time Seems to Stop

They say time flies when you’re having fun. However, when your existence has turned into a constant emotional and cognitive struggle, time seems to have stopped.

Depression can alter time perception, by adding a negative connotation to your interpretations of the world, yourself, and others.

A great way to counteract this negative effect, is by recording the positive things that happen to you. You can use a paper journal, a file on your computer, create videos and sound recordings, etc.

Furthermore, you can use this guide to help you engage in more activities that increase your productivity and deliver positive social experiences.

Depression Is Rigid

Figuratively speaking, there are two general types of mindset - a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Can you guess which one depression induces?

People stuck in a fixed mindset may fool themselves into believing a set of negative statements about themselves, life, and other people. What is worse, those people tend to engage in self-defeat and tell themselves that there is nothing they can do to improve the situation.

The words, ‘growth’, ‘change’ or ‘self-improvement’ may be omitted from one’s vocabulary, as a result of depression.

Healthy thinking is not about changing the world, it’s about changing your worldview. Nothing can impact you negatively, unless you allow it to.

Depression Decreases Life Expectancy

The fact that depression decreases life expectancy dramatically, is easily explained.

As you are now well aware of, there are plenty of negative consequences, associated with this mood disorder, including physical, mental and emotional changes.

Most importantly, depression prevents you from engaging in health-promoting activities, that keep you strong, happy and maintain your will to live. Fulfilling social interactions have also been linked to a prolonged life expectancy, while depression tends to keep you isolated from others.

Is it worth losing 10-15 years of your life over something that you can actually cope with?

Depression Across Cultures

Cultural differences play a huge role in our everyday lives. From social interactions and good table manners, to personal beliefs and values, culture has and will probably always shape our personalities and behavioral patterns.

Besides, various cultures may have different ways of accepting and dealing with mental health disorders, such as depression. That is why the way one struggles with depression, depends, at least to some extent, on the culture that person has grown up in.