Whether you are working from home or still working in an office, depression is always a danger. And one of the challenges with depression is that people unfamiliar with the condition often have a hard time identifying early signs and symptoms, attributing those to mood variations or external factors instead.
To be clear: you should never diagnose yourself with depression. This is a serious mental health condition with a specific set of diagnostic criteria associated with it; you need a professional to help you identify it. However, keeping an eye out for these signs will help you spot when you or someone you love should seek professional attention.
Social isolation and social distancing can both be taxing on one’s mental health, so this is very much a relevant topic these days, especially for people who are expected to keep working throughout their quarantine.
1 – Sleep changes
Changes to one’s sleep pattern is often an early sign of depression. The challenge here is that depression affects people differently — some experience insomnia, while others start to oversleep. In relation to depression, insomnia often involves the afflicted person waking up in the early hours of the morning, usually overtaken with feelings of dread.
It should be pointed out here that, in order to be classified as clinical depression, the patient’s symptoms must last for at least 14 days. That’s according to guidelines from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. You should keep that in mind as you read this list — if your symptoms happen once or twice every blue moon, then they are unlikely to be classified as clinical depression by a professional. However, you should still seek professional help if the symptoms are intense and make it hard for you to function, as other conditions can cause the symptoms found in this list.
2 – Loss of interest
People experiencing depression are often unable to find joy in performing actions that used to give them pleasure. That can affect your interest in hobbies, pastimes, social activities, and even sex. That’s due to anhedonia — a reduction in your ability to experience pleasure, which in turn reduces your motivation. Even your favorite foods may feel less tasty when you are experiencing anhedonia.
3 – Appetite changes
Like with sleep, depression affects people’s appetite differently. Some start overeating, others can’t eat at all. A sudden change in your body weight amounting over 5% of weight gained or lost over a single month is an amount that clinicians often consider noteworthy, and something to keep an eye out for if it happens alongside other symptoms.
4 – Loss of energy
Feeling constantly drained, fatigued, sluggish, and experiencing constant brain fogs are all symptoms associated with depression. This is, of course, made worse by insomnia. Depressed people may find themselves sleeping for periods longer than 12 hours and waking up still feeling absolutely exhausted.
5 – Negative thoughts
Depression can lead to the emergence of dark thoughts about yourself or the world, thoughts that often take the form of self-loathing and self-deprecation combined with a strong feeling of worthlessness and/or guilt. Feeling bad about things once in a while isn’t a symptom of depression. But feeling overwhelming negative emotion that never goes away and seems to have no cause or reason behind it — that’s a symptom worth keeping an eye on.
Of course, a lot of these symptoms may also be caused by other imbalances in the body, such as a lack of vitamins of hormonal unbalance. The latter is something you can help regulate by using natural remedies like CBD, which is something you can learn more about in this site.
