10 Signs and Symptoms of Depression That Experts Want You To Watch Out For
We all go through rough patches that leave us feeling sad, frustrated, and overwhelmed. In fact, the phrase “I’m really depressed today,” has become a widely accepted part of everyday vernacular. That said, if you’ve ever spoken the phrase in conversation with a friend, chances are you were referring to a mood rather than depression itself. Moods pass, but mood disorders like depression can last a lifetime — and a combination of therapy, medication, and social support are typically needed to mitigate the symptoms of depression.
Depression is one of the most common mental disorders, so chances are someone you know is grappling with the condition. According to a February 2023 poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average rate of depression and anxiety among adults in the US is 32.3 percent. A similar report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2023 found that approximately 280 million people worldwide have depression, but the numbers are likely even higher than that, as many people experiencing symptoms of depression aren’t diagnosed.
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If you’re wondering what signs and symptoms of depression to be aware of, you’re not alone. “When we feel disconnected from our fellow humans, our minds and our bodies do not do well,” says Dr. Kate Truitt, LCSW, an applied neuroscientist and author of Keep Breathing: A Psychologist’s Intimate Journey Through Loss, Trauma, and Rediscovering Life. “When our body struggles, our brain struggles; when our brain struggles, our body struggles,” Truitt tells SheKnows. “When somebody is living in a state where they’re perpetually beating themselves up and feeling like they’re not good enough, lovable, belonging, or okay in the world around, that’s such a powerful entry point because that’s the brain struggling to find purpose, worth, and value.”
Truitt explains that, while the symptoms of depression vary depending on the individual, there are several common symptoms that indicate it may be time to seek help for yourself or someone you love. If you observe any combination of these symptoms in a friend or family member, the best course of action is to consult with a medical professional, preferably a mental health specialist, to help manage these symptoms moving forward.
Common Physical Symptoms of Depression
Our physical and mental health are deeply intertwined, and while it may not always be obvious, depression can manifest in myriad forms. Ahead, learn more about the physical symptoms of depression — including interrupted sleep, fluctuations in weight, and digestive issues.
Signs of Depression: Fatigue and Insomnia
Perhaps the catalyst for a majority of symptoms of depression, fatigue is one of the most common — and most overlooked — signs of a mood disorder. “Fatigue is a heaviness that follows us,” says Truitt. “I’ve had a lot of patients describe it as though they’re walking through tar or living under a steel blanket. The movement of everyday life becomes exponentially harder.”
With fatigue, we feel both emotionally and physically tired, which can manifest in the form of headaches, muscle pain, increased inflammation, and insomnia. “Fatigue is one of the sneakiest [symptoms], especially because of the relationship that it tends to have with insomnia and the role of insomnia and suicidal considerations,” says Truitt. “Insomnia is a huge risk factor for the worsening of depression, as well as the onset of agitated depression, which is a combination of both the emotional and the physical side.”
For many, the solution to these feelings of exhaustion is to sleep it off. If you’ve ever tried to get some rest during a period of depression, though, you know that laying your head on a pillow is basically an alarm clock that sends your brain into a spiral of ruminating thoughts. Because depression sends the brain into a hyper-processing state, the moment we give ourselves time to rest, it flickers rapidly through feelings of guilt, failure, and sadness that result in poor sleep or a lack of sleep. “The next day, they wake up and they’re even more fatigued, which then feeds into so many of the other physical symptoms,” adds Truitt.
Signs of Depression: Increased or Decreased Appetite
“A lot of times when we’re fatigued, we don’t want to eat or we’ll overeat because we’re compensating,” says Truitt. “We’ll hyper-rely on caffeine for a bump, which then worsens the feelings of restlessness, if somebody has agitated depression, or increases the presence of anxiety.” These changes in appetite may also lead to rapid and extreme weight loss or weight gain, which can result in a variety of additional symptoms, such as changes to one’s metabolism, muscles, digestive system, and sleep cycle.
Signs of Depression: Low Sex Drive
Another physical symptom of depression is a low libido or decreased sex drive. With depression, it’s common for people to lose interest in activities they typically enjoy, and this includes sex and physical intimacy. Even though someone may want to maintain a healthy sex life, their fatigue levels may be too high or their interest levels may be too low for them to even consider sex or physical pleasure because the chemicals in the brain are out of balance. While this may cause strain in the person’s relationships, it’s important to acknowledge that lack of sexual desire is a common symptom of depression and can be addressed with the help of a medical professional.
Common Mental and Emotional Symptoms of Depression
Most common symptoms of depression are psychological and all-encompassing; they impact every area of a person’s life and are intertwined in such a way that it’s often difficult to differentiate between them. At times, these symptoms can become so formidable that it’s difficult for a person with depression to remember what they felt like before they entered a depressive state. Ahead, see what experts had to say about some of the mental and emotional symptoms of depression.
Signs of Depression: Agitation
While depression is most often associated with low mood and a lack of energy, some forms of depression go hand-in-hand with intense feelings of emotional agitation; this is known as agitated depression. “[With agitated depression], the depression is also paired with a very severe sense of agitation or irritability,” Truitt continues. “When somebody has agitated depression, they’re more likely to experience suicidal considerations. They’re also more likely to experience deep feelings of loneliness and isolation because their social relationships are disrupted by the intensity of their agitation and their irritability. They’re living in a space of physical hypo-arousal and emotional hyper-arousal.”
As a result, even the smallest stressor can be overwhelming for those with agitated depression. “The tiniest little thing can create a reaction of agitation or irritability, even anger and, in severe cases, rage because their system simply doesn’t have the bandwidth it needs to process the sensory experience of day-to-day life on top of all the daily symptoms of depression,” says Truitt.
Signs of Depression: Anxiety
Whether you’ve experienced a mood disorder yourself or not, you’ve likely heard that depression and anxiety often coexist. This is partially because the symptoms of anxiety disorder and depression disorder overlap so heavily. Feeling out of control, irritable, frustrated, angry, restless, panicked, guilty, or physically ill are common symptoms of people with depression and anxiety.
At times, though, the symptoms of these conditions can be at odds with one another —think, your anxiety telling you that you need to work twice as hard as you have been to meet your goals while your depression removes all motivation to work, as well as the physical and mental ability to work. On the flip side, they can also feed into one another in ways that may have a more profound negative effect on a person’s well-being.
Signs of Depression: Isolation and Lack of Enjoyment
With depression, the hippocampus atrophies and becomes less responsive, as well as less able to call upon positive memories, says Truitt. This, paired with hyperactivity in the amygdala, significantly impairs a person’s ability to make decisions, concentrate, access past memories, and acknowledge potential positive outcomes of their decisions. In this way, the brain allows negativity bias to take over and spin fear-based, anxiety-driven stories about the world around them.
This can lead to a lack of enjoyment, even around activities a person typically finds pleasurable, and cause someone in a depressive state to isolate themselves from others as a result. “Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness often result in an individual seeking to be alone rather than spend time with family, friends, and colleagues,” says Dr. Arian Elfant, a clinical psychologist based in New Orleans.
Signs of Depression: Irritability
Although irritability is a more common symptom of depression in children than adults, it’s still an important one to have on your radar. “Sometimes depression is masked by increasing bouts of impatience and irritability,” Elfant says. This may look like overreacting to seemingly simple situations or becoming easily annoyed or angry in scenarios that don’t make sense to others.
Irritability may also be a side-effect of burnout from everyday life, which can make you feel detached, helpless, and cynical. If you notice this personality change in a loved one, it’s worth digging into the source and seeking help for the person experiencing the depressive state.
Signs of Depression: Brain Fog and Concentration Problems
Often correlated with fatigue, according to a 2023 study, brain fog involves difficulty concentrating, processing information, and paying attention. “The brain isn’t rested and it cannot process information appropriately,” Truitt says. This may also look like confusion, forgetfulness, and sluggish thinking. While often overlooked, this symptom of depression can make it increasingly difficult to perform everyday activities, such as running errands, sending emails or text messages, and keeping appointments.
Signs of Depression: A Belief That You’re a “Bad” Person
Dr. Reid Kessler, a licensed psychologist based in California, says a lesser-known sign of depression is the individual’s belief that they are “bad” and therefore deserve to have bad things happen to them. “The signs of this badness include beliefs that they are too prideful, selfish, vain, greedy, competitive, angry, lustful, or envious,” Kessler says. “What surprises people about depression is that the depressed person can often expect bad things to happen to them because they believe they are, in fact, bad.”
Often, we owe this thought to the amygdala, which exists to protect us from anything that might cause us harm. When we move into a depressed state, though, the amygdala becomes hyperactive. “Our brain is a pattern-based system. It loves what is known,” says Truitt. “It expects a similar outcome most of the time, given a gradient of percentage change. But if the environment is the same, the experience is pretty much the same, and we’re the different one, then there’s a strong likelihood that our brains start to internalize that and say, ‘There’s something wrong with me because everything else in maintaining a consistency.'” In other words, we convince ourselves there must be something wrong with us, that we are broken, failing, or otherwise need to change. This can, in turn, create overwhelming feelings of guilt at being mentally, emotionally, or physically unable to change.
Because many people with depression believe they simply aren’t good people, it’s all the more important to reach out if you suspect someone is dealing with depression. Simply acknowledging that you’ve noticed a change in their behavior and want to be supportive can mean the world to a person whose self-worth is the lowest it’s ever been.
Signs of Depression: Suicidal Thoughts or Self-Harm
If a person with depression experiences insomnia, anxiety or panic, and agitation, the likelihood that their thought will turn to suicidal consideration or self-harm increases. “The system eventually gets to this place where it’s like, ‘I have to find a way out,’ because it doesn’t feel like the cycle will ever end” explains Truitt. For people with periods, these symptoms often fluctuate more frequently and more rapidly as a result of constant hormone changes, most notably pre-menstrual symptoms, perimenopause, and menopause.
If you believe someone you love may be experiencing suicidal consideration or practicing self-harm, acknowledge that you are there for them and support them in seeking the help of a mental health professional. Of course, acknowledging that you or someone you love may be struggling with symptoms of depression is never easy, and getting the help of a medical professional can be a major obstacle in itself. If you’re looking to seek help for symptoms of depression, Truitt advises building community and seeking out groups, including mental health professionals, who can guide you as you navigate your mental health journey.
“Mental health is a human right and therapy is a privilege,” says Truitt, citing a number of factors that may influence a person’s ability to seek help from a mental health professional, including accessibility, cultural norms, psychological safety, the medical professional’s ability to show up for the patient, and more. On that note, Truitt advises taking your time and keeping your safety — mental, emotional, and physical — top of mind when searching for a mental health provider. “The barriers to getting help are vast and many. If you’re meeting a provider for the first time, consider it an interview,” she advises.
Additionally, if you’re unable to seek the help of a mental health professional for any reason — and even if you are seeing a professional for help with symptoms of depression — Truitt recommends creating a network of psychologically-safe people to surround yourself with at all times. This may look like opening up to friends and family about what you’ve been experiencing, joining a support group, and adding to more open dialogues about mental health.
“When we are in a space where we have safe connections with other humans and we can dip our toes into the water about a conversation around mental health, it’s usually very surprising how many other people put their hands up and say, ‘Me, too,’” Truitt says, adding that these individuals likely also have the contacts and connections to help you on your mental health journey. “The strongest ability to recover from depression comes through a really amazing community and feeling seen, heard, and knowing that we’re not alone. Most importantly, [we then] know that we’re not broken or crazy; other people have the same struggles.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal ideation, resources are available to help. You can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by calling or texting 988, or visiting the 988 Lifeline website.
A version of this post was originally published in 2018.
Before you go, check out these effective and affordable apps for mental health:
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