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While everyone has times when they are feeling sad or blue, these feelings tend to last only a couple of days. For people struggling with depression, these feelings can persist for long periods of time, interfering with their daily life, relationships, and work, placing strains on the individual and the people who care about them. Clinical depression is a mood disorder where feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, or lost continue for weeks at a time or longer, significantly interfering with daily activities and the overall life of the sufferer. Depression is a common but serious medical illness that affects both the mind and the body, affecting how you feel, think, and behave. Unlike normal feelings of sadness, people do not simply “snap-out” of a bout of depression, and often are overwhelmed by their feelings, including feeling as if their life isn’t worth living. Dealing with depression is like other chronic illnesses and usually requires long-term treatment, but most people feel better with medication, psychotherapy, or other treatments.
There are a number of different forms of depression:
- Bipolar Disorder: A cyclic condition that alternates between periods of elation and excitability (mania) and severe depression. For people struggling with this disorder, the depression can be very serious and prolonged. The periods of mania can impact normal judgment, increasing tendencies for reckless and inappropriate behavior. This is also known as Manic-Depression or Manic-Depressive Disorder.
- Cyclothymic Disorder: A cyclic condition that alternates between hypomania and depression. While less severe than bipolar, it often is more persistent.
- Dysthymic Disorder: A milder form of major depression characterized by enduring, chronic mild depression to the point that it seems integrated with one's personality. This condition can persist for more than two years and often does not interfere with normal day to day functions.
- Major Depressive Disorder: An often disabling depression that interferes with the person’s ability to eat, sleep, work, or perform normal activities. It often keeps people from engaging in activities they would normally find pleasurable and leads to negative thoughts of themselves and the world.
- Medical Condition Induced Mood Disorder: A depression caused by a known or unknown medical condition, such as hypothyroidism or a hospitalization.
- Postpartum Depression: A type of depression affecting women after pregnancy. 10% to 15% of women experience postpartum depression affects, which can begin from one week to six months following childbirth.
- Premenstrual Dysthymic Disorder: A type of depression affecting women during their menstrual cycle where they feel depressed and irritable for one to two weeks before their period each month.
- Psychotic Depression: A combination of severe depression with some form of psychosis, such as hallucinations, hearing voices, or delusions.
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): A type of depression that affects people during the winter months when there is less natural sunlight. The depression usually disappears during the spring and summer months.
- Substance-Induced Mood Disorder: A type of depression caused by the frequent use or abuse of substances such as drugs, alcohol, medications, or toxins.
Depression is a common condition that affects people of all ages, all races, and all economic classes. It is estimated that over 19 million Americans suffer from depression each year. Between 10% and 25% of women and between 5% and 12% of men will be clinically depressed at some point in their lifetime. While some types of depression tend to run in families, such as bipolar disorder, many times people can have depression without any related family history. There is no exact cause known for depression, although many researchers believe it is caused by a chemical change in the brain. These changes in brain chemistry may be linked to genetics or triggered by other factors such as stressful life events. Significant life changes, such as divorce, diagnosis of a medical condition, illness or death of someone close, a failed relationship, or loss of a job can trigger an episode of depression.
Depression can affect a number of different areas of your health and well-being. For people who are struggling with chronic depression, it is important to monitor your condition and symptoms. HealtheHuman provides a series of tools that make it easy to track changes in your moods, symptoms, sleep, and other important health indicators. With our integrated suite of health trackers, it is easy to track, analyze, and share reports of changes in your depression with the people helping treat your condition.
Key Health Information to Track for Depression
Depression can include a number of different symptoms, including agitation, irritability, fatigue, restlessness, trouble sleeping, excessive sleep, difficulties concentrating, and a wide range of emotions. Changes in your emotions can vary throughout the day, impacted by stress, environmental factors, people in your life, and even medications or activities. Tracking your feelings of hopelessness, guilt, sadness, isolation, or helplessness can help you and those helping treat your depression monitor the effectiveness of therapies, medications, or other treatments. Knowing when your symptoms are worse can also help you acknowledge potential triggers and the times when you need to take action to counter act your depression. Other symptoms can also occur with depression, including headaches, body aches and pains, cramps, and digestive issues. You can track all of your symptoms and moods through each hour of the day using the Symptom Tracker and Mood Tracker. You can analyze changes in how you are feeling using a series of reports and charts that can easily be shared with your treating doctors, therapists, or other people helping you manage your condition.
One of the important tools for managing and treating your depression is keeping a daily journal. Writing can be an effective tool to help get your feelings expressed. Some therapies will ask you to keep a journal as a way to keep you thinking and expressing how you feel throughout the day. The Journal feature in HealtheHuman makes it easy to keep a daily journal, with the option to mark entries as confidential so they won’t appear on any reports or event details. You can create reports of your journal entries to share with a therapist or support group.
Many people respond to treatments and medications for depression differently. Throughout your management of depression, it is important to track the effectiveness of certain treatments and medications. With the Event Tracker in HealtheHuman, you can build detailed event logs with accompanying reports detailing a daily chronology of your symptoms, moods, medications, and much more. These event reports help you see how your feelings progressed throughout the day, how well medications or therapies worked to improve your symptoms, and other important details to share with your advisors. You can use the Quicktag Tracker to track a wide range of influencers, triggers, and other treatments, such as visits from friends, sunlight exposure, or meditation, which can all be integrated into the details of your event.
Medications are frequently prescribed to treat depression. Whenever using prescription medication to treat a chronic condition, it is very important to keep an accurate record of all the drugs, vitamins, and supplements you are taking. The most common type of drug used to treat depression is an antidepressant, which are either a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) or a serotonin norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitor (SNRI). Other medicines that might be used to treat depression are tricyclic antidepressants, bupropion (Wellbutrin), and monoamine oxidase inhibitors. The Medication Tracker helps you track the daily usage of all your prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs. By tracking all of your medications, HealtheHuman helps you build and maintain a comprehensive medication history that you can share with your doctors and other health advisors. It is also important to track your use of vitamins and supplements when taking medications for depression. Certain supplements can change the efficacy of medications, such as St. John’s Wort, SAMe, Omega-3 fatty acids, and hormone supplements. The Supplement Tracker lets you track your vitamins or supplements and easily create reports to share with your doctors.
Sleeping problems might play a role in depression. Both a lack of sleep and excessive sleeping can be common symptoms of depression. Tracking your sleep patterns, the quality of your sleep, nightmares or other disturbances can be valuable information for your health care advisors in treating your depression. Certain medications can interfere with sleep patterns or can have adverse side effects like nightmares or restlessness. The Sleep Tracker feature in HealtheHuman lets you track all the details of your sleep schedule, including options to track quality, quantity, interruptions, restfulness, and much more. Once you’ve logged your information, charts and reports can be created to share your sleep data with your doctors or other health advisors.
Stress is a common trigger for episodes of depression. Losing a job, a death in the family, loss of an important relationship, or financial trouble can be sources of great stress and anxiety, which can result in depression. For people struggling with chronic depression conditions, like major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, monitoring your stress levels can be valuable information to share with your therapists and other advisors. The Stress Tracker helps track your stress levels throughout the day, including the ability to create your own sources of stress, like finances, work, relationship, or your health. Find peak times of stress in the day to target areas for relaxation, exercise, or other preventative actions to help control stress levels. Create detailed reports and charts of your stress levels to share with the people helping you manage your depression.
Exercise is a part of a healthy lifestyle and can be especially beneficial for people struggling with chronic depression. Many studies have shown that people who exercise regularly have improved moods, higher levels of self-esteem, and lower rates of depression. One of the primary benefits of exercise is triggering the release of endorphins, a natural chemical released by the body that triggers a positive feeling in the body. Sometimes called the “runner’s high” the endorphins released during exercise have a morphine-like effect on the body, reducing the perception of pain, without any addictive properties or negative side effects like many medications. You can track all of your activities with the Exercise and Workout Tracker in HealtheHuman. Once your log your activities over a period of time, analyze your data along with your stress, mood, and symptom information to see the impact of regular exercise on your depression.
One of the symptoms of depression is an unexpected change in weight, either a gain or loss. If your activity levels are reducing, you are sleeping more, and craving more “comfort foods”, you will most likely see a change in your weight or overall fitness level. Seeing these changes could help you acknowledge an episode of depression. For other types of depression, especially those with manic phases, you might experience a significant weight loss due to heightened activity levels, forgetting to eat due to excitation, and other driving behaviors. Weight is one of the metrics you can use to monitor the impact of depression on your life. The Body Measurement Tracker helps you log your weight as well as other key measurements on your body, such as waist size. For athletes and others who might have a body composition scale, the Body Composition Tracker will help track muscle mass, body fat percentages, and much more.
Certain foods can interact with medications, especially monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors, which are common in the treatment of depression. For example, large amounts of chocolate while taking an MAO inhibitor can cause a sudden increase in blood pressure. A number of different foods should be avoided when taking an MAO inhibitor, such as sausage, salami, pepperoni, bologna, and aged cheese. Keeping a log of your diet could be valuable information for a physician, especially if you are experiencing side effects or have high blood pressure. The Diet and Nutrition Tracker in HealtheHuman lets you track all of your daily foods and beverages, with a number of reporting and charting options to help you share this information with your doctors easily.
Dealing with chronic depression often involves working with a number of different types of doctors, specialists, and advisors. As you continue to manage your depression through the years, you might see numerous doctors, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and counselors, so it is important to maintain accurate records for all the people who have been a part of your treatment. Providing details on all your health advisors, both past and present, can be very important to a new physician or counselor. The Advisor History feature in HealtheHuman helps you keep track of all your health advisors, including maintaining information of their contact details, prescription history, appointments, and related expenses.
Keeping your doctors informed on your medical history is an important part of your care, and could have an impact on their course of treatment. Make sure to provide your physicians and other health advisors with as much detail on your past medical conditions, procedures, surgeries, hospitalizations, or any other relevant aspect of your health. Providing a clear picture of your history can provide insights into potential triggers for your depression. Health conditions can also increase the likelihood of depression, such as thyroid disorders, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, and chronic pain. Any previous diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be vital information that could influence your treatment plan. The various health history features of HealtheHuman can help you build and share your comprehensive health history with all your health advisors.
Other Things You Can Do to Help Manage Depression
If you are having thoughts of committing suicide or harming yourself or others, please call your local emergency number (such as 911) or go to a hospital emergency room. If you are in the United States, you can call a suicide hotline number 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-SUICIDE or 1-800-999-9999. It is important to seek help if you are struggling with your depression. You do not need to be ashamed of these feelings and there are people who can help you.
Depression can be an isolating illness especially if you are struggling with feelings of shame and low self-esteem. It is important to talk to people about your condition, from supportive friends and family members to working with a professional. Talking about your thoughts and feelings can be very helpful, and working with a therapist can help you learn techniques to manage your condition. One of the most important things to learn is how to spot symptoms and triggers that worsen your depression so you can take preventative or corrective action as soon as possible. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help teach you techniques to fight off negative feelings, detect symptoms, and learn problem-solving skills. Another option is psychotherapy, which can help you understand the underlying issues behind many of your thoughts or feelings, especially if your depression is triggered by a life-changing event. A number of support groups exist to help people who are struggling with similar conditions or life events. Overall, it is important to start talking and keep talking about your depression.
When you are feeling sad, frustrated, anxious, and all the other gamut of emotions that come with being depressed, many people are drawn to substances to make them feel better. People who are depressed are more likely to use alcohol, prescriptions, and illegal substances. What many people do not realize is that many of these substances can make the symptoms of depression worse or can interact with your medications and make them less effective. If you are struggling with these feelings, talk to your doctor about medications and treatment options to help you manage your feelings without stepping outside of your course of treatment.
Sometimes it is hard to acknowledge that some of the people in your life might be doing more harm than good in your management of depression. It is important to surround yourself with people who care about you, are positive and supportive, and want to help you feel better.
While it is important to track information related to your depression, one of the main reasons to log all of this information is to create more effective and meaningful visits with your doctors, therapists, and other health advisors. Maintaining regular appointments with your treating physicians and therapists is vital to your long-term success managing depression. It is important to keep your appointments with your doctor and to provide as much detail as possible to make their treatments, recommendations, and prescriptions effective.
Other Resources
U.S. National Library of Medicine, Depression
U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, Depression
Medical Disclaimer: All information on this site is of a general nature and is furnished for your knowledge and understanding only. This information is not to be taken as medical or other health advice pertaining to your specific health and medical condition.
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