essay about life and depression

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Personal Stories

My depression in my life.

By Leah Anonymous

Depression is something that shows itself differently for everyone. There is no one person, or one story, or one experience that can make someone universally understand truly how depression alters the lives of those of us who suffer from it. I can’t make anyone understand how it is for everyone, but I can tell you how it alters my life, and maybe that will help people understand how all-encompassing it really is.

For me there are two main ways that my depression manifests itself when it breaks through the barriers I have set with the help of years of therapy and medication. There is the gut wrenching loneliness and near constant anxiety and then there is the checking out, the feeling nothing at all, the numbness. Sometimes I don’t know which is worse, but I will try to explain both.

The Loneliness and Anxiety:

In some ways I consider this step one of when my depression spikes because it always seems to come first. But I don’t consider it step one in levels of horribleness. Like I said above I really think that both ways my depression hits me are pretty awful and I couldn’t say which is worse.

You know that feeling you have in your gut when you are about to and/or really need to cry. While that is what it is like. All the time. I could be laughing and having a great time with my friends, which I often am because my friends are great, and yet in the back of my mind I feel more alone than ever and I just want to curl up into fetal position and cry. But I never can. I can’t go home and cry and then feel better, because it’s not like there is something to cry about, or really anything to be sad about. And it isn’t really sadness. It is complete solitude. It’s when my brain tells me that I am alone, that I can’t be loved, that no one really wants me around, and worst of all that no one will understand me.

That is worst of all because at the place I am in my life, no matter what I have been through in the past, or what my depression tries to make me believe I know that I can be loved, that I’m not alone and that I am wanted. And I know that because of the hard work I have done to get to that place in my life, and because of some of the amazing people in my life who make sure that I know that they are there for me, that they love me, and that they want to spend time with me.

But the idea that no one will ever truly understand who I am, or any of that. That is a little harder to dissuade myself from believing. Because as much as I can tell people what I went, and still go through and what goes through my mind, who can really understand me other than me. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the way my depression tells me it, it is a bad thing.

So there I am surrounded by people, very possibly having some of the best experiences of my life, feeling like I need to bawl, completely unable to, and nearly having an anxiety attack because I just want it to end.

And it is here where two things happen. It is here where I wish for and welcome the numbness because I don’t want to feel the all-encompassing loneliness and anxiety. It is also where I think about cutting.

I have not cut myself in three and a half years. And I know that it doesn’t solve my problems. I know that I shouldn’t and I don’t want to. Even when I want to I don’t want to.

But here, when I am feeling the all-encompassing loneliness which is the very last thing that I want to feel, I think about cutting because it lets me feel something else.

The physical act of cutting gives me something to think about and focus on, something other than that loneliness. And when I am not physically cutting, instead of thinking about how lonely I am and how that feeling will never end I think about the next time I can cut, or the most recent time I did.

And Then The Numbness:

I don’t really know how to explain this numbness. It is simply a period of time where I feel literally nothing. I fake happiness/normal emotion around friends, not always very well, and when I am alone I just don’t care about anything.

This is when my grades often fall because I don’t care about anything, including school, and therefore school work.

And then, sometimes I just want to feel something, anything, and so that is when I think about cutting. I think about cutting because it gives me something to feel, something I can control, but still feel.

The numbness comes because I can’t handle what I’m thinking and feeling, because it is too much for me to deal with, so I shut everything off so I don’t have to feel it.

In some ways, cutting transitions me back into feeling. But again, cutting, NOT A SOLUTION, NOT HEALTHY.

And something that I no longer do.

Now, for the past three and a half years, whenever I think of cutting, which I still do. It is still my first thought in either of these situations, I instead do one of the many things that I have come to know to help me cope.

For example, I force myself to spend more time with my friends, because I know that the loneliness will pass and I can talk myself out of feeling lonely when I am not physically alone.

I read/watch anything romantic. I pretend that I am one of the characters, and then I feel what they feel instead of what I am feeling (or preventing myself from feeling).

I belt along to old school Taylor Swift. Because what is more beautiful than a summer romance in a small country town with Chevy trucks and Tim McGraw?

And though my schoolwork does still sometimes fall through the cracks, I always make myself do some work.

Basically I force myself to live my life, because well, it is my life, and I refuse to live it feeling alone when I’m not, and numb when I could be great.

So even though I do feel those things far more often than I would like it is something that I live with, because I have depression.

Because depression is a disease, and I will always have it.

Because my depression is a part of who I am.

And most of all, because I only have one life, and I want to live it. Because even though when my depression spikes it makes me want to not live sometimes, I refuse.

Because I am the author of my own life and I choose to put a semicolon instead of a period at every point that my depression tells me otherwise.

So that is how my depression affects my life. That is how I deal with it. Like it or not I always will.

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This is what depression feels like

Courtenay Harris Bond

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Essays About Depression: Top 8 Examples Plus Prompts

Many people deal with mental health issues throughout their lives; if you are writing essays about depression, you can read essay examples to get started.

An occasional feeling of sadness is something that everyone experiences from time to time. Still, a persistent loss of interest, depressed mood, changes in energy levels, and sleeping problems can indicate mental illness. Thankfully, antidepressant medications, therapy, and other types of treatment can be largely helpful for people living with depression.

People suffering from depression or other mood disorders must work closely with a mental health professional to get the support they need to recover. While family members and other loved ones can help move forward after a depressive episode, it’s also important that people who have suffered from major depressive disorder work with a medical professional to get treatment for both the mental and physical problems that can accompany depression.

If you are writing an essay about depression, here are 8 essay examples to help you write an insightful essay. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

1. My Best Friend Saved Me When I Attempted Suicide, But I Didn’t Save Her by Drusilla Moorhouse
2. How can I complain? by James Blake
3. What it’s like living with depression: A personal essay by Nadine Dirks
4. I Have Depression, and I’m Proof that You Never Know the Battle Someone is Waging Inside by Jac Gochoco
5. Essay: How I Survived Depression by Cameron Stout
6. I Can’t Get Out of My Sweat Pants: An Essay on Depression by Marisa McPeck-Stringham
7. This is what depression feels like by Courtenay Harris Bond

8. Opening Up About My Struggle with Recurring Depression by Nora Super

1. what is depression, 2. how is depression diagnosed, 3. causes of depression, 4. different types of depression, 5. who is at risk of depression, 6. can social media cause depression, 7. can anyone experience depression, the final word on essays about depression, is depression common, what are the most effective treatments for depression.

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Top 8 Examples

1. my best friend saved me when i attempted suicide, but i didn’t save her by drusilla moorhouse.

“Just three months earlier, I had been a patient in another medical facility: a mental hospital. My best friend, Denise, had killed herself on Christmas, and days after the funeral, I told my mom that I wanted to die. I couldn’t forgive myself for the role I’d played in Denise’s death: Not only did I fail to save her, but I’m fairly certain I gave her the idea.”

Moorhouse makes painstaking personal confessions throughout this essay on depression, taking the reader along on the roller coaster of ups and downs that come with suicide attempts, dealing with the death of a loved one, and the difficulty of making it through major depressive disorder.

2. How can I complain? by James Blake

“I wanted people to know how I felt, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to tell them. I have gone into a bit of detail here not to make anyone feel sorry for me but to show how a privileged, relatively rich-and-famous-enough-for-zero-pity white man could become depressed against all societal expectations and allowances. If I can be writing this, clearly it isn’t only oppression that causes depression; for me it was largely repression.”

Musician James Blake shares his experience with depression and talks about his struggles with trying to grow up while dealing with existential crises just as he began to hit the peak of his fame. Blake talks about how he experienced guilt and shame around the idea that he had it all on the outside—and so many people deal with issues that he felt were larger than his.

3. What it’s like living with depression: A personal essay by Nadine Dirks

“In my early adulthood, I started to feel withdrawn, down, unmotivated, and constantly sad. What initially seemed like an off-day turned into weeks of painful feelings that seemed they would never let up. It was difficult to enjoy life with other people my age. Depression made typical, everyday tasks—like brushing my teeth—seem monumental. It felt like an invisible chain, keeping me in bed.”

Dirks shares her experience with depression and the struggle she faced to find treatment for mental health issues as a Black woman. Dirks discusses how even though she knew something about her mental health wasn’t quite right, she still struggled to get the diagnosis she needed to move forward and receive proper medical and psychological care.

4. I Have Depression, and I’m Proof that You Never Know the Battle Someone is Waging Inside by Jac Gochoco

“A few years later, at the age of 20, my smile had fallen, and I had given up. The thought of waking up the next morning was too much for me to handle. I was no longer anxious or sad; instead, I felt numb, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse. I called my dad, who lived across the country, and for the first time in my life, I told him everything. It was too late, though. I was not calling for help. I was calling to say goodbye.”

Gochoco describes the war that so many people with depression go through—trying to put on a brave face and a positive public persona while battling demons on the inside. The Olympic weightlifting coach and yoga instructor now work to share the importance of mental health with others.

5. Essay: How I Survived Depression by Cameron Stout

“In 1993, I saw a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. Within two months, the medication slowly gained traction. As the gray sludge of sadness and apathy washed away, I emerged from a spiral of impending tragedy. I helped raise two wonderful children, built a successful securities-litigation practice, and became an accomplished cyclist. I began to take my mental wellness for granted. “

Princeton alum Cameron Stout shared his experience with depression with his fellow Tigers in Princeton’s alumni magazine, proving that even the most brilliant and successful among us can be rendered powerless by a chemical imbalance. Stout shares his experience with treatment and how working with mental health professionals helped him to come out on the other side of depression.

6. I Can’t Get Out of My Sweat Pants: An Essay on Depression by Marisa McPeck-Stringham

“Sometimes, when the depression got really bad in junior high, I would come straight home from school and change into my pajamas. My dad caught on, and he said something to me at dinner time about being in my pajamas several days in a row way before bedtime. I learned it was better not to change into my pajamas until bedtime. People who are depressed like to hide their problematic behaviors because they are so ashamed of the way they feel. I was very ashamed and yet I didn’t have the words or life experience to voice what I was going through.”

McPeck-Stringham discusses her experience with depression and an eating disorder at a young age; both brought on by struggles to adjust to major life changes. The author experienced depression again in her adult life, and thankfully, she was able to fight through the illness using tried-and-true methods until she regained her mental health.

7. This is what depression feels like by Courtenay Harris Bond

“The smallest tasks seem insurmountable: paying a cell phone bill, lining up a household repair. Sometimes just taking a shower or arranging a play date feels like more than I can manage. My children’s squabbles make me want to scratch the walls. I want to claw out of my own skin. I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is a solitary candle about to blow out at any moment. At the same time, I feel like the pain will never end.”

Bond does an excellent job of helping readers understand just how difficult depression can be, even for people who have never been through the difficulty of mental illness. Bond states that no matter what people believe the cause to be—chemical imbalance, childhood issues, a combination of the two—depression can make it nearly impossible to function.

“Once again, I spiraled downward. I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t work. I had thoughts of harming myself. This time, my husband urged me to start ECT much sooner in the cycle, and once again, it worked. Within a matter of weeks I was back at work, pretending nothing had happened. I kept pushing myself harder to show everyone that I was “normal.” I thought I had a pattern: I would function at a high level for many years, and then my depression would be triggered by a significant event. I thought I’d be healthy for another ten years.”

Super shares her experience with electroconvulsive therapy and how her depression recurred with a major life event despite several years of solid mental health. Thankfully, Super was able to recognize her symptoms and get help sooner rather than later.

7 Writing Prompts on Essays About Depression

When writing essays on depression, it can be challenging to think of essay ideas and questions. Here are six essay topics about depression that you can use in your essay.

Depression can be difficult to define and understand. Discuss the definition of depression, and delve into the signs, symptoms, and possible causes of this mental illness. Depression can result from trauma or personal circumstances, but it can also be a health condition due to genetics. In your essay, look at how depression can be spotted and how it can affect your day-to-day life.

Depression diagnosis can be complicated; this essay topic will be interesting as you can look at the different aspects considered in a diagnosis. While a certain lab test can be conducted, depression can also be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. Research the different ways depression can be diagnosed and discuss the benefits of receiving a diagnosis in this essay.

There are many possible causes of depression; this essay discusses how depression can occur. Possible causes of depression can include trauma, grief, anxiety disorders, and some physical health conditions. Look at each cause and discuss how they can manifest as depression.

There are many different types of depression. This essay topic will investigate each type of depression and its symptoms and causes. Depression symptoms can vary in severity, depending on what is causing it. For example, depression can be linked to medical conditions such as bipolar disorder. This is a different type of depression than depression caused by grief. Discuss the details of the different types of depression and draw comparisons and similarities between them.

Certain genetic traits, socio-economic circumstances, or age can make people more prone to experiencing symptoms of depression. Depression is becoming more and more common amongst young adults and teenagers. Discuss the different groups at risk of experiencing depression and how their circumstances contribute to this risk.

Social media poses many challenges to today’s youth, such as unrealistic beauty standards, cyber-bullying, and only seeing the “highlights” of someone’s life. Can social media cause depression in teens? Delve into the negative impacts of social media when writing this essay. You could compare the positive and negative sides of social media and discuss whether social media causes mental health issues amongst young adults and teenagers.

This essay question poses the question, “can anyone experience depression?” Although those in lower-income households may be prone to experiencing depression, can the rich and famous also experience depression? This essay discusses whether the privileged and wealthy can experience their possible causes. This is a great argumentative essay topic, discuss both sides of this question and draw a conclusion with your final thoughts.

When writing about depression, it is important to study examples of essays to make a compelling essay. You can also use your own research by conducting interviews or pulling information from other sources. As this is a sensitive topic, it is important to approach it with care; you can also write about your own experiences with mental health issues.

Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

FAQs On Essays About Depression

According to the World Health Organization, about 5% of people under 60 live with depression. The rate is slightly higher—around 6%—for people over 60. Depression can strike at any age, and it’s important that people who are experiencing symptoms of depression receive treatment, no matter their age.

Suppose you’re living with depression or are experiencing some of the symptoms of depression. In that case, it’s important to work closely with your doctor or another healthcare professional to develop a treatment plan that works for you. A combination of antidepressant medication and cognitive behavioral therapy is a good fit for many people, but this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone who suffers from depression. Be sure to check in with your doctor regularly to ensure that you’re making progress toward improving your mental health.

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

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From depression to love: How meditation and psychosynthesis have transformed my life

At my lowest points in life, circumstances led me away from home and opened me to positive practices and psychosynthesis

By Anastasia Wasko

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My first episode of severe depression emerged when I was 14 years old. I remember being immobile, unable to think or interact. I had started falling asleep in class, and an astute teacher pointed this out to behavioural specialists, who indicated a significant problem.

They were unaware of my home life situation: My father had recently married the woman who, in my eyes, broke up my family. My mom splintered off into her own severe depression, and I couldn’t focus on school work. I was in a full-blown crisis of meaning*. I stopped going to my public high school. After some discussion with my new stepmother, my dad decided to enroll me in a different private school. I soon won a scholarship to be an exchange student to Germany.

This changed everything.

At a retreat there, I had my first encounter with meditation, and from that, “witness consciousness .” This is a way of observing thoughts in a detached manner, where the Self is an observer. I was fascinated to learn more. I started to feel better from the teenage angst and lingering depression because I had chosen a “higher calling.” This sense of purpose and meaning seemed to soften the severe depression. My interest in science, spirituality, and how they intersected through practices emerged.

Who knew leaving home would deliver a profound experience that serves me still?

It happened again.

It was the summer of 2020, and my symptoms of stress appeared for good reason: The pandemic had arrived and my landlord decided to cash in on surge of city folk relocating to the beautiful mountains of upstate New York. Rental prices shot up, availability went down. Where now?

I found a place where the cost of living was cheaper and the housing was more available, and where I could find the mental space to undertake a Masters’ program. Louisiana.

I made the 20-hour drive south, along with my depression-like symptoms: a lack of energy, the inability to focus and a sense of hopelessness. My mind raced at the thought of social interaction. Angry scenes of confronting my landlord made their way into my dreams at night. Other times I dreamt of going back to my apartment in New York.

Amid the stress, there was opportunity: The move south meant I could afford to work part-time while completing a post-graduate degree.

What I didn’t know then is that, in addition to the stress symptoms, part of what I was experiencing was consciousness expansion . This was psychosynthesis , a psychological framework and process that reflects a person’s impulse to return to wholeness. It involves spiritual awakening, where the Self becomes aware of its spiritual nature and unfolds in cycles as the individuals becomes more connected within and with all living energies.

Perhaps the impulse to stick with the plan for graduate school was an intuited inkling of the larger journey unfolding for me. I intended to study psychosynthesis at The Institute of Psychosynthesis in London through in an exclusive and accredited international online program.

I felt a new sense of purpose and meaning.

Who knew leaving home would do that for me (again!)?

As I started studying psychosynthesis, I recognized that the process was happening in me. My self-awareness was growing and I could identify the different aspects of my being: Spiritual Scientist and the person living with depression and bipolar . I was able to “witness” – to objectively identify and acknowledge these parts, and see them move through the process of psychosynthesis. In fact, I was a living case study in psychosynthesis: I actively drew awareness to and made meaning with experiences many people consider abnormal or pathological.

MY DISTINCT SELVES My process involved reflecting on myself as Spiritual Scientist . When I delved into the Spiritual qualities, it appeared that many of my actions were based on a belief that It’s in the universe’s hands or There’s deeper meaning here, which was a surprise having not applied or unpacked such a claim. I could have easily said, “This is out of my control,” foreshadowing my mindset when things happened that seemed to come from somewhere beyond my efforts.

The “Scientist” was cool and detached. My earlier childhood experiences taught me that hiding myself and repressing my emotions was a defense-and-safety mechanism. It kept me from being present in painful moments and, later, from actually cultivating a sense of home and stability. I was always chasing the next great project, place, or idea to explore.

However, Self was present. Love and will were present. Will precedes consciousness; that is, the impulse to make different choices or be open to step into circumstances. The Spiritual Scientist part of me was not willing to be reflective and enter the psychological milieu to untangle trauma and understand how my needs were not met.

All of my practices (meditation, study of yoga and yoga culture) led me to an intellectual spirituality but not an embodied one. This mindset started to crack during a significant mental health crisis in my early 30s.

AM I MY DISORDER? By then I was living in New York and experiencing the same debilitating depression that I had episodes of while I was child. This time, there was mania to go with it. I asked myself, “Who am I?” because the truth was that I had cycled between the two extremes (with mixed state in between) and struggled to make meaning of who I was. I thought the disorder was me .

An astute mental healthcare practitioner, who had studied Ayurveda, gave me suggestions to start minding my behavior and my body. We started working together on a regular basis and applied holistic thinking to managing my bipolar disorder. Eventually, when it seemed that I was able to be conversant about my inner life in a way that represented a disidentification (detachment) from that person I was when I wasn’t well, I started the work of psychosynthesis. I was fascinated by what was going on inside my disordered mind and rogue body — even though it was an excruciating lived experience. This observation also marks awakening within disorder.

Through psychosynthesis, I learned that the person I was who had survived extreme mental (and physical) states had the potential to be happy, healthy, and whole.

What an explosive idea!

I also learned that each of us are the agents of our own experience; we know best what is happening inside .

This revelation might have been the anchor of my entire recovery program.

I knew the experiences of people with significant psychiatric illness often involved medication and sometimes hospitalization. I held the notion in my gut that this was because most people who didn’t share the experience of the disorder couldn’t empathize, let alone lead a person like me to a stable and peace-filled place within the chaos.

Intuitively, I knew I could have a different experience.

DOING THE WORK I had to work hard through meditation, creative expressive activities, and regular healthcare that included psychotherapy to understand my body and mind. I had only ever known the dis-ease, the personality of someone who wasn’t well, or the Spiritual Scientist. Both personalities had something for me. One put me in situations that were so far from the norm that my mind had a range most people couldn’t meet. The other kept me “calm, cool, and collected” while learning the process to witness my inner life. There is a difference between a body that is responding to stimuli (a healthy response: stress) and a body that is out of balance (where dis-ease causes it to act as a sort of receiver when too many energetic frequencies are being broadcast). A bipolar body is the latter.

Meditation, which strengthened my ability to focus and anchor within a sometimes stormy experience, was the foundation of my recovery. And then psychosynthesis helped me understand what to do with my mind. That means I deconstructed and reconstructed subpersonalities . The ones that I enacted (and which protected me) while I was not well are different from the ones I live in now.

TRANSFORMATION

I had been in denial about my own mental health issues and stuck to the spiritual bypassing the Spiritual Scientist imparted. I swapped deeper psychological work for “the universe wills it” type thinking pre-recovery because I wasn’t able to meaningfully do the work. The disorder was too strong. But the Self, as it emerged and when it started to become a central factor in my life, showed me that this whole experience prepared me for service .

I learned the will is often connected to the self through the discovery that the Self has a will. We can focus intention and bring ourselves to do great things once we are in an expanded and conscious state. That doesn’t mean, like, levitating like the ancient sadhus in India. That means, for me, the simple and powerful ability to make different choices. I chose to not give the manic rushes or depression weights or hallucinations or sensory overload all of my energy. I retained control by exercising my will and saying, sometimes minute-by-minute, “This is not who I am. This is just what my body and mind are receiving right now.”

I’m now sharing this experience for the greater good through my psychosynthesis-informed consulting so that others may navigate toward wholeness.

LIVING LIFE

Psychosynthesis enabled me to achieve a level of mental health that I had formerly dreamed of. At one time, living in a stable house and working regularly would have been unimaginable to a person with bipolar disorder; the waves of instability would have been too strong.

My relocation to Louisiana occurred after a literal and existential crisis, and I arrived depressed. I relied upon my work and being too busy to fully process my feelings. Who was I?

I’m unfolding still; no longer the Spiritual Scientist and yet still not sure what is emerging. But such is the relationship with Self.

I have lived with significant psychological and psychiatric challenges throughout my life. While the clarification of behavior patterns into subpersonalities has supported getting to know my psychological landscape, I have to wonder, What are these experiences in service of?

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL Psychosynthesis changed my career trajectory and how I experience life.

I became someone who operates from the heart with joy and compassion as the baseline of energetic exchange. I’m returning to what I feel is my core self, engaging more with creative writing and working with individuals. Now I connect through a warm interaction that is based on relating versus the cold, detached outlook of a spiritual seeker who hands over control to the universe.

My core Self feels like a conduit for love . And, the anxiety and depression related to the move have dissipated. To harmonize my existence, I have to acknowledge that the Self within me identified these forms of consciousness as limiting and sought to overcome them.

After a long, dark, and existentially challenging psychological exploration, I am ready to be in more service to others.

* Crisis of meaning , as described in this paper on the National Institutes of Health (USA) website: “Individuals who are suffering from a crisis of meaning often judge their lives as frustratingly empty and pointless. They feel disorientated, experience depression, and suicidal ideations. Moreover, this existential state is linked with heightened anxiety, negative affect, and pessimism, on the one hand, and decreased resilience, motivation, life satisfaction, hope, self-regulation, and self-efficacy, on the other hand. A crisis of meaning is often caused by critical life events (e.g., failure, illness, death, divorce, or job loss), linked with a loss of one’s sense of coherence in life, and results in questioning life’s purpose.”

Anastasia Wasko is a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide helping individuals explore their relationship with the world beyond the ego so they can be more present, joy-filled, and fulfilled in their human experience. She is an energy worker (flowing Centaur energy) and has consulted charts in the evolutionary astrology style for years. Anastasia has studied Ayurveda and yoga culture with Dr. Vasant Lad, among others. She earned a B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia University (former Institute of Transpersonal Psychology) and is currently exploring psychosynthesis in the Masters’ program at The Institute of Psychosynthesis in London, England. AnastasiaWasko.com

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My battle with depression and the two things it taught me

I’ve spent a decade slipping in and out of depression, but thanks to the right medicine and loving people, I’m back to being me again

I t’s often said that depression isn’t about feeling sad. It’s part of it, of course, but to compare the life-sapping melancholy of depression to normal sadness is like comparing a paper cut to an amputation. Sadness is a healthy part of every life. Depression progressively eats away your whole being from the inside. It’s with you when you wake up in the morning, telling you there’s nothing or anyone to get up for. It’s with you when the phone rings and you’re too frightened to answer it.

It’s with you when you look into the eyes of those you love, and your eyes prick with tears as you try, and fail, to remember how to love them. It’s with you as you search within for those now eroded things that once made you who you were: your interests, your creativity, your inquisitiveness, your humour, your warmth. And it’s with you as you wake terrified from each nightmare and pace the house, thinking frantically of how you can escape your poisoned life; escape the embrace of the demon that is eating away your mind like a slow drip of acid.

And always, the biggest stigma comes from yourself. You blame yourself for the illness that you can only dimly see.

So why was I depressed? The simple answer is that I don’t know. There was no single factor or trigger that plunged me into it. I’ve turned over many possibilities in my mind. But the best I can conclude is that depression can happen to anyone. I thought I was strong enough to resist it, but I was wrong. That attitude probably explains why I suffered such a serious episode – I resisted seeking help until it was nearly too late.

Let me take you back to 1996. I’d just begun my final year at university and had recently visited my doctor to complain of feeling low. He immediately put me on an antidepressant, and I got down to the business of getting my degree. The pills took a few weeks to work, but the effects were remarkable. Too remarkable. About six weeks in I was leaping from my bed each morning with a vigour and enthusiasm I had never experienced, at least not since early childhood. I started churning out first-class essays and my mind began to make connections with an ease that it had never done before.

The only problem was that the drug did much more. It broke down any fragile sense I had of social appropriateness. I’d frequently say ridiculous and painful things to people I had no right to say them to. So, after a few months, I decided to stop the pills. I ended them abruptly, not realising how foolish that was – and spent a week or two experiencing brain zaps and vertigo. But it was worth it. I still felt good, my mind was still productive, and I regained my sense of social niceties and appropriate behaviour.

I had hoped that was my last brush with mental health problems, but it was not to be.

On reflection, I realise I have spent over a decade dipping in and out of minor bouts of depression – each one slightly worse than the last.

Last spring I was in the grip of depression again. I couldn’t work effectively. I couldn’t earn the income I needed. I began retreating to the safety of my bed – using sleep to escape myself and my exhausted and joyless existence.

So I returned to the doctor and told her about it. It was warm, and I was wearing a cardigan. “I think we should test your thyroid,” she said. “But an antidepressant might help in the meantime.” And here I realised, for all my distaste for the stigmatisation of mental illness, that I stigmatised it in myself. I found myself hoping my thyroid was bust. Tell someone your thyroid’s not working, and they’ll understand and happily wait for you to recover. Tell them you’re depressed, and they might think you’re weak, or lazy, or making it up. I really wanted it to be my thyroid. But, of course, when the blood test came back, it wasn’t. I was depressed.

So I took the antidepressant. And it worked. To begin with. A month into the course, the poisonous cloud began to lift and I even felt my creativity and urge to write begin to return for the first time in years. Not great literature, but fun to write and enjoyed by my friends on social media. And tellingly, my wife said: “You’re becoming more like the person I first met.”

It was a turning point. The drug had given me objectivity about my illness, made me view it for what it was. This was when I realised I had been going through cycles of depression for years. It was a process of gradual erosion, almost impossible to spot while you were experiencing it. But the effects of the drug didn’t last. By September I was both deeply depressed and increasingly angry, behaving erratically and feeling endlessly paranoid.

My wife threatened to frog march me back to the doctor, so I made an appointment and was given another drug. The effects have been miraculous. Nearly two months in and I can feel the old me re-emerging. My engagement and interest is flooding back. I’m back at work and I’m producing copy my clients really love. Only eight weeks ago, the very idea that I would be sitting at home tapping out a blog post of this length on my phone would have made me grunt derisively. But that is what has happened, and I am truly grateful to all those who love and care for me for pushing me along to this stage.

And now, I need to get back to work. Depression may start for no definable reason, but it leaves a growing trail of problems in its wake. The more ill I got, the less work I could do, the more savings I spent and the larger the piles of unpaid bills became. But now I can start to tackle these things.

If you still attach stigma to people with mental illness, please remember two things. One, it could easily happen to you. And two, no one stigmatises their illness more than the people who suffer from it. Reach out to them.

Mental health

327 Depression Essay Titles & Examples

When choosing a title about depression, you have to remain mindful since this is a sensitive subject. This is why our experts have listed 177 depression essay topics to help you get started.

🌧️ How to Write a Depression Essay: Do’s and Don’ts

🏆 unique titles about depression, 🥇 most interesting depression title ideas, 📌 good titles for depression essay, ✅ simple & easy depression essay titles, 🎓 interesting topics to write about depression, 📑 good research topics about depression.

❓ Research Questions for a Depression Essay

Depression is a disorder characterized by prolonged periods of sadness and loss of interest in life. The symptoms include irritability, insomnia, anxiety, and trouble concentrating. This disorder can produce physical problems, self-esteem issues, and general stress in a person’s life. Difficult life events and trauma are typical causes of depression. Want to find out more? Check out our compilation below.

A depression essay is an important assignment that will help you to explore the subject and its impact on people. Writing this type of paper may seem challenging at first, but there are some secrets that will make achieving a high grade much easier. Check below for a list of do’s and don’ts to get started!

DO select a narrow topic. Before starting writing, define the subject of the paper, and write down some possible titles. This will help you to focus your thoughts instead of offering generic information that can easily be found on Wikipedia. Consider writing about a particular population or about the consequences of depression. For example, a teenage depression essay could earn you excellent marks! If you find this step challenging, try searching for depression essay topics online. This will surely give you some inspiration.

DON’T copy from peers or other students. Today, tutors are usually aware of the power of the Internet and will check your paper for plagiarism. Hence, if you copy information from other depression essays, you could lose a lot of marks. You could search for depression essay titles or sample papers online, but avoid copying any details from these sources.

DO your research before starting. High-quality research is crucial when you write essays on mental health issues. There are plenty of online resources that could help you, including Google Scholar, PubMed, and others. To find relevant scientific articles, search for your primary and secondary topics of interest. Then filter results by relevance, publication date, and access type. This will help you to identify sources that you can view online and use to support your ideas.

DON’T rely on unverified sources. This is a crucial mistake many students make that usually results in failing the paper. Sources that are not academic, such as websites, blogs, and Wiki pages, may contain false or outdated information. Some exceptions are official publications and web pages of medical organizations, such as the CDC, APA, and the World Health Organization.

DO consider related health issues. Depression is often associated with other mental or physical health issues, so you should reflect on this in your paper. Some examples of problems related to depression are suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and panic attack disorder. To show your in-depth understanding of the issue, you could write a depression and anxiety essay that shows the relationship between the two. Alternatively, you can devote one or two paragraphs to examining the prevalence of other mental health problems in people with depression.

DON’T include personal opinions and experiences unless required. A good essay on the subject of depression should be focused and objective. Hence, you should rely on research rather than on your understanding of the theme. For example, if you have to answer the question “What is depression?” look for scientific articles or official publications that contain the definition rather than trying to explain it in your own words.

DON’T forget about structure. The structure of your essay helps to present arguments or points logically, thus assisting the reader in making sense of the information. A good thing to do is to write a depression essay outline before you start the paper. You should list your key points supported by relevant depression quotes from academic publications. Follow the outline carefully to avoid gaps and inconsistencies.

Use these do’s and don’ts, and you will be able to write an excellent paper on depression! If you want to see more tips and tricks that will help you elevate your writing, look around our website!

Understanding Teen Depression Impacts of depression on teenagers Depression is characterized by several effects; however, most of them impact negatively to the teens. For instance, a considerable percentage of teens use extra-curriculum activities such as sports and games, […]
Health Promotion: Depression Awareness in Teenagers In addition to community sensitization and promoting the expression of melancholic emotions by adolescents, the DAP program will include depression screening days in schools.
Depression and Grief in the “Ordinary People” Film At the end of the film, he is healed and ready to forgive his mother and stop blaming himself. I believe that the relationship between Conrad and his therapist, Dr.
Depression, Grief, Loss in “Ordinary People” Film The coach is curious to know Conrad’s experiences at the hospital and the use of ECT. Towards the end of the film, Conrad reveals to the therapist that he feels guilty about his brother’s death.
Report Writing About Depression There is concrete evidence that many people in Australia tend to believe that depression is the cause of all suicide deaths in the world, but this not true.
Beck Depression Inventory, Its History and Benefits Therefore, the detection of depression at its early stage, the evaluation of the risks, and the definition of the level of depression are the main goals.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Treating Depression CBT works on the principle that positive thoughts and behaviour heralds positive moods and this is something that can be learned; therefore, by learning to think and behave positively, someone may substitute negative thoughts with […]
The Problem of Childhood Depression Thus, it is essential to explore the reasons for the disease and possible ways to treat depression in kids. In kids, the prevention of depression is fundamental to understanding the cause of the poor mood […]
Depression and Its Causes in the Modern Society The higher instances of depression among women can be explained using a number of reasons including the lifestyle of the modern woman and her role in the society.
Depression in Older Adults The understanding and modification of the contributions of these factors is the ultimate goal of the clinicians who engage in the treatment of depression.
Depression in Adolescence and Treatment Approaches The age of adolescence, commonly referred to as children aged 10-19, is characterized by a variety of changes to one’s physical and mental health, as the child undergoes several stages of adjustment to the environment […]
Depression in the Lens of History and Humanities In terms of history, this paper analyzes the origin of depression and the progress made over the years in finding treatment and preventive mechanisms.
Emotional Wellness: The Issue of Depression Through Different Lenses As for the humanities lens, the increasing prevalence of depression causes the institution of religion to incorporate the issue into major confessions’ mindsets and messages.
Depression and Paranoid Personality Disorder Bainbridge include: The analysis of paranoia and anxiety caused by substance abuse reveals that the diagnosis can be correct based on the symptoms, but the long-lasting nature of the symptoms rejects this diagnosis in favor […]
Postpartum Depression: Treatment and Therapy It outlines the possible treatment and therapy methods, as well as the implications of the condition. A 28-year-old patient presented in the office three weeks after giving birth to her first son with the symptoms […]
Beck Depression Inventory in Psychological Practice Beck in the 1990s, the theory disrupted the traditional flow of Freudian theories development and introduced the audience to the concept of cognitive development, therefore, inviting psychologists to interpret the changes in the patient’s emotional […]
Yoga for Depression and Anxiety A simple definition of yoga will lead people to generalize it as a system of exercise and a kind of mindset that would result in the union of mind and body.
Effect of Social Media on Depression The number of friends that the participants of the mock study had in their social sites was also related to the degree of depression that they experienced.
Using the Neuman Model in the Early Diagnosis of Depression In the history of the academic development of nursing theories, there are a variety of iconic figures who have made significant contributions to the evolution of the discipline: one of them is Betty Neuman.
Anxiety and Depression Among College Students The central hypothesis for this study is that college students have a higher rate of anxiety and depression. Some of the materials to be used in the study will include pencils, papers, and tests.
The Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) on Depression in Adults Introduction It is hard to disagree that there is a vast number of mental disorders that prevent people from leading their normal lives and are quite challenging to treat. One such psychological condition is depression (Li et al., 2020). Since there is a social stigma of depression, and some of its symptoms are similar to […]
Biological and Social-Cognitive Perspectives on Depression The social-cognitive perspective states that the disorder’s development is influenced by the events in the patient’s life and their way of thinking.
The Potential of Psilocybin in Treating Depression First of all, it is essential to understand the general effects of psilocybin on the brain that are present in the current literature.
Depression: Description, Symptoms and Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment A diagnosis is made in situations where the symptoms persist for at least two weeks and lead to a change in the individual’s level of functioning.
Depression Treatment: Biopsychosocial Theory More to the point, the roles of nurses, an interprofessional team, and the patient’s family will be examined regarding the improvement of Majorie’s health condition.
Depression Among University Students The greatest majority of the affected individuals in different universities will be unable to take good care of their bodies and living rooms.
Teen Suicide and Depression In a recent national survey of teenagers concerning their information level and attitudes toward youth suicide, Marcenko et al revealed that 60 percent of the adolescents in the survey knew another teen who had attempted […]
Depression Among High School Students The specific problem surrounding the issue of depression among adolescents is the absence of timely diagnosis as the first step to depression management.
Fast Food, Obesity, Depression, and Other Issues However, in busy communities, fast foods are increasingly being the preferred choice of food because of their price and convenience and that is why they are commonly served in many hotels, cafes and even some […]
Organizational Behaviour: Depression in the Workplace This paper will examine the impacts of depression on the employees’ work performance and attendance and look at how managers can deal with hidden depression in such employees. The particular factors that bring about such […]
Social Networking and Depression The findings of the study confirmed that once an individual engages in social networking, his or her feeling of safety goes down and depression mood emerges meaning that a correlation between depression and social networking […]
Depression Symptoms and Cognitive Behavior Therapy The tone of the article is informative and objective, throughout the text the authors maintain an academic and scientific mood. The structure of the article is well organized and easy to read.
Proposal on Depression in Middle-Aged Women By understand the aspect of unhappiness among the young women; it will be easier for the healthcare institutions to formulate effective and appropriate approaches to reduce the menace in the society.
Biological Psychology: Lesion Studies and Depression Detection The purpose of this article is to share the research findings and discussion on the new methodological developments of Lesion studies.
Using AI to Diagnose and Treat Depression One of the main features of AI is the ability to machine learning, that is, to use data from past experiences to learn and modify algorithms in the future.
Artificial Intelligence Bot for Depression By increasing the availability and accessibility of mental health services, these technologies may also contribute to the development of cognitive science practices in Malaysia.
COVID-Related Depression: Lingering Signs of Depression The purpose of the article is to depict the research in a more approachable way, while the latter accentuates the importance of various factors and flaws of the results. While the former is more simplified, […]
Depression and Anxiety Among African Americans Finally, it should be insightful to understand the attitudes of friends and family members, so 5 additional interviews will be conducted with Black and White persons not having the identified mental conditions. The selected mental […]
Depression in Dialysis Patients: Treatment and Management If I were to conduct experimental research about the treatment and management of depression in dialysis patients, I would focus on finding the most effective and safe medication for the condition among adults.
The Serotonin Theory of Depression by Moncrieff et al. The serotonin theory of depression is closely related to antidepressants since the advent of SSRIs played a significant role in the popularization of the theory.
Avery’s Depression in “The Flick” Play by Baker The emotional and mental state of Avery, the only African-American character out of the three, is fairly obvious from the get-go when asked about why he is so depressed, the answer is: “Um.
Depression: A Quantitative-Qualitative Analysis A decision tree can be used due to the nature of the research question or hypothesis in place, the measurement of the dependent or research variable, the number of groups or independent variable levels, and […]
Depression Detection Tests Analysis The problem of the abundance of psychological tests leads to the need to compare multiple testing options for indicators of their purpose, features, and interpretations of the evaluation and validity.
Nursing Care for Patients With COVID-19 & Depression The significance of the selected problem contributed to the emergence of numerous research works devoted to the issue. This approach to choosing individuals guaranteed the increased credibility of findings and provided the authors with the […]
16 Personality Factors Test for Depression Patient Pablos results, it is necessary to understand the interaction and pattern of the scores of the primary factors. A combination of high Apprehension and high Self-Reliance is a pattern describing a tendency to isolate oneself.
Depression in a 30-Year-Old Female Client In the given case, it would be useful to identify the patterns in Alex’s relationships and reconsider her responses to her partner.
Depression in Primary Care: Screening and Diagnosis The clinical topics for this research are the incidence of depression in young adults and how to diagnose this disorder early in the primary care setting using screening tools such as PHQ9.
Major Depression and Cognitive Behavior Therapy Since the intervention had no significant effect on Lola, the paper will explore the physical health implication of anxiolytics and antidepressants in adolescents, including the teaching strategies that nurses can utilize on consumers to recognize […]
Jungian Psychotherapy for Depression and Anxiety They work as a pizza delivery man in their spare time from scientific activities, and their parents also send them a small amount of money every month.S.migrated to New York not only to get an […]
COVID-19 and Depression: The Impact of Nursing Care and Technology Nevertheless, combatting depression is a crucial step in posing positive achievements to recover from mental and physical wellness caused by COVID-19.
Depression Disorder Intervention The researchers evaluated the socioemotional signs of mental illnesses in a sample of diagnostically referred adolescents with clinical depression required to undergo regular cognitive behavioral therapy in a medical setting.
Financial Difficulties in Childhood and Adult Depression in Europe The authors found that the existence of closer ties between the catalyst of depression and the person suffering from depression leads to worse consequences.
Activity During Pregnancy and Postpartum Depression Studies have shown that women’s mood and cardiorespiratory fitness improve when they engage in moderate-intensity physical activity in the weeks and months after giving birth to a child.
Clinical Depression: Causes and Development Therefore, according to Aaron Beck, the causes and development of depression can be explained through the concepts of schema and negative cognitive triad.
Aspects of Working With Depression It also contributes to the maintenance and rooting of a bad mood, as the patient has sad thoughts due to the fact that the usual does not cause satisfaction.
Depression Among Nurses in COVID-19 Wards The findings are of great significance to researchers and governments and can indicate the prevalence of anxiety and depression among nurses working in COVID-19 wards in the North-East of England during the pandemic.
Depression Associated With Sleep Disorders Y, Chang, C. Consequently, it directly affects the manifestation of obstructive sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, and periodic limb movement disorder in people with depression.
Depression in a 25-Year-Old Male Patient Moreover, a person in depression complains of the slowness in mental processes, notes the oppression of instincts, the loss of the instinct of self-preservation, and the lack of the ability to enjoy life.
Aspects and Manifestation of Depression Although, symptoms of depression in young people, in contrast to older adults, are described by psychomotor agitation or lethargy, fatigue, and loss of energy.
Complementary Therapy for Postpartum Depression in Primary Care Thus, the woman faced frustration and sadness, preventing her from taking good care of the child, and the lack of support led to the emergence of concerns similar to those in the past.
Depression and Anxiety Clinical Case Many of the factors come from the background and life experiences of the patient. The client then had a chance to reflect on the results and think of the possible alternative thoughts.
Uncontrolled Type 2 Diabetes and Depression Treatment The data synthesis demonstrates that carefully chosen depression and anxiety treatment is likely to result in better A1C outcomes for the patient on the condition that the treatment is regular and convenient for the patients.
Technology to Fight Postpartum Depression in African American Women I would like to introduce the app “Peanut” the social network designed to help and unite women exclusively, as a technology aimed at fighting postpartum depression in African American Women.
Complementary Therapy in Treatment of Depression Such practices lower the general level of anxiety and remove the high risks of manifestation of states of abulia, that is, clinical lack of will and acute depression.
Social Determinants of Health and Depression Among African American Adults The article “Social Determinants of Health and Depression among African American Adults: A Scoping Review of Current Research” examines the current research on the relationship between social determinants of health and depression among African American […]
Outcomes Exercise Has on Depression for People Between 45-55 Years According to the WHO, the rate of depression in the U.S.was 31. 5% as of October 2021, with the majority of the victims being adults aged between 45 and 55 years.
The Postpartum Depression in Afro-Americans Policy The distribution of the funds is managed and administered on the state level. Minnesota and Maryland focused on passing the legislation regulating the adoption of Medicaid in 2013.
Case Study of Depression and Mental Pressure Alison believes that her illness is severe and taking a toll all the time, and the environment is worsening the condition.
Depression Among the Medicare Population in Maryland The statistics about the prevalence and comorbidity rates of depression are provided from the Medicare Chronic Conditions Dashboard and are portrayed in the table included in the paper.
Depression as Public Health Population-Based Issue In regard to particular races and ethnicities, CDC provided the following breakdown of female breast cancer cases and deaths: White women: 128 new cases and 20 deaths per 100.
Managing Mental Health Medications for Depression and its Ethical Contradiction The second objective is to discover ethical contradictions in such treatment for people of various cultures and how different people perceive the disorder and react to the medication.
Aspects of Depression and Obesity In some cases, people with mild to severe depression choose not to seek professional care and instead try to overcome their depression with self-help or the support of family and friends.
Antidepressant Treatment of Adolescent Depression At the same time, scientists evidenced that in the case of negative exposure to stress and depression, the human organism diminishes BDNF expression in the hippocampus.
Online Peer Support Groups for Depression and Anxiety Disorder The main objective of peer support groups is connecting people with the same life experiences and challenges to share and support each other in healing and recovery.
Emotional Encounter With a Patient With Major Depression Disorder I shared this idea with him and was trying to create the treatment plan, sharing some general thoughts on the issue.
Childhood Depression in Sub-Saharan Africa According to Sterling et al, depression in early childhood places a significant load on individuals, relatives, and society by increasing hospitalization and fatality and negatively impacting the quality of life during periods of severe depression.
Anxiety and Depression: The Case Study As he himself explained, he is not used to positive affirmation due to low self-esteem, and his family experiences also point to the fact that he was not comforted often as a child.
Breastfeeding and Risk of Postpartum Depression The primary goal of the research conducted by Islam et al.was to analyze the correlation between exclusive breastfeeding and the risk of postpartum depression among new mothers.
Nursing Intervention in Case of Severe Depression The patient was laid off from work and went through a divorce in the year. This led to a change in prescribed medications, and the patient was put on tricyclic anti-depressants.
Screening for Depression in Acute Care The literature review provides EB analysis for the topic of depression to identify the need for an appropriate screening tool in addition to the PHQ-9 in the assessment evaluation process.
Social Media Use and the Risk of Depression Thapa and Subedi explain that the reason for the development of depressive symptoms is the lack of face to face conversation and the development of perceived isolation. Is there a relationship between social media use […]
Depression in the Field of a Healthcare Administrator According to Davey and Harrison, the most challenging part of healthcare administration in terms of depression is the presence of distorted views, shaped by patients’ thoughts.
The Treatment of Adolescents With Depression While treating a teenager with depression, it is important to maintain the link between the cause of the mental illness’ progression and the treatment.
Depression in the Black Community The speaker said that her counselor was culturally sensitive, which presumes that regardless of the race one belongs to, a specialist must value their background.
Loneliness and Depression During COVID-19 While the article discusses the prevalence of loneliness and depression among young people, I agree that young people may be more subject to mental health problems than other population groups, but I do not agree […]
Depression Screening in the Acute Setting Hence, it is possible to develop a policy recommending the use of the PHQ-9, such as the EBDST, in the acute setting.
Ketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression: Neurobiology and Applications It is known that a violation of the functions of the serotonergic pathways leads to various mental deviations, the most typical of which is clinical depression.
Treating Obesity Co-Occurring With Depression In most cases, the efficiency of obesity treatment is relatively low and commonly leads to the appearance of a comorbid mental health disorder depression.
Treadmill Exercise Ameliorates Social Isolation-Induced Depression The groups included: the social isolation group, the control group, and the exercise and social isolation and exercise group. In the treadmill exercise protocol, the rat pups ran on the treadmill once a day for […]
Depression and Anxiety Among Chronic Pain Patients The researchers used The Depression Module of the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale to interview participants, evaluate their answers, and conduct the study.
The Difference Between Art Deco and Depression Modern Design By and whole, Art Deco and Depression differ in their characteristics and their meanings as they bring unlike messages to the viewers.
Postpartum Depression in African American Women As far as African American women are concerned, the issue becomes even more complex due to several reasons: the stigma associated with the mental health of African American women and the mental health complications that […]
The Depression Construct and Instrument Analysis For the therapist, this scaling allows to assess the general picture of the patient’s psychological state and obtain a result that is suitable for measurement.
Stress and Depression Among Nursing Students The study aims to determine how different the manifestations of stress and depression are among American nursing students compared to students of other disciplines and what supports nursing students in continuing their education.
Depression in Diabetes Patients The presence of depression concomitant to diabetes mellitus prevents the adaptation of the patient and negatively affects the course of the underlying disease.
Depression among Homosexual Males The literature used for the research on the paper aims to overview depression among homosexual males and describe the role of the nurse and practices based on the Recovery Model throughout the depression.
“What the Depression Did to People” by Edward Robb Ellis Nevertheless, the way the facts are grouped and delivered could be conducive to students’ ability to develop a clearer picture of the catastrophic downturn’s influences on the nation’s and the poor population’s mentalities.
Economic Inequality During COVID-19: Correlation With Depression and Addiction Thus, during the pandemic, people with lower incomes experienced depression and increased their addictive behaviors to cope with the stress of COVID-19.
Obesity Co-Occurring With Depression The assessment will identify the patient with the two conditions, address the existing literature on the issue, examine how patients are affected by organizational and governmental policies, and propose strategies to improve the patient experience.
Depression in the Black and Minority Ethnic Groups The third sector of the economy includes all non-governmental, non-profit, voluntary, philanthropic, and charitable organizations and social enterprises specializing in various types of activities, which did not find a place in either the public or […]
A Description on the Topic Screening Depression If there is the implementation of evidence-based care, a reduction in the proportion of disability for patients with depression would be expected. A proposal was written describing the need for screening depression patients of nearly […]
“Disclosure of Symptoms of Postnatal Depression, …” by Carolyn Chew-Graham Critique In light of hypothesizing the research question, the researchers suggest that health practitioners have the ability to create a conducive environment for the disclosure of information.
Depression – Psychotherapeutic Treatment Taking into account the fact that the specialist is not able to prescribe the medicine or a sort of treatment if he/she is not sure in the positive effect it might have on the health […]
Depression as a Major Health Issue The purpose of the study was to examine the implications of cognitive behavior approaches for depression in old women receiving health care in different facilities.
Effective Ways to Address Anxiety and Depression Looking deep into the roots of the problem will provide a vast and detailed vision of it, and will help to develop ways to enhance the disorders.
Einstepam: The Treatment of Depression The treatment of depression has greatly revolutionized since the development of tricyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors in the 1950s. In the brain, it inhibits the NMDA receptors and isoforms of NOS.
Depression Among High School Students The major problem surrounding depression among adolescents is that they are rarely diagnosed in time and therefore do not receive treatment they need.
NICE Guidelines for Depression Management: Project Proposal This topic is of importance for VEGA because the center does not employ any specific depression management guidelines.
Depression: Diagnostics, Prevention and Treatment Constant communication with the patient and their relatives, purposeful questioning of the patient, special scales and tests, active observation of the patient’s appearance and behavior are the steps in the nursing diagnosis of depression.
Depression and Anxiety Intervention Plan John’s Wort to intervene for her condition together with the prescribed anti-depressant drugs, I would advise and educate her on the drug-to-drug relations, and the various complications brought about by combining St. Conducting proper patient […]
The Use of Psychedelic Drugs in Treating Depression This study aims to establish whether depressive patients can significantly benefit from psilocybin without substantial side effects like in the case of other psychedelic drugs.
Postpartum Depression Among the Low-Income U.S. Mothers Mothers who take part in the programs develop skills and knowledge to use the existing social entities to ensure that they protect themselves from the undesirable consequences associated with the PPD and other related psychological […]
The Beck Depression Contrast (BDI) The second difference between the two modes of the BDI is in the methodology of conducting the survey. This is where the interviewer first gets the history of the patient to try and get the […]
Psychedelic Drugs and Their Effects on Anxiety and Depression The participants must also be willing to remain in the study for the duration of the experiments and consent to the drugs’ use.
VEGA Medical Center: The Quality of Depression Management This presentation is going to provide an overview of a project dedicated to the implementation of NICE guidelines at the VEGA Medical Center.
Anxiety and Depression in Hispanic Youth in Monmouth County Therefore, the Health Project in Monmouth County will help Hispanic children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 to cope with anxiety and depression through behavioral therapy.
Anxiety Disorders and Depression In her case, anxiety made her feel that she needed to do more, and everything needed to be perfect. She noted that the background of her depression and anxiety disorders was her family.
Clinical Case Report: Depression It is possible to assume that being in close contact with a person who has depression also increases the probability of experiencing its symptoms.
PICO Analysis of Depression In other words, the causes of the given mental disorder can highly vary, and there is no sufficient evidence to point out a primary factor that triggers depression.
Interventions for Treating Depression after Stroke Inherently, the link between depression and stroke can be analyzed on the basis of post-stroke depression that is identified as the major neuropsychiatric corollary of stroke.
Depression: The Implications and Challenges in Managing the Illness At home, these people lack interest in their family and are not be able to enjoy the shared activities and company of the family.
Expression Symptoms of Depression A major finding of the critique is that although the research method and design are appropriate to this type of study, the results may be speculative in their validity and reliability as the researchers used […]
Researching Postnatal Depression Health professionals suggest that the fluctuations in the level of hormones cause changes in the chemical composition of the brain. The researcher has stated that the sample was selected from the general practitioners and health […]
The Older Women With Depression Living in Long-Term Care The researchers used the probability-sampling method to select the institutions that were included in the study. The health care professionals working in the nursing homes were interviewed to ascertain the diagnosis of depression as well […]
Medical Evaluation: 82-Year-Old Patient With Depression Her extreme level of weakness unfolded when the patient admitted that she lacked the strength to stand on her feet and to head back to her sleeping bed on a disastrous night.Mrs.
Depression in Adults: Community Health Needs The challenge of depression in the elderly is the recognition of signs and symptoms or the frequent underreporting of the symptoms of depression in adults over the age of 65.
The Discussion about Depression in Older Patients Depression is often identified as the most prevalent psychiatric disorder in the elderly and is usually determined by symptoms that belong to somatic, affective, and cognitive categories.
Depression in Older People in Australia Although a good number of depressed elderly patients aspire to play an active role in the treatment decision-making process, some prefer to delegate this role to their doctors.
In-Vitro Fertilization and Postpartum Depression The research was conducted through based on professional information sources and statistical data collected from the research study used to further validate the evidence and outcome of this study.
Depression: Screening and Diagnosis What he tries to do is to live a day and observe the changes that occur around. What do you do to change your attitude to life?
Depression in Australia. Evaluation of Different Factors In attempts to identify the biological causes of depression, the researchers focus on the analysis of brain functioning, chemical mediators, their correlations with the neurologic centers in the brain, and impact on the limbic system […]
Mental Health Paper: Depression The prevalence of mental health conditions has been the subject of many studies, with most of these highlighting the increase in these illnesses.
The Two Hit Model of Cytokine-Induced-Depression The association between IL-6 polymorphism and reduced risk of depressive symptoms confirms the role of the inflammatory response system in the pathophysiology of IFN-alpha-induced depression.
Ante-Partum & Postpartum Exposure to Maternal Depression The researchers engaged in the research work on this particular study topic by approaching it on the basis of maternal behavior and circumstances, as they connect to depressive conditions in their own lives and the […]
Depression in Australia, How Treat This Disorder According to The World Health Organization, depression is defined as a disorder in the mental health system that is presented with feelings of guiltiness, low concentration, and a decrease in the need for sleep.
Steroid Use and Teen Depression In this manner, the researcher will be in a position to determine which of the two indicators is strongest, and then later, the indicators can be narrowed down to the most basic and relevant.
Depression Among Minority Groups Mental disorders are among the major problems facing the health sector in America and across the world in the contemporary society.
Aspects and Definition of Depression: Psychiatry This is the personal counseling of a patient with the doctor, and it is one of the very best processes. In the case of a physician dealing with a mental patient, the most preferable way […]
Alcoholism and Depression: Intervention Strategies The intention of the research paper is to assess if indeed there is an association between alcoholism as manifested by Jackson, and a case of depression.
Antidepressant Drugs for Depression or Dysthymia These are the newer form of antidepressant that are based on both the principle of serotonin reuptake prevention and norepinephrine action.
The Relationship of Type 2 Diabetes and Depression Type 2 diabetes is generally recognized as an imbalance between insulin sensitivity and beta cell function We have chosen a rural area in Wisconsin where we can focus our study and select a group of […]
Teenage Depression and Alcoholism There also has been a demonstrated connection between alcoholism and depression in all ages; as such, people engage in alcoholism as a method of self medication to dull the feelings of depression, hopelessness and lack […]
“Relationships of Problematic Internet Use With Depression”: Study Strengths and Weaknesses One of the study strengths is that the subject selection process is excellently and well-designed, where the subjects represent the study sample, in general.
Postpartum Depression and Its Impact on Infants The goal of this research was “to investigate the prevalence of maternal depressive symptoms at 5 and 9 months postpartum in a low-income and predominantly Hispanic sample, and evaluate the impact on infant weight gain, […]
Postpartum Depression: Statistics and Methods of Diagnosis The incorporation of the screening tools into the existing electronic medical support system has proved to lead to positive outcomes for both mothers and children.
Comorbidity of Depression and Pain It is also known that dysregulation of 5-HT receptors in the brain is directly related to the development of depression and the regulation of the effects of substance P, glutamate, GABA and other pain mediators. […]
Hallucinations and Geriatric Depression Intervention Sandy has asserted further that the cleaners at the residence have been giving him the wrong medication since they are conspiring to end his life with the FBI.Mr.
Changes in Approaches to the Treatment of Depression Over the Past Decade In spite of the fact that over the past decade many approaches to the treatment of depression remained the same, a lot of new methods appeared and replaced some old ones due to the development […]
Management of Treatment-Resistant Depression The significance of the problem, the project’s aims, the impact that the project may have on the nursing practice, and the coverage of this condition are the primary focuses of this paper.
Teenage Depression: Psychology-Based Treatment This finding underlines the need to interrogate the issue of depression’s ontology and epistemology. Hence, there is the need to have an elaborate and comprehensive policy for addressing teenage depression.
Depression and Anxiety in Dialysis Patients However, the study indicates the lack of research behind the connection of depression and cognitive impairment, which is a significant limitation to the conclusive statement.
Adolescent Grief and Depression In looking for an activity that may help him or her keep away from the pain he or she is experiencing, the victim may decide to engage in sexual activities. Later, the adolescent is also […]
Depression Disorder: Key Factors Epidemiology refers to the study of the distribution and determinants of health related events in specific populations and its applications to health problems.
Depression Effects of School Children However the present difficulties that he is going through being a 16 year old; may be associated to a possible cause of Down syndrome complications, or the feelings and behavioral deficiency he associates to the […]
Depression, Hallucination, and Suicide: Mental Cases How they handle the process determines the kind of aftermath they will experience for instance it can take the route of hallucinations which is treatable or suicide which is irreversible thus how each case is […]
Depression, Its Perspective and Management Therefore this paper seeks to point out that stress is a major ingredient of depression; show the causes, symptoms, highlight how stresses is manifested in different kinds of people, show how to manage stress that […]
The Theory of Personality Psychology During Depression The study concerns personality pathology, and the results of the treatment given to patients who are under depression, and how personalities may have adverse effects on the consequences of the cure.
Depression and the Media Other components of the cognitive triad of depression are the aspect of seeing the environment as overwhelming and that one is too small to make an impact and also seeing the future as bleak and […]
Poor Body Image, Anxiety, and Depression: Women Who Undergo Breast Implants H02: There is no difference in overt attractiveness to, and frequency of intimacy initiated by, the husband or cohabitating partner of a breast implant patient both before and after the procedure.
Depression: A Cognitive Perspective Therefore, the cause of depression on this line may be a real shortage of skills, accompanied by negative self-evaluation because the individual is more likely to see the negative aspects or the skills he lacks […]
Stress, Depression and Psychoneuroimmunology
A Critical Evaluation of Major Depression
Adult Depression Sufferer’s and Withdrawal From Family and Friends
Depression: Helping Students in the Classroom
Major Depression: Treating Depression in the Context of Marital Discord
Family Therapy for Treating Major Depression
Adverse Childhood Experiences Cause Depression
Depression and Alzheimer’s Disease
Rumination, Perfectionism and Depression in Young People
Anxiety and Depression Disorders
Beck’s Cognitive Therapy Approach to Depression Treatment
Cannabis Abuse Increases the Risk of Depression
Depression: Risk Factors, Incidence, Preventive Measures & Prognostic Factors
Depression Diagnostics Methods
Concept Analysis of Loneliness, Depression, Self-esteem
The Correlation Between Perfectionism and Depression
Geriatric Dementia, Delirium, and Depression
Dementia, Delirium, and Depression in Older Adults
Depression in People With Alcohol Dependence
Depression and Anxiety Due to School and Work-Related Stress
Creating a Comprehensive Psychological Treatment Plan: Depression
Experimental Psychology. Bouldering for Treating Depression
Depression and Psychotherapy in Adolescence
Atypical Depression Symptoms and Treatment
Dementia, Delirium, and Depression in Frail Elders
Depression & Patient Safety: Speak Up Program
Mindfulness Meditation Therapy in Depression Cases
A Review of Postpartum Depression and Continued Post Birth Support
Psychodynamic Therapy for Depression
Freud’s Depression: Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions
Depression as a Psychological Disorder
Great Depression in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
Depression in Adolescents and Interventions
Bipolar Disorder: Reoccurring Hypomania & Depression
Postpartum Depression: Understanding the Needs of Women
Major Depression Treatment During Pregnancy
Patients’ Depression and Practitioners’ Suggestions
Traditional Symptoms of Depression
Social Media Impact on Depression and Eating Disorder
Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents
Depression Studies and Online Research Sources
Depression Explanation in Psychological Theories
Food Insecurity and Depression in Poor Families
Alcohol Abuse, Depression and Human Trafficking
Depression Assessment Using Intake Notes
Depression in Adolescents and Cognitive Therapy
Diagnosing Depression: Implementation and Evaluation Plan
Beck Depression Inventory: Evaluation Plan
Depression in Iranian Women and Health Policies
Depression Patients and Psychiatrist’s Work
Depression Patients’ Needs and Treatment Issues
Depression and Cancer in Caucasian Female Patient
Depression in Patients with Comorbidity
Depression After Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment
Depression and Psychosis: 32-Year-Old Female Patient
Postpartum Depression and Acute Depressive Symptoms
Women with Heart Disease: Risk of Depression
Postpartum Depression and Its Peculiarities
Exercises as a Treatment for Depression
Depression Treatment Changes in 2006-2017
Depression in Elders: Social Factors
False Memories in Patients with Depression
Postpartum Depression Analysis in “Yellow Wallpaper”
The Canadian Depression Causes
Widowhood Effects on Men’s and Women’s Depression
Teen Website: Fish Will Keep Depression Away
Bipolar Expeditions: Mania and Depression
Obesity and Major Depression Association
Depression in the Future Public Health
Depression: Patients With a Difficult Psychological State
Depression: Pathophysiology and Treatment
Stress, Depression, and Responses to Them
Depression and Melancholia Expressed by Hamlet
Problem of the Depression in Teenagers
Supporting the Health Needs of Patients With Parkinson’s, Preeclampsia, and Postpartum Depression
Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Application
Psychological Measures: The Beck Depression Inventory
Sleep Disturbance, Depression, Anxiety Correlation
Depression in Late Life: Interpersonal Psychotherapy
Postpartum Depression and Comorbid Disorders
Arab-Americans’ Acculturation and Depression
Relationship Between Depression and Sleep Disturbance
Child’s Mental Health and Depression in Adulthood
Parents’ Depression and Toddler Behaviors
Managing Stress and Depression at Work Places – Psychology
Job’ Stress and Depression
Depression Measurements – Psychology
Methodological Bias Associated with Sex Depression
Relationship Between Sleep and Depression in Adolescence
The Effects of Depression on Physical Activity
Psychological Disorder: Depression
Depression and Workplace Violence
The Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Depression, Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress for Women After Spousal Emotional Abuse
Depression Diagnosis and Theoretical Models
The Impact of Exercise on Women Who Suffer From Depression
Evolutionary Psychology: Depression
Depression in the Elderly
Poly-Substance Abuse in Adolescent Males With Depression
How Does Peer Pressure Contribute to Adolescent Depression?
How Do Genetic and Environmental Factors Contribute To The Expression of Depression?
Depression and Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive Treatment of Depression
Book Review: “Breadwinning Daughters: Young Women Working in a Depression- Era City, 1929-1939” by Katrina Srigley
Depression: A Critical Evaluation
Psychopharmacological Treatment for Depression
“Breadwinning Daughters: Young Working Women in a Depression-Era City” by Katrina Srigley
Depression in female adolescents
Interpersonal Communication Strategies Regarding Depression
Depression: Law Enforcement Officers and Stress
Social Influences on Behavior: Towards Understanding Depression and Alcoholism Based on Social Situations
Depression Experiences in Law Enforcement
Childhood Depression & Bi-Polar Disorder
Depression Psychological Evaluation
Concept of Childhood Depression
Correlation Between Multiple Pregnancies and Postpartum Depression or Psychosis
Depression and Its Effects on Participants’ Performance in the Workplace
Catatonic Depression: Etiology and Management
The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) Measure
Depression: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Depression Levels and Development
Depression Treatment: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Concept of Depression Disorder
Does Divorce Have a Greater Impact on Men than on Women in Terms of Depression?
Oral versus Written Administration of the Geriatric Depression Scale

❓Research Questions for a Depression Essay

Does Poverty Impact Depression in African American Adolescents and the Development of Suicidal Ideations?
Does Neighborhood Violence Lead to Depression Among Caregivers of Children With Asthma?
Does Parent Depression Correspond With Child Depression?
How Depression Affects Our Lives?
Does Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Have an Effect on Depression Levels in Elderly Women?
How Can Overcome Depression Through 6 Lifestyle Changes?
Does Maternal Depression Have a Negative Effect on Parent-Child Attachment?
Can Providers’ Education About Postpartum Depression?
Can Vacation Help With Depression?
How Children Deal With Depression?
Can Diet Help Stop Depression and Violence?
Does Depression Assist Eating Disorders?
Does Depression Lead to Suicide and Decreased Life Expectancy?
Can Obesity Cause Depression?
Can Exercise Increase Fitness and Reduce Weight in Patients With Depression?
Does Fruit and Vegetable Consumption During Adolescence Predict Adult Depression?
Does Depression Cause Cancer?
Does Money Relieve Depression?
Does the Average Person Experience Depression Throughout Their Life?
Are Vaccines Cause Depression?
Does Social Anxiety Lead to Depression?
Does Stress Cause Depression?
How Bipolar and Depression Are Linked?
Does Postpartum Depression Affect Employment?
Does Postpartum Depression Predict Emotional and Cognitive Difficulties in 11-Year-Olds?
Does Regular Exercise Reduce Stress Levels, and Thus Reduce Symptoms of Depression?
Does the Natural Light During Winters Really Create Depression?
How Can Art Overcome Depression?
How Anxiety and Depression Are Connected?
Does Positive Psychology Ease Symptoms of Depression?
Bullying Research Topics
Conflict Research Topics
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Topics
Disease Questions
Burnout Questions
Hyperactivity Disorder Research Ideas
Insomnia Questions
Eating Disorders Questions
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

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IvyPanda . "327 Depression Essay Titles & Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/depression-essay-examples/.

Everyone experiences sadness at times. But depression is something more. Depression is extreme sadness or despair that lasts more than days. It interferes with the activities of daily life and can cause physical symptoms such as pain, weight loss or gain, sleeping pattern disruptions, or lack of energy.

People with depression may also experience an inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt, and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

Depression is the most common mental disorder. Fortunately, depression is treatable. A combination of therapy and antidepressant medication can help ensure recovery.

Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology

Resources from APA

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No such rise among teen boys and young men during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

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Many also experience work limitations, difficulty completing errands alone, and trouble taking part in social activities

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What my parents did that made the biggest difference in my struggle with depression

At just 13 years old, I had been in and out of the hospital for major depressive disorder and entered treatment. I was consumed by hopelessness in every aspect of my life. I remember being most overwhelmed when I fought against the emotions I was feeling. The longer I avoided addressing the negative emotions that plagued me, the more intense they became.

It was difficult to connect with my parents. My dad couldn’t understand the emptiness, loneliness and hopelessness I felt. Though he could see that I was in pain and suffering — and he acknowledged that. After recognizing the degree to which I was struggling, my parents worked tirelessly to get me help. We participated in inpatient, outpatient, individual and family therapies to try and shift my depressive moods, but nothing seemed to work.

Health & Wellness How to find mental health support when you need it

With few options left, I began what would become a year and a half of intensive treatment. The first four months of this journey took place at a residential program just outside of Boston. The clinicians here recognized that depression and anxiety don’t occur in a vacuum and it’s important for the entire family to be involved in the healing process. During those six weeks, my parents learned the same skills alongside other parents and visited me every week to practice these new relationship dynamics.

The biggest shift came after we learned the skill validation. My parents were able to create space for what I was feeling, allowing me to feel accepted and safe in our relationship. From there, we had enough of a foundation to work through conflicts, miscommunications and other things that had pushed us apart.

Validation can be a complex concept, but boiled down, it’s the practice of creating space and appreciating someone else's thoughts, feelings, beliefs and experiences. Simply put, acknowledging that someone's (or your own) feelings are valid.

I experienced an equal shift in my relationship with myself when I began to practice self-validation. Each time I thought to myself: " You shouldn’t be feeling depressed. Why aren’t you getting better by now? You don’t deserve this support," I rewired these beliefs. Instead, telling myself, “ It's OK that I’m feeling this way. Healing takes time and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be in my journey. I am deserving of love and support in life. ” Slowly but surely, I taught myself that emotions were OK and safe to experience. I was able to recover from that depression because I was no longer fighting two battles — one debating the validity of my emotions and one to break free from my suffering.

All in all, validation is all around a game-changer for everyone involved.

How to support a teen who is struggling

For anyone supporting a teen navigating a mental health challenge and looking for advice — I direct you to validation. This will improve your relationship making it more likely your teen will go to you for support. It will allow your teen to feel seen, heard and loved, making them feel less isolated and helpless. And lastly, it creates a foundation to navigate further challenges together.

My parents and I followed the guidelines of dialectical behavioral therapy, as outlined in a DBT skills workbook by Marsha M. Linehan :

Pay attention: Look interested in the other person (don't look at your phone while listening). Be alert to facial expressions, body language and more.
Reflect back: Say back what you have heard the other person say or do, to be sure you understand exactly what the person is saying. No judgmental language or tone of voice!
Understand: Look for how what the other person is feeling, thinking or doing makes sense based on the person’s past experiences, present situation and/or current state of mind of physical condition.
Acknowledge and validate: Note that the person’s feelings, thinking or actions are valid and understandable responses because they fit current facts.
Show equality: Don’t "one-up" or "one-down" the other person. Treat them as an equal, not as fragile or incompetent.

Like I mentioned, I tried multiple treatment options for my depression and anxiety before I reached recovery. The reason nothing stuck was that I was going through the motions to appease others — my parents, therapists, community members and more. I didn’t believe it was possible for me to get better so I wasn’t invested in my growth.

I believe this is true for any goal an individual is pursuing. The results will be much more long-lasting if it’s intrinsically driven. This is why validation is such a great resource. You can create the space for a teenager to feel safe enough to ask for help, voice their struggle and begin their journey of growth without forcing them into this process. So if you’re looking to start this conversation with a teen, start by describing and expressing the situation: “I’ve noticed you acting differently recently and I’m worried. I love you so much and want the best for you. If you need support or want to talk, I’m here for you.” Even if they don’t initially open up, you’re laying a foundation for this later conversation. Once they come to you, then you’ll insert validation: "I see you’re really struggling, that must be so overwhelming to navigate," and offer to help find further resources.

Advice for teens on how to support their mental health

A common feeling among teens is anxiety surrounding posting on social media. If you were to practice self-validation on this, it would sound a bit like: “I’m feeling anxiety right now. It makes sense because I care about being accepted and supported by my friends and community. It’s OK that I’m feeling anxious,” and so on and so forth. While this seems like a small skill, we can’t expect to change anything in life without first accepting our reality, and validation allows us to do this through a compassionate, non-judgmental lens.

From here you can implement a whole host of other skills. Through the social media lens, you can:

Be mindful of your thoughts and emotions as you scroll — without judgment, paying attention to them.
Be a critical consumer and unfollow or block accounts that are harming your mental health.
Practice self-care (examples: read a book, go on a walk, bake cookies or listen to music) and unplug from social media to decrease feelings of anxiety.
Ask for help from a trusted adult if you’re feeling that the intensity or duration of your emotions aren’t serving you.

In addition to these tips, I manage my relationship with social media by cultivating an awareness of my consumption: How much am I scrolling? Why am I scrolling (boredom, avoiding)? What emotions come up? This awareness helps me decide if it’s an experience I want to shift to be more positive. If so, I’ll take a day off, unfollow individuals that aren’t making me feel good on social media, and follow creators that make me feel happy and inspired. We have so much power to be a critical consumer on social media and cultivate our feeds so they're more uplifting.

Although we all experience very similar emotions, we’ll never understand exactly what others are feeling. However, we can bridge this gap in understanding through validation and use this as a foundation to improve our own mental health or support someone else.

Sadie Sutton is a college student from the Bay Area. After receiving a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, she was inspired to share her story with fellow teens going through their own personal growth. She started the podcast "She Persisted" in 2019 and has accumulated over 70 episodes reaching over 50,000 listeners. Sutton is a psych major at the University of Pennsylvania and hopes to pursue a career in clinical psychology to further her impact in the mental health field.

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5 Invaluable Life Lessons That Depression Has Taught Me

I’ll admit I have a pretty strange relationship with my depression . Of course, I resent it for making me miserable all the time; but, in a way, I’m also grateful not necessarily “for” depression, but for what it has taught me.

Do I want to live with depression? No. Of course not. It is miserable. However, if someone were to ask me, “Do you wish you never had depression?” I would hesitate to reply “yes.” Having depression has taught me a lot of invaluable life lessons I truly don’t think I would’ve learned otherwise.

Here are five important lessons I have learned from having depression:

1. Empathy. Depression taught me empathy.

Many people don’t know the difference between sympathy and empathy — that is, feeling for someone because you can (literally) only imagine what they’re going through (sympathy), or feeling for them because you know how it feels because you went through it yourself (empathy). If I tell you about my depression or anxiety , you can wish me well — but you can’t empathize if you haven’t experienced it. It’s a fine line to walk. People have said things to me along the lines of “I hope you get better,” or “I hope you’ll be happy soon.” While I know they’re just saying these things because maybe they don’t know what depression is like and how it’s not that simple, because they can only sympathize and not empathize, I often can’t help but feel a bit patronized. It’s as if this depression is just something that will magically “get better” or I’ll suddenly “be happy.”

I always knew I wasn’t “alone” in this fight — over 300 million people have depression , so it’s not a rare thing — but depression has the power to make you feel alone and isolated anyway. But only when I discovered The Mighty did I truly realize other people felt like I felt. For the first time in my life, I found myself reading things other people had written and walked away feeling like someone really knew how I felt because they had felt it themselves! I found myself reading article after article, empathizing with the author because we were in one way or another going through something similar (or at least, feeling similar emotions). It has truly been a beautiful experience, and I often attribute depression with being the main way I learned how to empathize.

2. Being physically alone and mentally alone are two very different things.

I can tolerate being physically alone — in fact, I often crave it. When I’m having a bad mental health day, I actually want to be alone sometimes because it removes distractions and allows me to process my emotions more clearly. I often look forward to solace. While I don’t particularly rejoice in the fact I have a nonexistent social life, I know I can take being physically alone — I’ve been doing it for the last two years. I’ve since learned the meaning of true friendship and learned how to value people who truly care about you.

However, I have learned the hard, painful way that being physically alone is not the same thing as being mentally alone. Before I was depressed, I had no idea that such an isolating, alienating feeling existed. It’s a feeling of complete and utter hopelessness and alienation. Even more painful is the feeling of being mentally alone while you’re not actually physically alone. I was in a situation like this recently and I’m putting it lightly when I say it was not pleasant and not something I want to repeat. The feeling of being surrounded by people, even by people who seem to care about you, yet still feeling like you’re alone and that the opposite is true — that no one cares — is among the most painful experiences I’ve had.

It’s very hard to explain — I’m struggling to write this in a clear way, even — but I can safely say there is a distinct difference between being physically alone and mentally alone and depression has taught me that.

3. Looks can be deceiving.

I’ve had a lot of people say to me “you don’t look depressed.” Tell me something I don’t know. I am fully aware that on the outside, I appear to be a bright, bubbly, confident teenage girl who has her head screwed on straight and has big dreams and plans. That’s my coping mechanism. I love talking about my goals and dreams because it keeps me from falling down the rabbit hole and keeps my mind distracted from being consumed by depressive thoughts. However, I think those who know me closely and are familiar with my depression know I often put on a mask (as cliché as it sounds) when I go outside. I’m not necessarily trying to “pretend,” but often I am trying to appear better than I actually feel. I have to force myself to go outside. I often marvel at the fact that just by looking at me (or anyone with depression, really), or having a conversation with me, “no one would have any clue” I’m depressed unless I blatantly mentioned it. Granted, I have good days and bad days just like anyone else, and no doubt does this influence how I appear.

This also brings to mind a question: does depression really have a “look?” I don’t know anyone with depression who walks around with a cloud and personal rainstorm over their head while wearing a hoodie that says “I’m Depressed” like the actors in the antidepressant commercials do. I have truly learned now that looks can be deceiving. Each time I see someone (in-person or online) who looks like they lead the life I would want to live, or looks like they have it all together, or looks like they’re “happy,” I remind myself that each person has their own battles and that this person could be going through a lot that can’t be seen on the outside.

4. Listening is crucial.

I’m pretty open about being depressed, to the point that I sometimes question if I’m too open. I am blessed with people who will listen to me, even if I’m just repeating the same things over and over, and those individuals will never know how grateful I am.

I know people are listening, but I often feel like I’m not being heard. Still today, after almost two years of depression, every time I open up to the few people I trust (who, coincidentally are the few people I have left), I am plagued by thoughts that no one is really listening, that I’m just a burden, that I’m making someone uncomfortable, that I’m wasting my (or someone else’s) time by speaking up, and they shouldn’t have to listen to me. It’s usually nothing they say or do, besides when I’m ignored or receive a response that I interpret to mean they aren’t interested, regardless of that’s true or not. I have felt this enough times to have learned how important listening is. Because I know what it’s like to not be heard, to feel like no one is listening, like no one cares, I have learned how crucial it is to listen to others. The golden rule of treating others how you want to be treated is golden for a reason — it’s important and it’s true. I can honestly, wholeheartedly say I would never want someone to feel how I have felt, and I intend to do everything in my power to make sure they never do.

I think a lot of people hesitate to listen because they are afraid; they know they might not have the answers to the other person’s problems, might not know what to tell them, and maybe they don’t want the responsibility of knowing what’s going on. But I don’t want answers… all I could ever ask for is for someone to simply listen. I never expect anyone to whom I open up to have the answers, to understand or even to empathize; I just ask that they listen, and I will always do the same for them.

It is so important to listen in general, but especially in the context of mental health. That’s all most people want: to be heard. Some may be surprised at how powerful just listening can be. You can change a life simply by opening your ears and mind.

5. Everything is temporary, whether good or bad.

When I was younger, and when anxiety and stress-related issues were a bigger deal for me, my mom used to always remind me: “Everything is temporary.” I knew it was a true statement, but I never fully understood the true meaning and reality of the saying until I was older. The last few months have mentally been very tumultuous for me — a lot of up and down. It’s a common theme in the realm of mental illness — the up and down and up and down cycle — but it makes you learn to cherish the good moments. I have learned to rejoice in the days I feel free and the thought that it’s temporary is often what pushes me through the bad moments.

Although it may seem like it, I know depression isn’t forever. Although I can’t see a time depression will just magically disappear, I do truly believe there will come at a time when depression isn’t as big of an influence in my everyday life. It’s important for me to keep this perspective and it’s a huge part of my coping skills.

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Personal Health

The Devastating Ways Depression and Anxiety Impact the Body

Mind and body form a two-way street.

By Jane E. Brody

It’s no surprise that when a person gets a diagnosis of heart disease, cancer or some other life-limiting or life-threatening physical ailment, they become anxious or depressed. But the reverse can also be true: Undue anxiety or depression can foster the development of a serious physical disease, and even impede the ability to withstand or recover from one. The potential consequences are particularly timely, as the ongoing stress and disruptions of the pandemic continue to take a toll on mental health .

The human organism does not recognize the medical profession’s artificial separation of mental and physical ills. Rather, mind and body form a two-way street. What happens inside a person’s head can have damaging effects throughout the body, as well as the other way around. An untreated mental illness can significantly increase the risk of becoming physically ill, and physical disorders may result in behaviors that make mental conditions worse.

In studies that tracked how patients with breast cancer fared, for example, Dr. David Spiegel and his colleagues at Stanford University School of Medicine showed decades ago that women whose depression was easing lived longer than those whose depression was getting worse. His research and other studies have clearly shown that “the brain is intimately connected to the body and the body to the brain,” Dr. Spiegel said in an interview. “The body tends to react to mental stress as if it was a physical stress.”

Despite such evidence, he and other experts say, chronic emotional distress is too often overlooked by doctors. Commonly, a physician will prescribe a therapy for physical ailments like heart disease or diabetes, only to wonder why some patients get worse instead of better.

Many people are reluctant to seek treatment for emotional ills. Some people with anxiety or depression may fear being stigmatized, even if they recognize they have a serious psychological problem. Many attempt to self-treat their emotional distress by adopting behaviors like drinking too much or abusing drugs, which only adds insult to their pre-existing injury.

And sometimes, family and friends inadvertently reinforce a person’s denial of mental distress by labeling it as “that’s just the way he is” and do nothing to encourage them to seek professional help.

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7 Depression Research Paper Topic Ideas

Nancy Schimelpfening, MS is the administrator for the non-profit depression support group Depression Sanctuary. Nancy has a lifetime of experience with depression, experiencing firsthand how devastating this illness can be.

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

In psychology classes, it's common for students to write a depression research paper. Researching depression may be beneficial if you have a personal interest in this topic and want to learn more, or if you're simply passionate about this mental health issue. However, since depression is a very complex subject, it offers many possible topics to focus on, which may leave you wondering where to begin.

If this is how you feel, here are a few research titles about depression to help inspire your topic choice. You can use these suggestions as actual research titles about depression, or you can use them to lead you to other more in-depth topics that you can look into further for your depression research paper.

What Is Depression?

Everyone experiences times when they feel a little bit blue or sad. This is a normal part of being human. Depression, however, is a medical condition that is quite different from everyday moodiness.

Your depression research paper may explore the basics, or it might delve deeper into the definition of clinical depression or the difference between clinical depression and sadness .

What Research Says About the Psychology of Depression

Studies suggest that there are biological, psychological, and social aspects to depression, giving you many different areas to consider for your research title about depression.

Types of Depression

There are several different types of depression that are dependent on how an individual's depression symptoms manifest themselves. Depression symptoms may vary in severity or in what is causing them. For instance, major depressive disorder (MDD) may have no identifiable cause, while postpartum depression is typically linked to pregnancy and childbirth.

Depressive symptoms may also be part of an illness called bipolar disorder. This includes fluctuations between depressive episodes and a state of extreme elation called mania. Bipolar disorder is a topic that offers many research opportunities, from its definition and its causes to associated risks, symptoms, and treatment.

Causes of Depression

The possible causes of depression are many and not yet well understood. However, it most likely results from an interplay of genetic vulnerability and environmental factors. Your depression research paper could explore one or more of these causes and reference the latest research on the topic.

For instance, how does an imbalance in brain chemistry or poor nutrition relate to depression? Is there a relationship between the stressful, busier lives of today's society and the rise of depression? How can grief or a major medical condition lead to overwhelming sadness and depression?

Who Is at Risk for Depression?

This is a good research question about depression as certain risk factors may make a person more prone to developing this mental health condition, such as a family history of depression, adverse childhood experiences, stress , illness, and gender . This is not a complete list of all risk factors, however, it's a good place to start.

The growing rate of depression in children, teenagers, and young adults is an interesting subtopic you can focus on as well. Whether you dive into the reasons behind the increase in rates of depression or discuss the treatment options that are safe for young people, there is a lot of research available in this area and many unanswered questions to consider.

Depression Signs and Symptoms

The signs of depression are those outward manifestations of the illness that a doctor can observe when they examine a patient. For example, a lack of emotional responsiveness is a visible sign. On the other hand, symptoms are subjective things about the illness that only the patient can observe, such as feelings of guilt or sadness.

An illness such as depression is often invisible to the outside observer. That is why it is very important for patients to make an accurate accounting of all of their symptoms so their doctor can diagnose them properly. In your depression research paper, you may explore these "invisible" symptoms of depression in adults or explore how depression symptoms can be different in children .

How Is Depression Diagnosed?

This is another good depression research topic because, in some ways, the diagnosis of depression is more of an art than a science. Doctors must generally rely upon the patient's set of symptoms and what they can observe about them during their examination to make a diagnosis.

While there are certain laboratory tests that can be performed to rule out other medical illnesses as a cause of depression, there is not yet a definitive test for depression itself.

If you'd like to pursue this topic, you may want to start with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The fifth edition, known as DSM-5, offers a very detailed explanation that guides doctors to a diagnosis. You can also compare the current model of diagnosing depression to historical methods of diagnosis—how have these updates improved the way depression is treated?

Treatment Options for Depression

The first choice for depression treatment is generally an antidepressant medication. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most popular choice because they can be quite effective and tend to have fewer side effects than other types of antidepressants.

Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, is another effective and common choice. It is especially efficacious when combined with antidepressant therapy. Certain other treatments, such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), are most commonly used for patients who do not respond to more common forms of treatment.

Focusing on one of these treatments is an option for your depression research paper. Comparing and contrasting several different types of treatment can also make a good research title about depression.

A Word From Verywell

The topic of depression really can take you down many different roads. When making your final decision on which to pursue in your depression research paper, it's often helpful to start by listing a few areas that pique your interest.

From there, consider doing a little preliminary research. You may come across something that grabs your attention like a new study, a controversial topic you didn't know about, or something that hits a personal note. This will help you narrow your focus, giving you your final research title about depression.

Remes O, Mendes JF, Templeton P. Biological, psychological, and social determinants of depression: A review of recent literature . Brain Sci . 2021;11(12):1633. doi:10.3390/brainsci11121633

National Institute of Mental Health. Depression .

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition . American Psychiatric Association.

National Institute of Mental Health. Mental health medications .

Ferri, F. F. (2019). Ferri's Clinical Advisor 2020 E-Book: 5 Books in 1 . Netherlands: Elsevier Health Sciences.

By Nancy Schimelpfening Nancy Schimelpfening, MS is the administrator for the non-profit depression support group Depression Sanctuary. Nancy has a lifetime of experience with depression, experiencing firsthand how devastating this illness can be.

about Depression - Free Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Depression, a common mental health disorder, can severely impact an individual’s quality of life. Essays on depression could delve into its symptoms, causes, and various treatment approaches including psychotherapy, medication, and lifestyle modifications. Furthermore, discussions might extend to the societal stigma surrounding depression, the importance of mental health awareness, and the socio-economic impact of depression on individuals and communities. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Depression you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Posted June 30, 2024 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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There is a strong correlation between depression and impaired sense of smell.
It is unclear whether loss of smell triggers depression or vice versa, or if the relationship is reciprocal.
Despite unclear causality, these findings do suggest new ways to diagnose and treat depression.

When mental health professionals look for signs of depression , they assess well-known signs such as altered sleep patterns, loss of appetite , disinterest in everyday activities, sadness, lack of energy, drug and alcohol abuse , difficulty concentrating, irritability, social withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, and other indicators that correlate with clinical depression.

But a much less well-known phenomenon associated with depression is impairment of the sense of smell [1,2,6].

These impairments include elevated thresholds for detecting odors and difficulties identifying and differentiating different odors [2,6]. Impaired olfaction is called dysosmia, while complete loss of sense of smell is termed, anosmia.

What causes what?

As with many symptoms of mental illness, the determination of causes and effects is not straightforward when it comes to the strong correlation between dysosmia and depression.

There is mounting evidence that odors can directly affect mood [11], as when the smell of your favorite childhood cookies evokes fond memories. And a healthy sense of smell, and associated sense of taste, is important for enjoying life [3].

Thus, one school of thought is that a degraded sense of smell and taste can directly lead to depression. Some researchers [1] have even speculated that one reason the incidence of depression tends to increase with age is that sense of smell also degrades with age [1].

However, the association between olfaction and depression may be more correlative than causative, according to other researchers {2.4,8]. Olfaction and mood have common neural underpinnings in structures such as entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and orbito-prefrontal cortex [4]. Therefore, anatomical changes in these structures, such as atrophy associated with stress and excess corticosteroids could simultaneously affect mood and olfaction, without there being a direct causal link between the two.

Respiratory Infections and allergies, which are a leading cause of degradation of the sense of smell, also bring inflammation, which has been strongly linked to mood disorders [12]. A recent study of COVID-19 patients who suffered an impaired sense of smell also demonstrated a higher incidence of depression in these patients [7].

Thus, both depression and olfactory dysfunction may arise from a third factor such as stress, inflammation, or anatomical changes in shared neural structures, and not be causally related to each other, one way or another.

And yet, some researchers speculate that depression might trigger olfactory deficits due to declines in cognitive and information processing abilities in depressed patients, instead of from direct decreases in the functioning of olfactory structures. Functional imaging studies of depressed patients with and without olfactory symptoms reveal very little correlation between depression and olfactory bulb volume [5], leading the authors of the study to conclude: “ We are therefore in favor of a top-down mechanism originating in higher cortical areas explaining parts of the relation between depression and olfaction [5]."

Implications for diagnosis and treatment

It remains unclear whether an impaired sense of smell helps trigger depression, depression by itself produces olfactory deficits, factors such as inflammation and stress both contribute to dysosmia and depression, smell and mood disorders are mutually reciprocal—or some complex interactions among all of the above factors is responsible for the depression-olfaction connection.

But even without knowing the causal linkage between olfaction and depression, the nexus of smell and mood could be important for both diagnosis and treatment of depression.

Adding olfactory function to the signs and symptoms employed to diagnose depression might facilitate earlier diagnosis in some patients or help determine the severity of the disorder. For instance, one longitudinal study of adults with depression, in which some members of the cohort did not have depression when the study began, but developed it during the study, provides evidence that in adults over 60, a decrease in olfactory function might be an early warning sign of depression [1]. Also, in older adults, the severity of depressive symptoms has been found to increase with the severity of dysosmia [13].

Regarding treatment for depression, therapies such as olfactory training (OT) and olfactory enhancement (OE), in which subjects are repeatedly exposed to a wide variety of odors and concentrations of those odors, have shown promise for relieving some symptoms of depression [9,10]. By themselves, these results don’t prove that dysosmia triggers depression, but the new findings do hint at a novel treatment modality for depression, especially when other treatment methods have not proven as effective as desired.

As a former sufferer of depression myself, I am encouraged by new insights emerging from the link between olfaction and depression, and I wish researchers in this emerging field more than just a whiff of success.

https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article-abstract/79/1/glad139/7207364?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

(Dysosmia early indicator of depression in older adults)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4918728/

(Depression and poor olfaction are linked)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5977071/

(Dysosmia may trigger depression)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-016-8227-8

(Share anatomical structures, inattention)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36783-0

(Reduced olfaction likely due to cognitive processing)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5915822/

(Strong link in older adults between olfaction, depression)

https://news.vcu.edu/article/43_of_respondents_report_feeling_depressed_after_losing_sense

(Depression after COVID induced loss of smell)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-022-02081-y

(Inflammation can lead to dysosmia and depression)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8983665

(Olfactory training can elevate mood)

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2022.1013363/full

(Olfactory enrichment can elevate mood)

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-2836-3_15#:~:text=Odors%20are%20said%20to%20influence,brain%20involved%20in%20emotional%20experience .

(Olfaction influences mood)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381373/

(Inflammation and depression)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10733184/

(Severity of depression correlates with severity of dysosmia)

Eric Haseltine, Ph.D ., is a neuroscientist and the author of Long Fuse, Big Bang.

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Depression and Everyday Social Activity, Belonging, and Well-Being

Michael f. steger.

Colorado State University

Todd B. Kashdan

George Mason University

Dysfunctional social behavior has been implicated in the experience of depression. People with greater depressive symptoms report more frequent negative social interactions and react more strongly to them. It remains unknown, however, whether reaction strength differs depending on whether social interactions are positive or negative. Drawing on socio-evolutionary models of depression ( N. B. Allen & P. B. T. Badcock, 2003 ), we proposed that people with greater depressive symptoms should not only react more strongly to negative social interactions but also to positive social interactions and a sense of belonging. Using non-clinical samples, two daily process studies examined the role of depression in people's reactivity to social interactions in natural, ongoing, social contexts. In Study 1, the number of positive and negative social events showed a stronger relation to well-being among people with greater depressive symptoms. Study 2 extended this finding to perceptions of belonging in memorable social interactions, finding a stronger link between belonging and well-being among people with greater depressive symptoms. Together these studies provide the first indication that depressive symptoms may sensitize people to everyday experiences of both social rejection and social acceptance.

A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind. ( Cheever, 1991 )

Humans have a profound need to connect with others and gain acceptance into social groups (i.e., belonging; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). People form bonds readily and organize much of their behavior around establishing and maintaining those bonds. Further, people suffer when relationships deteriorate and social bonds are severed. Although feeling disconnected from others and experiencing a lack of belonging bothers everyone, depressed people may be particularly sensitive to these painful social encounters ( Allen & Badcock, 2003 ). Because of the importance of social experiences to people's well-being (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2000 ), and to the etiology and maintenance of depression (e.g., Allen & Badcock, 2003 ; Barnett & Gotlib, 1988 ; Coyne, 1976b ), it is vital to examine how depressed people's well-being is enhanced or eroded by positive and negative social interactions. The present research used two daily process studies to test the degree to which naturally occurring positive and negative social interactions interact with depressive symptoms to predict well-being.

Depression and Social Dysfunction

The motivational and affective profile associated with depression can be expected to influence the ability to feel a sense of social belonging and how, in turn, these feelings influence well-being. It is rare for a social interaction to provide objective evidence of rejection or acceptance, leaving the ultimate impact of social interactions up to people's perceptions. When people experience positive social interactions they should be more likely to feel a sense of belonging. However, depressed people's social information-processing biases appear to make it less likely that they will perceive cues of acceptance and belonging in social interactions. For example, in laboratory studies, clinically depressed people show preferential attention to sad faces, adjectives, and emotion words (e.g., Gotlib, Kasch, et al., 2004 ; Gotlib, Krasnoperova, Yue, & Joormann, 2004 ; Mogg & Bradley, 2005 ). Further, depressed people typically view ambiguous social interactions as negative, attribute these negative outcomes to the self, and act in accord with expectations that negative social interactions are likely and costly ( Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979 ; Joiner & Coyne, 1999 ). It appears that depressed people should be more likely to pay attention to negative social interactions, and less likely to feel a sense of belonging.

Evidence does, indeed, suggest that depressed people often fail in their quest to satisfy their need for belonging in relationships (e.g., Hagerty, Williams, Coyne, & Early, 1996 ), with potentially severe consequences ( Leary, 1990 ). Depressed people report fewer intimate relationships, and elicit fewer positive, caring responses and more negative, rejecting responses from others ( Gotlib, 1992 ; Joiner & Coyne, 1999 ; Segrin & Abramson, 1994 ). Depressed people also appear to induce negative affect in others, which, in turn, elicits rejection and the loss of socially rewarding opportunities ( Coyne, 1976a ; Joiner & Katz, 1999 ).

Dulled or Heightened Reactions to Negative and Positive Stimuli?

A synthesis of the existing literature leads us to conclude that people with greater depressive symptoms are more likely to create difficult social situations, have worse interactions, and preferentially direct their attention to negative emotional social stimuli. As a result of this cascade of social dysfunction, it seems possible that more depressed people are sensitized to negative social interactions. A number of studies have examined sensitivity to rewards and punishments among clinically depressed samples. Generally, laboratory studies show that clinically depressed people experience dulled, not heightened, reactions to negative, punishment cues and positive, reward cues (e.g., winning/losing small to large amounts of money in mock gambling paradigms; Henriques & Davidson, 1990 , 2000 ; Sloan, Strauss, & Wisner, 2001 ). This dulled reactivity has also been extended to social stimuli (e.g., sad and amusing films; Rottenberg, Kasch, Gross, & Gotlib, 2002 ). Researchers have concluded from such results that dulling of reactions to positive and negative stimuli is a hallmark of major depressive disorder ( Henriques & Davidson, 1991 ; Rottenberg, 2005 ). Nonetheless, there are some indications that clinically depressed people show greater reactivity to positive reward cues ( Must et al., 2006 ), particularly if they attribute the onset of positive events in everyday life to global and stable causes ( Needles & Abramson, 1990 ).

However, social experience is best understood as a dynamic, communication-driven process with progressive reciprocal influences of actors, partners, and situational demands (e.g., Gable & Reis, 1999 ; Gilbert, 2006 ). Cross-sectional survey methods miss this dynamic interchange, asking research participants to retrospectively evaluate and generalize across varying experiences in different social contexts. Laboratory studies often employ singular, sometimes arbitrary, de-contextualized stimuli (e.g., words or pictures of facial expressions; Gotlib, Kasch, et al., 2004 ). For example, it is not clear that images of an angry person would hold the same implications for social acceptance and rejection as a real-world disagreement with a friend. Daily process studies are able to capture people's everyday social experiences, and their reactions to them, as they unfold in their typical environments. This method confers ecological validity that is often sacrificed with other approaches and can shed light on how people with depressive symptoms react to life events. For example, this type of research has shown that people with greater depressive symptoms reported less intimacy, enjoyment, and perceived influence in everyday social interactions (e.g., Nezlek, Hampton, & Shean, 2000 ; Nezlek, Imbrie, & Shean, 1994 ) and report less day-to-day stability in well-being (Gable & Nezlek, 1998). Of particular relevance to this study, researchers have found that depressed people were more reactive to positive life events, reacting to both positive and negative events with more strongly enhanced positive affect, among other indicators of well-being ( Nezlek & Gable, 2001 ). Whereas prior laboratory studies indicated dampened reactivity to positive, reward cues among more depressed people (e.g., Sloan et al., 2001 ), when positive events occur outside of the laboratory, an opposite effect is found (see Needles & Abramson, 1990 for a 6-week prospective investigation). Providing additional weight to the notion that results from laboratory studies diverge from studies with stronger links to everyday functioning, a recent longitudinal epidemiological study showed that depressed people benefit more from becoming married compared to less depressed people ( Frech & Williams, 2007 ).

There is another reason why Nezlek and Gable (2001) may have found greater reactivity to life events in contrast to laboratory studies. Lab-based studies have focused on people with clinical levels of depression, often carrying the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, whereas Nezlek and Gable modeled depressive symptoms on a continuum. Clinical levels of depression may represent a significantly more debilitating condition (e.g., Allen & Badcock, 2003 ), leading clinically depressed people to feel numb and less reactive to negative social experiences as a self-protective strategy (e.g., Rottenberg, 2005 ). On the other hand, evidence is emerging that depressive symptoms lie on a continuum of increasing impairment (e.g., Backenstrass et al., 2006 ; Priciandaro, & Roberts, 2005 ; Ruscio & Ruscio, 2002 ). Subthreshold depression may be a pre-morbid manifestation of psychopathology, and, in fact, people with subthreshold depression are at substantial risk of developing major depressive disorder (e.g., Cuijpers, Smit, van Straten, 2007 ; Fogel, Eaton, & Ford, 2006 ; Regeer et al., 2006 ; Sherbourne et al., 1994 ) as well as other adverse outcomes such as suicidal behavior ( Fergusson, Horwood, Ridder, & Beautrais, 2005 ). Understanding how social experiences influence the well-being of people with subthreshold depression may shed light on the progression to disorder. One study has examined the reactivity of clinically depressed people to life events in their naturalistic environments. This study split the difference, so to speak, converging with laboratory studies of clinically depressed people in finding dulled reactivity to negative life events, and converging with daily process studies of subthreshold samples in finding heightened reactivity to positive life events ( Peeters, Nicolson, Berkhof, Delespaul, & DeVries, 2003 ).

The social risk hypothesis of depression ( Allen & Badcock, 2003 ) provides one account of how subthreshold levels of depressive symptoms could have evolved to help people reduce the risk of being excluded from social groups. Ancestral humans faced survival challenges that were best met through participation with reliable others in social groups. Being accepted by a social group increased the likelihood of survival, whereas being rejected decreased the likelihood of survival as well as the ability to find suitable mates to produce offspring and continue one's genetic lineage. Allen and Badcock argued that people with subclinical levels of depressive symptoms should be highly reactive to cues indicative of threats to one's social resources. The central goal of behavior, then, is to ensure that the benefits that a person provides to a social group far outweigh any perceived burden; a positive value-to-burden ratio is synonymous with secure group status. As people perceive their social value falling and their subsequent risk of social exclusion rising, depressive symptoms direct attentional resources to ongoing social information. With this social attunement, behavior can be modified as needed to prevent social rejection or exclusion. Likewise, people's behavioral repertoire will be subdued to prevent further conflict and potentially catastrophic loss (e.g., rejection from the group or physical harm); such responses would be marked by submissiveness, and inhibition of exploratory and resource-seeking behaviors ( Gilbert, 1992 ; 2006 ). These responses mimic depressive symptoms, and research has shown that people with greater depressive symptoms react to perceived dominance from others with exacerbated submissiveness and feelings of inferiority compared to people with lesser depressive symptoms (e.g., Zuroff, Fournier, & Moskowitz, 2007). Clinical levels of depression may represent a malfunctioning of the evolved mental apparatus that is proposed to monitor risk for social exclusion. Instead of being sensitive to possible rejection, clinical depression might reflect a lack of context sensitivity such that any situation that is not objectively positive is viewed as threatening. As a result, submissive, self-deprecating psychological and behavioral reactions are rigidly enacted ( Allen, Gilbert, Semedar, 2004 ).

This model prioritizes social events over other types of life events, making Nezlek and Gable's (2001) study an imperfect test. A better test of this model is provided by a daily process study showing that people with greater depressive symptoms react more strongly (i.e., experience more distress) in response to social stressors than do people with lesser depressive symptoms (e.g., O'Neill, Cohen, Tolpin, & Gunthert, 2004 ). Thus, there is some evidence for the central proposition of the social risk hypothesis in the naturally occurring social experiences of people with subthrehold depressive symptoms.

Theories such as the social risk hypothesis are fairly explicit in predicting that people with greater depressive symptoms should react more strongly to threats of social exclusion, as would be indicated by negative social interactions or social stressors ( Allen et al., 2004 ; Gilbert, 2006 ). This perspective is in line with the prevailing tradition in psychology to focus on negative expressions of human behavior and psychopathology rather than on the full spectrum of human behavior, including positive experiences and well-being ( Seligman & Czikszentmihalyi, 2000 ). Therefore, as currently articulated, socio-evolutionary theories neither predict nor account for evidence of stronger reactions to positive events among people with subthreshold ( Nezlek & Gable, 2001 ) and clinical depression ( Peeters et al., 2003 ). We believe that these models can be extended to predict heightened reactions to positive social interactions among people with subthreshold depressive symptoms.

A Balanced Model of Depressive Symptoms as Social Sensitizer

The social risk hypothesis frames social relationships in terms of social value and social burdens – if social burden exceeds, or even equals, one's social value, then one is at elevated risk of being excluded and attracting negative attention (e.g., Allen et al., 2004 ). Humans presumably evolved the ability to appraise how they are being viewed by others (e.g., if they are attracting negative attention from their group, Gilbert, 1997 ). According to this perspective, depressive symptoms evolved to facilitate appraisals of falling social value and rising social burden, and it is because of this function that they sensitize people to threats of social rejection. It seems equally likely that depressive symptoms help people identify when their social value is rising and their social burden is falling; positive social interactions signal rising social value, and therefore more secure belonging. Thus, people with greater depressive symptoms can be expected to capitalize on positive social interactions by experiencing enhanced well-being. From the perspective of a social group, depressed people are prone to unsatisfying, problematic relationships and are often avoided as interaction partners (e.g., Joiner & Katz, 1999 ). Happy people, in contrast, tend to possess good relationships, and people with higher positive affect are evaluated more favorably by interaction partners (e.g., Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004 ; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005 ). Thus, it would be adaptive for people with greater depressive symptoms to be highly reactive to positive social interactions because their increased well-being would make them more attractive as social partners (decreasing the likelihood of future rejection and solidifying their social membership). In short, there is no particular reason from a socio-evolutionary standpoint to postulate that depressive symptoms might have evolved only to sensitize people to risks of disadvantageous social value/burden ratios. We argue that people with subthreshold depression may be uniquely attentive to both positive and negative social cues – and may be expected to be particularly reactive to their social experiences – because such cues provide valuable information about their degree of acceptance and security within their social group. In our model, mild to moderate depressive symptoms direct people's attention to seeking and establishing, not just protecting, belonging.

The Present Investigation

Social experiences are strongly implicated in the etiology and maintenance of depression. We propose that mild to moderate levels of depressive symptoms sensitize people to cues regarding their degree of social belonging, extending previous theories to include indicators of rising belonging. That is, when people with greater depressive symptoms perceive their belonging to be at risk, as indicated by negative social interactions, they should react more strongly with decreases in well-being. Similarly, when they perceive their belonging to be secure, as indicated by positive social interactions, they should react more strongly with increases in well-being. We are aware of no previous research that has examined the reactivity of people with mild to moderate depression symptoms to the full spectrum of positive and negative social interactions.

Inquiry into the ramifications of social experiences can advance by examining how people differing in depressive symptoms act and react in their natural, ongoing social environments. Therefore, we conducted two daily process studies. In Study 1, we examined how depressive symptoms influenced reactivity to an objective list of specific negative and positive social interactions. To better understand reactions to these social events, we assessed affective (positive and negative affect) and cognitive (appraisals of how meaningful and satisfying life is) markers of well-being. Because no finite list can hope to capture all of the significant interactions people might experience, in Study 2, we examined the role of depressive symptoms in response to appraisals of memorable social interactions. Thus, using both objective and subjective measures of interaction quality, we tested our proposal that depressive symptoms attune people to signals of social rejection as well as belonging. Drawing on previous theory and research, we hypothesized people with greater depressive symptoms would report (1) more frequent negative, and less frequent positive, social interactions, and (2) greater reactivity in terms of affective and cognitive markers of well-being to positive social interactions, negative social interactions, and perceptions of belonging.

Study 1 focused on relations between positive and negative social interactions and well-being among people with varying depressive symptoms. Previous lab-based research examined depressive symptoms in the context of positive and negative social stimuli, such as photos of facial expressions, in clinically depressed samples (e.g., Gotlib, Kasch, et al., 2004 ), and some daily process research examined links between subthreshold depressive symptoms and naturalistic daily life events (e.g., Nezlek & Gable, 2001 ). However, despite the strong role social functioning is thought to play in the etiology and exacerbation of depressive symptoms (e.g., Coyne, 1976a ), research is lacking on the reactivity of people with mild to moderate depressive symptoms to both positive and negative social events. To understand how people with greater depressive symptoms react to positive and negative social interactions, we assessed relations between social interactions and a broad range of well-being measures. Specifically, we measured cognitive evaluations of life satisfaction and meaning in life as well as positive and negative affect. Thus, we assessed what we refer to as cognitive well-being (CWB) and affective well-being (AWB). We used a 21-day daily process method in which participants recorded the occurrence of a variety of social interactions and their well-being each day. This method generates hierarchically structured data in which daily life ratings are nested within individuals. Direct relations between well-being and social experiences reported in daily life were assessed. Additionally, cross-level interactions assessed the extent to which relations between day-to-day social interactions and well-being varied across levels of depression. Thus, we looked at how many positive and negative social interactions people with greater depressive symptoms reported. In addition, we examined whether people with greater depressive symptoms reacted to positive and negative social interactions more strongly in terms of AWB and CWB.

Participants

Participants were recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at a large Midwestern university ( N = 106; M age = 19.7, SD = 3.1; 66% female; 74% European-American), and completed the depression measure and daily reports in exchange for course credit. Missing responses and invalid response patterns (i.e., no day-to-day variation in responses, same rating score given for all items) resulted in a final sample size of 104.

Global Depression

Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977 ). Twenty items were rated from 0 ( Rarely or None of the Time ) to 3 ( Most or All of the Time ) (α = .86). 1 The mean symptom severity of this sample ( M = 16.7, SD = 10.5) was roughly 0.5 SD lower than clinical sample means ( Radloff, 1977 ), with 38.5% of the sample scoring above the mild to severe depression cutoff score (17) suggested for comparisons between normal and clinical populations ( Radloff, 1977 ). Thus, this sample appears to have sufficient individuals reporting subthreshold symptoms to be considered at risk for significant distress and/or impairment.

Daily Social Interactions

Positive and negative social interactions were assessed using five positive (e.g., “Flirted with someone or arranged a date,” “Went out socializing with friends/date (e.g., party, dance clubs”) and five negative items (e.g., “A disagreement with a close friend or steady date was left unresolved,” “Was excluded or left out by my group of friends”) from the Daily Events Survey ( Butler, Hokanson, & Flynn, 1994 ). Items were rated on whether they happened (1) or not (0). Principal axis factor analysis with Promax rotation revealed that items assorted into three factors. One factor ( eigenvalue = 1.85) was comprised of three positive social items concerning friends and flirting; the second factor ( eigenvalue = 1.55) was comprised of all five negative social interaction items; the third factor ( eigenvalue = 1.05) was comprised of the two items concerning interactions with steady romantic partners. Because the negative social interactions formed a clear factor and the two small positive factors were highly related ( factor correlation = .55), the items were assorted into one negative social interaction scale and one positive social interaction scale. Reliability estimates were obtained from Hierarchical Linear Modeling 6.0 (HLM; Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, & Congdon, 2004), supporting the consistency of the two scales ( reliability = .93 and .91, for positive and negative social interactions, respectively).

Daily Cognitive Well-Being

Cognitive well-being was assessed by summing three items used in previous research ( Steger, Kashdan, & Oishi, 2008 ) assessing meaning in life (i.e., “How meaningful does your life feel?” “How much do you feel your life had purpose today?”) and life satisfaction (“How satisfied are you with your life?”) rated from 1 ( Not at All ) to 7 ( Absolutely ). Meaning and life satisfaction items were highly interrelated (γ = 1.14, SE = .03, t (96) = 35.20, p < .000)1( reliability = .98).

Daily Affective Well-Being

Affective well-being was assessed by subtracting average daily negative affect ratings (i.e., sluggish, afraid, sad, anxious, and angry) from average daily positive affect ratings (i.e., relaxed, proud, excited, appreciative, enthusiastic, happy, satisfied, curious, and grateful) (see Schimmack & Diener, 1997 ). Affective items were rated from 1 ( Very Little/Not at All ) to 5 ( Extremely ). These emotional adjectives are used frequently in experience-sampling studies of emotion (e.g., Kashdan & Steger, 2006 ). PA and NA subscale scores were highly interrelated (γ = −.11, SE = .00, t (102) = 25.062 p < .0001) ( reliability = .93).

During an initial orientation session, participants answered demographic questions, and received a packet of 21 duplicate daily reports containing the daily measures specified above, along with instructions to complete a single form at the end of each day or within one hour after waking. Participants were told in class during recruitment and in subsequent emails that it was extremely important to only complete reports at the end of each day, and not to complete more than one report on any single day. After 3 weeks, participants turned in their daily reports. All participants completed the CES-D three weeks into the study, on the day when they turned in their daily reports. Participants received course credit for their completed daily reports and survey responses.

The data consisted of 2,118 daily reports nested within 104 people. Participants reported mean daily CWB of 14.3 ( SD = 3.9), which is above the midpoint of 12, and mean daily AWB of 0.8 ( SD = 1.3). This positive number means that participants reported more positive emotions than negative emotions per day. Participants reported more positive social interactions ( M = 1.11, SD = 1.19) than negative social interactions ( M = 0.33, SD = 0.69). Using recommended formulas for calculating intraclass correlations within multilevel datasets, we calculated the proportion of variance in daily scores due to between-person factors (individual differences) compared to within-person factors (days) ( Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002, p. 36, 71 ). In each case, the percentage refers to the proportion of variance attributable to between-person factors ( Table 1 ). From these proportions, we can see that only about one-third to two-fifths of the variance in daily positive and negative social interactions, and AWB, are due to stable, dispositional factors, with the majority of the variance attributable to fluctuating daily factors. The reverse case was true for CWB, which appears more stable overall.

Descriptive statistics for Studies 1 and 2.

		M	SD	r	u	ICC

IVs	Cognitive Well-Being	14.27	3.92	5.20	10.31	.66
	Affective Well-Being	.81	1.34	1.08	.72	.40
DVs	Positive Social Interactions	1.11	1.19	.90	.52	.37
	Negative Social Interactions	.33	.69	.31	.16	.34

IVs	Cognitive Well-Being	14.83	2.85	3.12	4.90	.61
	Affective-Well-Being	.93	1.21	.77	.69	.47
DVs	Belonging	15.90	3.35	6.50	4.71	.42

Notes . The following terms were derived from “empty” models, as described in Equations 1 and 2 (except with the depression term excluded from Equation 2 ), r ij = within-persons variance; u 0j = between-persons variance; ICC = proportion of variance in each variable attributable to stable individual differences. Separate models were conducted for each variable.

Coefficients representing daily social interactions and well-being were estimated for each person (Level-1) and individual differences in these variables accounted for by depressive symptoms were estimated (Level-2). Level-1 variables were person-centered and Level-2 depression ratings were standardized and entered uncentered. First, we first tested whether more depressed people reported fewer positive and more negative social interactions than less depressed people using open HLM equations with CES-D scores as a Level 2 covariate of the intercept of positive and negative social interactions.

where Y ij is either positive or negative social interactions reports for person j on day i, β 0j is a random coefficient representing the intercept, or average daily number of interactions for person j, and r ij represents error. At Level 2, β 0j is predicted by γ 00 , which is the average of Level 1 coefficients describing daily reports of interactions, γ 01 , which is each participants' standardized CES-D scores score, and u 0j , which is error.

People with more depressive symptoms reported marginally fewer positive social interactions (γ = −.02, SE = .01, t (102) = 1.79, p < .10), and significantly more negative social interactions (γ = .03, SE = .01, t (102) = 4.23, p < .0001).

We next tested whether people with greater depressive symptoms were more reactive to positive and negative social interactions using an equation in which well-being was predicted by an intercept and number of positive and negative social interactions, with CES-D scores as a Level 2 covariate of each term.

where Y ij is either CWB or AWB scores for person j on day i, β 0j is a random coefficient representing the intercept, or average daily number of interactions for person j, β 1j represents each participants' daily positive social interactions, β 2j represents each participants' daily negative social interactions, and r ij represents error. At Level 2, β 0j is predicted by γ 01 , which is the average of Level 1 coefficients describing the relations between both positive and negative social interactions and the corresponding Y ij (either CWB or AWB), γ 00 , which is each participant's standardized CES-D score, and u 0j , which is error. Thus, γ 01 reflects the influence of participants' depressive symptoms on their average daily CWB or AWB. β 1j is predicted from γ 10 , which reflects the Level 1 coefficients describing the average relation between positive social interactions and CWB or AWB, γ 11 , which represents the influence of depressive symptoms on daily CWB and AWB, and u 1j , which is error. β 2j is modeled identically, but using reports of negative social interactions rather than positive social interactions. Thus, we modeled daily CWB and AWB as a function of within-person reactivity (slopes) to positive and negative social interactions, γ 10 and γ 20 , allowing these relations to differ for different participants, and using depression scores to predict these individual differences in reactivity, γ 11 and γ 21 .

Across participants, positive, γ 10 , and negative, γ 20 , social interactions were significantly related to well-being ( Table 1 ). People with greater depressive symptoms reported lower average daily CWB and AWB, γ 01 . Depression also moderated relations between daily positive, γ 11 , and negative, γ 21 , social interactions and daily CWB, and between daily positive social interactions, γ 21 , and daily AWB. To decompose the interaction between depression and social interactions we calculated means at +1 SD and −1 SD. Compared to people with lesser depressive symptoms, people with greater depressive symptoms reported larger positive relations between daily positive social interactions and CWB (see Figure 1 ) and AWB, and larger negative relations between daily negative social interactions and CWB. 2 Positive and negative social interactions, along with the moderating effect of depressive symptoms accounted for 27% of the variance in daily cognitive well-being and 42% of the variance in daily affective well-being (see Table 2 ).

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Depressive symptom severity moderates relations between positive social interactions; and daily cognitive well-being (Study 1)

Depression, social interactions, and well-being, Study 1.

Predictor	γ coefficient	SE	-ratio
				.27
Intercept (γ00)	14.37	.28	50.67
Depression (γ01)	−1.81	.29	6.22
Positive Social Interaction (γ10)	2.01	.27	7.48
Depression (γ11)	.65	.29	2.20
Negative Social Interaction (γ20)	−2.67	.50	5.38
Depression (γ21)	−1.42	.41	3.46
				.42
Intercept (γ00)	.82	.07	11.82
Depression (γ01)	−.58	.08	7.53
Positive Social Interaction (γ10)	1.40	.16	8.70
Depression (γ11)	.55	.18	3.06
Negative Social Interaction (γ20)	−1.75	.28	4.87
Depression (γ21)	−.16	.27	.60

As predicted from previous research and theory, people with greater depressive symptoms reported somewhat fewer positive social interactions and significantly more negative social interactions. Other results extended previous research and provided the first support for our expansion of socio-evolutionary models of depression to predict greater sensitivity to both negative and positive social interactions. Specifically, people with greater depressive symptoms were more reactive to both positive and negative daily social interactions. Thus, although previous research has indicated that people with greater depressive symptoms react more strongly to positive life events (e.g., Nezlek & Gable, 2001 ; Peeters et al., 2003 ), the present research is the first to develop a conceptual rationale for, and support with data, greater reactivity to social interactions, specifically.

Study 1 found that people with greater depressive symptoms reacted more strongly to social interactions included on a short list of positive and negative interactions. A priori lists of interactions might not be an accurate representation, in terms of number and type, of people's interactions in a given day. People undoubtedly engaged in social interactions that were not included on the list. Further, people likely differ in their interpretations of the magnitude of events and in how upsetting the negative events were, or how uplifting the positive events were. For example, some people may not worry about leaving a minor disagreement with a friend unresolved. On the other hand, an unresolved major disagreement may cause some participants to ruminate heavily.

To obtain more naturalistic and representative samples of people's daily social lives, we conducted a second study, allowing participants to rate self-selected “memorable” interactions. Because our central argument is that people with mild to moderate levels of depression may be particularly sensitive to social information because that information is relevant to their need to belong, we assessed people's daily sense of belonging. To do this, we measured how close and connected people felt to others, the perceived quality of social interactions, as well as how understood they felt in their interactions. Feeling close, connected, and understood are core features of a sense of belonging (e.g., intimacy, Laurenceau, Barrett, & Rovine, 2005 ; Reis & Shaver, 1988 ).

Study 2 used a more refined methodology. Whereas Study 1 used paper and pencil reports, Study 2 used an internet-based daily report method. Paper and pencil reports are at risk for various compliance errors, such as participants completing more than one day's worth of reports at a time. Completing a report for more than one day increases the risk of retrospective reporting biases. This response pattern would undermine the ecological validity of daily process methods. Using an internet-based daily report method corrects for this potential source of error, as well as data entry errors, by virtue of the fact that participants record their own data on the internet site, which then time/date stamps each report. Reports falling outside of the parameters are deleted from the dataset.

Participants were recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at a large, Midwestern university ( N = 49; M age = 20.0, SD = 3.9; 61% female; 68% European-American), and completed questionnaires and a web-based daily report for 28 consecutive days in exchange for course credit.

The CES-D ( M = 16.1; SD = 8.9; α = .86; 25.9% of the sample exceeded the cutoff score of 17 for mild to severe depression), daily CWB ( reliability = .94) and AWB measures ( reliability = .92) were administered.

Daily Interaction Ratings

Participants rated how close and connected they felt to other people each day from 1 ( Not at All ) to 7 ( Absolutely ), and listed up to four “memorable interactions,” which they rated their quality from 1 ( Extremely Bad ) to 5 ( Extremely Good ). Interactions were also rated on feeling understood from 1 ( Very Little ) to 5 ( A Great Deal ). Ratings were averaged across all reported interactions. Principal axis factor analysis with Promax rotation revealed that all three items loaded on one factor ( eigenvalue = 1.25), supporting their aggregation as an indicator of belonging ( reliability = .92).

Participants completed the CES-D at Time 1, and received instructions to complete internet-based daily reports each night between 7pm and 5am. Participants were told it was extremely important to complete surveys during the timeframe we provided for them, to only complete reports for a single day at a time, and that we would only retain daily reports completed during the timeframe we provided. Participants were reminded to complete their daily reports under these conditions in subsequent emails. Only responses time/date-stamped between these times were retained.

The data consisted of 1,124 valid daily reports nested within 49 participants, structured as in Study 1. Participants reported mean daily CWB of 14.8 ( SD = 2.9), which is above the midpoint of 12, and mean daily AWB of 0.9 ( SD = 1.2). Descriptive statistics were very similar to Study 1 for CWB; reports of AWB reflected a larger balance in favor of positive emotions, and greater variability, perhaps as a function of the 28-day timeframe. Participants' belonging scores ( M = 15.9, SD = 3.4) were above the midpoint of 13, indicating a moderately high sense of belonging in daily interactions. According to the intraclass correlation calculations, 41.9% of the variance in daily belonging scores is due to stable, dispositional factors rather than fluctuating daily factors. As in Study 1, more variance was due to stable factors for CWB (61.1%) than for AWB (47.3%).

Depressive symptoms were inversely related to daily CWB (γ = −1.35, SE = .36, t (49) = 3.72, ES r = .35, p < .001), AWB (γ = −.57, SE = .13, t (49) = 4.30, ES r = .40, p < .001), and belonging (γ = −.81, SE = .34, t (49) = 2.39, ES r = .23, p < .05). The focus of Study 2 was on the role of depressive symptoms in moderating the relation between sense of belonging and CWB and AWB ( Table 2 ). To examine this, we created multilevel models for both outcomes (CWB and AWB) in which outcomes were predicted by daily belonging at Level 1 (γ10), with depressive symptoms as a Level 2 moderator (γ01 and γ11). Across participants, feeling a sense of belonging robustly predicted greater daily CWB and AWB, γ(10). In accordance with the results from Study 1 and our hypotheses, people with greater depressive symptoms reported stronger positive relations between a sense of belonging and daily CWB ( Figure 1B ), with a trend toward a significant effect for AWB, γ(11). 3

In line with previous research showing that people with greater depressive symptoms feel that they experience worse social interactions (e.g., Nezlek et al., 2000 ), Study 2 found that people with greater depressive symptoms reported less satisfaction of their need to belong. Study 2 also provided the first indications that depressive symptoms sensitize people to this subjective sense of belonging. On days when people with greater depressive symptoms did feel a sense of belonging, their pattern of responses demonstrated heightened reward and punishment reactions to social interactions. A strong resemblance exists between the moderation results from Study 1 ( Figure 1 ), which used a paper and pencil method and an a priori list of objective social interactions, and results from Study 2 ( Figure 2 ), which used a more rigorous internet-based method with time and date stamping of entries and a measure of perceived belonging during interactions. Also as in Study 1, the effects were stronger for CWB than for AWB, suggesting that people with greater depression symptoms view their lives as more satisfying and meaningful when they have positive social experiences, with less of an effect on positive or negative affect than other people.

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Depressive symptom severity moderates relations between sense of belonging and daily cognitive well-being (Study 2).

General Discussion

Across two daily process studies, people with greater depressive symptoms reported a higher number of negative social interactions and a lesser sense of belonging in social interactions. In accord with previous research (e.g., O'Neill et al., 2004 ; Zautra & Smith, 2001 ), we found that compared to less depressed people, people with greater depressive symptoms experienced less well-being on days when they had negative social interactions (heightened reactivity). These studies also extended previous research, demonstrating that although people with greater depressive symptoms experienced fewer positive social interactions (e.g., Joiner & Coyne, 1999 ; Nezlek et al., 2000 ), they were more reactive to their occurrence (i.e., greater reward responsiveness). Previous daily diary studies have shown that people with greater depressive symptoms report more strongly enhanced well-being on days when they experience positive life events ( Nezlek & Gable, 2001 ). The present studies are the first to focus on social life events and feelings of belonging, as well as the first to extend the measurement of well-being to include meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life. We used a strategy of assessing both objective positive and negative social interactions (Study 1) and appraisals of the quality of social interactions (Study 2). The present studies used multiple measures to assess the latent construct of belonging that is thought to motivate human behavior (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Thus, it is with some confidence that we can say that belonging plays an important role in how people with greater depressive symptoms derive well-being from social experiences, whether objectively or subjectively assessed. Specifically, people with greater depressive symptoms reacted with more intense positive life evaluations and more positive affect balance in response to feeling a sense of belonging with others.

Results from both studies were stronger for cognitive well-being (judgments of meaning in life, life satisfaction) than for affective well-being (positive and negative affect balance). Meaning in life concerns people's judgments about whether or not their lives make sense and are endowed with a mission or purpose (e.g., Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006 ; Steger, Kashdan, Sullivan, & Lorentz, 2008 ). Life satisfaction concerns people's judgments about whether the conditions of their lives are satisfying and conform to their expectations ( Diener, Larsen, Emmons, & Griffin, 1985 ). Together, these variables gauge higher-order judgments about life as a whole, and would seem to require some amount of perspective-taking. In all analyses, the interaction of depressive symptoms and social interactions were significantly related to such judgments. In contrast, only one of three interactions between depressive symptoms and social interactions were significantly related to affective well-being, which concerns people's prevailing affective states over the course of a day. This pattern suggests that for people with greater depressive symptoms, social interactions influence cognitive well-being appraisals more consistently than affective well-being appraisals. Thus, compared to people with lesser depressive symptoms, people with greater depressive symptoms appear to appreciate their lives more when they meet their need to belong.

We derived our hypotheses by extending socio-evolutionary ideas about how mild to moderate depressive symptoms operate in the social world. In our expansion of such models (e.g., Allen & Badcock, 2003 ; Gilbert, 1992 , 2006 ), we drew on the idea that depressive symptoms serve as a warning signal, directing people's limited attentional resources to their current social status and the potential danger of possible rejection by other people. At low levels, depressive symptoms may help people adaptively regulate their social interactions to maintain social value and belonging. However, at greater levels of depressive symptoms, this social value warning system may become hypersensitive, leading to distress and impairment. Previous work on socio-evolutionary models has focused exclusively on negative interactions as signals of looming rejection; our extension pointed to the importance of positive relations as signals of rising belonging. For example, positive social interactions, particularly when a sense of belonging is felt, suggest to a person that his or her social value is high enough to feel safe and secure, allowing movement away from submissive or defensive postures to more active and exploratory motivational states. Our results provided support for these predictions, bolstering the notion that people with subthreshold levels of depression may be particularly attentive to, and benefit more from, positive social interaction and suffer more from negative social interactions compared with people without emotional disturbances.

When considering models informed by evolutionary theories, it is important to note that a distinction is often made between adaptations that provided survival advantaged to humans in our long-passed ancestral environments and the manner in which they function among contemporary life (e.g., Allen et al., 2004 ). That is, depressive symptoms may have developed to help ancestral humans respond to social cues by modulating their activity in ways that would have been appropriate under much more hazardous and precarious circumstances. Ancient adaptations that evolved in response to particular challenges may not be advantageous in our modern environments.

Positive social interactions are probably an encouraging sign for people struggling with depressive symptoms. These interactions might reinforce the idea that they matter to others, counteract the more frequent negative interactions they experience, and provide a tonic for depressive thoughts and emotions. It also may be the case that heightened reactivity – gaining enhanced well-being from these positive social experiences – may signal excessive attachments and vulnerability among depressed people. Their daily levels of well-being may be more “fragile,” subject to the caprices of their daily encounters with others rather than more stable sources of psychological health (see also Gable & Nezlek, 1998; Roberts & Monroe, 1994). Such a possibility fits with some research on sociotropic depression, which finds that sociotropic people are nurturing with relative strangers, but more vindictive in closer relationships ( Sato & McCann, 2007 ). It is not clear from the present data whether people were having the majority of their social interactions and feelings of belonging in the context of very close or less close relationships. It is possible that interactions with relative strangers were providing most of the boost in well-being, which would be similar other reports ( Sato & McCann, 2007 ). People who over-invest in new relationships and neglect or damage closer, more enduring relationships are likely to erode their long-term social resources, which are considered vital to continued functioning (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ).

Alternatively, heightened reactivity may indicate potentially potent everyday interventions. Behavioral activation interventions encourage patients to engage in a greater ratio of healthy behavior with the potential for positive psychological, social, and physical benefits (e.g., Hopko, Lejuez, Ruggiero, & Eifert, 2003 ). In the context of social activity, this means decreasing exposure to situations in which patients attempt to elicit sympathy and patronizing concern from others – reinforcing unhealthy depressive behavior, and increasing exposure to situations in which the patient is provided with genuine social support and acceptance – reinforcing healthy and adaptive social behavior ( Hopko et al., 2003 ). Research on depressive rumination supports this hypothesis. Although frequent ruminators are more likely to seek support and assurance, which can lead to rejection, they respond with greater reductions in distress upon receiving social support and other demonstrations of social acceptance than non-ruminators ( Nolen-Hoeksema & Davis, 1999 ).

There is the possibility, however, that the social interactions that give rise to feelings of belonging among people with greater depressive symptoms are the same ones that reinforce unhealthy depression sustaining behaviors. For example, although eliciting sympathy from others helps maintain a sense of helplessness and sustains depression, people with greater depressive symptoms may nonetheless desire sympathetic interactions and feel that positive social interactions are those in which they receive sympathy. Thus, they may interpret potentially unhealthy interactions as beneficial. Self-verification theory makes a similar claim in that it proposes that people with greater depressive symptoms may prefer to experience social interactions that are in concordance with their negative self-views. For example people with greater depressive symptoms may prefer to be socially rejected to being socially accepted (e.g., Swann, Wenzlaff, Krull, & Pelham, 1992). Thus, in addition to interpreting social experiences in a more negative light, people with greater depressive symptoms may also prefer negative social experiences and find them to be more familiar, and consistent with their self-views. Such biased social processing could explain the problematic social behaviors of depressed people, such as eliciting rejection and failing to gain acceptance (e.g., Joiner & Coyne, 1999 ).

Counseling Implications

The present findings join the growing body of literature linking depression to social functioning. People with greater depressive symptoms experience less pleasant and rewarding social lives – they report fewer positive interactions and more negative interactions. This situation is exacerbated by their greater reactivity to negative interactions. When working with depressed clients, clinicians should recognize that some part of this bleak, social landscape is created through clients' interpretations of events. This observation is consistent with some of the assumptions underlying therapeutic modalities such as interpersonal process therapy and cognitive therapy (e.g., Butler, Chapman, Forman, & Beck, 2006 ; Hollon, Thase, & Markowitz, 2002 ). In accordance with these approaches, the present findings support paying attention to helping clients revise and rehabilitate their interpretations of social events.

While it is the case that the social lives of people with greater depressive symptoms appear less desirable than those of other people, it is also apparent that when good events occur, they respond more strongly and positively. Clinicians should find support in these results for efforts to encourage depressed clients to seek out and achieve positive social interactions. In addition to the higher levels of well-being associated with such positive interactions, discussing positive interactions in session with a clinician may help clients capitalize on their experience. Clinicians who are actively encouraging and supportive when listening to clients relate their positive social experience may be further enhancing the well-being benefits that may result from such positive social interchange ( Gable et al., 2004 ). Suggestions to increase positive social interactions would be consistent with behavior activation treatments of depression (e.g., Hopko et al., 2003 ), which have strong empirical support. Nonetheless, without consideration of the potential for people with greater depressive symptoms to elicit negative responses and initiate uncomfortable social contact ( Coyne, 1976a , 1976b ), it is possible that encouraging increased social engagement could unintentionally produce increased negative social interaction. Regardless of whether they are positive or negative, the present findings demonstrate that the social lives of our depressed clients warrant considerable attention in session.

Limitations and Future Research

Our results are subject to limitations associated with the self-report methods used in the present investigation. There is the possibility that people systematically represented the quantity and quality of their social interactions in ways related to their level of depressive symptoms. If people with greater depressive symptoms interpret their social interactions more negatively (e.g., Swann et al., 1992), then it would be more difficult to argue that they are more reactive to social interactions in general because people with different levels of depressive symptoms recognize, respond to, and modify their environments in different ways (e.g., Barnett & Gotlib, 1988 ; Joiner & Katz, 1999 ). They would be, in a sense, reacting to different events, making comparisons difficult. In the present research, Study 2 used subjective ratings of belonging, which could be influenced by differing interpretive tendencies among people with different levels of depressive symptoms. The fact that Study 1's results, which were based on an objective list of social interactions, mirror those from Study 2 helps allay these concerns. However, it is still possible that people with greater depressive symptoms construe some interactions as being arguments or disagreements whereas less depressed people might view them as unexceptional, ordinary exchanges (e.g., Zuroff et al., 2007). Regardless, it is far from obvious that such a bias in perceiving relatively neutral events as more negative could account for stronger reactions, just as it does not explain why there would be greater reactivity to positive events.

Despite this limitation, it is important to understand the nature of depression's interaction with the complexities of people's dynamic, naturally-occurring social contexts, of which interpretations and perceptions are an inextricable part. This is the aim of externally valid studies like the present one. On the other hand, it is desirable to pinpoint depression's influence not only on interpretations and perceptions, but also reactivity per se. This is the aim of highly internally valid studies and experimental methods. Previous laboratory studies have used non-interactive stimuli (e.g., positive and negative films or facial expressions), rather than actual, in vivo social interactions to assess information perception and reactivity among more depressed people. One solution to the problem of intermingled perceptions and reactivity might be to expose people with different levels of depressive symptoms to standardized, in vivo social interactions in a laboratory setting, and test whether people with greater depressive symptoms interpret positive social stimuli similarly and whether they react more strongly than less depressed people. For example, during a staged collaborative project, a confederate could provide either positive or negative feedback to participants. We would expect that people with greater depressive symptoms would report more strongly enhanced well-being following the receipt of positive feedback and more strongly degraded well-being following the receipt of negative feedback compared to people with lesser depressive symptoms (although self-verification theories of depression might predict the opposite; see Swann et al., 1992).

There are a number of other limitations related to the measures we used in the present study. First, two of the five positive social interaction items we used in Study 1 focus on romantic interactions (flirting or having good interactions with a steady date). This may further limit the how well Study 1 represents the typical and important social interactions of college student samples. Second, our measure of cognitive well-being focused on meaning in life and life satisfaction. There are undoubtedly other indicators of cognitive well-being that should be included in future research (e.g., self-regulation, optimism). Third, our measure of belonging focused on people's appraisals of specific social interactions, and does not capture the full content of this important construct. Future research should consider using broader measures of global belonging (e.g., positive relationships; Ryff, 1989 ).

Although our sample of people with subthreshold depressive symptoms is appropriate for our extension of recent socio-evolutionary models of depression ( Allen & Badcock, 2003 ), it should be noted that most people in both studies did not meet a criteria of having mild-to-severe depressive symptoms. One strength of the model we presented here is that it regards depressive symptoms as occurring on a continuum; it predicts that sensitivity to social cues should increase in proportion to depressive symptoms, regardless of where they are on the continuum of impairment. Nonetheless, the presence of many people who are not manifesting any significant level of depressive symptoms reduces the degree to which the present studies directly test our proposed model of depression. To explore whether depressive symptoms have a social tuning function even at low levels, it would be valuable to replicate this research in stratified samples of unimpaired, mildly depressed, moderately depressed, and severely depressed people.

Finally, the generalizability of the results of the present investigation is limited by our use of non-clinical samples. Although our findings generally support previous research (e.g., Nezlek & Gable, 2001 ; O'Neill et al., 2004 ; Peeters et al., 2003 ; Segrin & Abramson, 1994 ), it is unclear whether our findings would extend to clinically depressed samples. Rottenberg's (2005) hypothesis of flattened reactions to positive and negative stimuli may be more accurate for clinically depressed samples than for non-clinical samples (although Must et al., 2006 found results more in line with our model). For example, if depressive symptoms accumulate to the degree that they interfere with basic cognitive and perceptual processes, then people with severe depression may not be able to monitor the social cues they receive from others. Daily process studies in clinical samples are needed to clarify the boundary conditions of sensitizing versus dulling effects posited by these alternative models.

Conclusions

By focusing on people's reactivity in their ongoing social environments, we gain a more reliable picture of life as it is lived. The present results suggest that people with greater depressive symptoms appear to find greater satisfaction and meaning in their lives when they meet their need to belong, suggesting an important role for positive social relationships in buttressing these important cognitive perspectives on life. Thus, the full spectrum of social interactions may provide especially fertile ground for continued research on etiology, maintenance, recovery, and relapse in depression.

Depression, belonging, and well-being, Study 2.

Predictor	γ coefficient	SE	-ratio
				.24
Intercept (γ00)	9.71	.31	31.75
Depression (γ01)	−1.35	.36	3.72
Belonging (γ10)	.50	.03	16.55
Depression (γ11)	.13	.03	3.80
				.29
Intercept (γ00)	.94	.11	8.46
Depression (γ01)	−.57	.13	4.30
Belonging (γ10)	.22	.02	14.61
Depression (γ11)	.03	.02	1.80

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank four anonymous reviewers and the Action Editor for their suggestion for improving this paper.

Todd B. Kashdan was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant MH-73937.

Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/pubs/journals/cou .

1 The temporal stability of the CES-D is important to the present study because the CES-D was administered at the end of the three-week diary period. Moderately strong test–retest reliability has been reported over a 2- to 8-week period ( r' s from .51 to .67) and over a 3- to 12-month period ( r' s from .32 to .54) ( Radloff, 1977 ). Thus, CES-D scores appear stable enough for the present study. Concerns over when the CES-D was administered also can be allayed somewhat because of the similarity of results from Study 1 (CES-D administered after the daily reports were collected) and Study 2 (CES-D administered before the daily reports were collected).

2 To investigate the possibility that there was a range restriction in the number of positive and negative social interactions reported by people with lesser and greater depressive symptoms, we split the sample into a Low Depression group (scoring 16 or lower on the CES-D) and a High Depression group (17 or higher on the CES-D). The Low and High Depression groups reported an absence of positive social interactions at similar rates (38.9% of days without a positive social interaction for the Low Depression group versus 40.9% of days for the High Depression group). However, the differences were larger for negative social interactions. Whereas the High Depression group reported 67.0% of days without having any negative social interactions, the Low Depression group reported 84.4% of days without having any negative social interactions. Thus, analyses for people with low levels of depressive symptoms are based on less than 16% of the total number of days. This may have attenuated the magnitude of the associations between negative social interactions and well-being, particularly among those low in depressive symptoms. If this was the case, it might result in an over-estimate of the influence of depressive symptoms on reactions to negative social interactions, although this does not appear to be a problem for positive social interactions.

3 We repeated these analyses for both Study 1 and Study 2 separating positive affect and negative affect into distinct dependent variables. In Study 1, the pattern of results was the same: both positive and negative social interactions significantly predicted Positive Affect and Negative Affect, separately, with depressive symptoms significantly moderating the influence of positive social interactions (but not negative social interactions). In study 2, belonging was significantly, directly related to both Positive Affect and Negative Affect, but this relation was only significantly moderated by depressive symptoms with regard to Positive Affect. This split in outcomes is probably what is driving the merely marginally significant moderating influence of depression in Study 2. If this pattern of findings was replicated in future research, it could indicate the possibility that depressive symptoms sensitize people to positive social events by increasing positive affective reactions, as opposed to dampening negative affective reactions.

Contributor Information

Michael F. Steger, Colorado State University.

Todd B. Kashdan, George Mason University.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Depression — Depression And Its Main Causes

Depression and Its Main Causes

Categories: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Depression Mental Health

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Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1373 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Beyondblue. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/treatments-for-depression/psychological-treatments-for-depression
Hannibal, J. (2012). Psychology for the IB diploma. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 149-61.
Harvard Health Publishing. (n.d.). What causes depression? Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-depression
Lyness, D. (Ed.). (2016, August). Why Do People Get Depressed? (for Teens). Retrieved from https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/why-depressed.html
Morin, A., & Lcsw. (n.d.). How Many People Are Actually Affected by Depression Every Year? Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/depression-statistics-everyone-should-know-4159056
Schimelpfening, N., & Gans, S. (n.d.). Why Some People Are More Prone to Depression Than Others. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/why-are-some-people-more-prone-to-depression-1067622

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Obesity and Depression: Is There a Connection?

Obesity and Depression Connection
Losing Weight While Depressed

Support and Resources

There is a strong connection between obesity and depression . If you have one of the conditions, you are more likely to have the other, although which comes first and why this occurs isn't fully understood.

Forty-three percent of adults with depression are also obese, and adults with depression are more likely to be obese than adults without depression. Effective ways to treat both conditions simultaneously exist, which can involve a combination of medical and nonmedical approaches.

This article discusses the connection between obesity and depression, risks, treatments, and how to lose weight if you have depression.

Prostock-Studio / Getty Images

Connection Between Obesity and Depression

There is a known link between obesity and depression. Depression is a risk factor for obesity, and obesity is a risk factor for depression, although how much one affects the other isn't clear.

Research on whether depression is more likely to cause obesity or obesity is more likely to cause depression has produced differing results.

Conflicting Theories

Although the connection between obesity and depression has been extensively researched, it's still not known for sure why one condition raises the risk for the other.

There is evidence of a biological connection between the two conditions. Obesity and depression share some physical mechanisms, including acute or chronic inflammation , an imbalanced gut microbiome , and gut-brain dysfunction. Adipokine and lipokine fat cells influence brain health and might also play a role in the connection between depression and obesity.

Depression can lead to poor dietary choices, interrupted sleep, lack of energy, and avoiding exercise and other activities, all of which can cause weight gain.

While some studies suggest a genetic connection between obesity and depression , one study found that only 12% of the genetic components of depression were shared with obesity. The research found that environmental factors, especially chronic stress , could play a role in the relationship between obesity and depression.

Another study found that having a higher fat mass increases the risk for depression but that depression doesn't increase the risk of obesity. The research theorized that the psychological effects of obesity could cause hormonal and metabolic changes in the body, including insulin resistance and inflammation , that are linked to depression.

Long-term use of certain antidepressants can increase cravings for carbohydrate-rich foods and lead to weight gain. Antidepressants most likely to cause weight gain are:

Amitriptyline
Mirtazapine
Nortriptyline
Trimipramine

Risks of Living With Obesity and Depression

Obesity and depression are both major public health concerns that negatively impact quality of life and raise the risk for heart disease , type 2 diabetes , and certain cancers . Having both obesity and depression also increases the risk of hypertension and high cholesterol .

Obesity and depression, either alone or together, are also associated with increased primary and specialty care visits, hospitalizations, and higher healthcare costs than those without either condition.

A Word From Verywell

Weight stigma can lead people to internalize negative messages about their bodies, leading to low self-esteem. This can contribute to depression and other mental health issues. A physical and mental wellness approach is essential in addressing these issues.

Treatments to Manage Depression With Obesity

While there are effective treatments for depression and obesity separately, there can be challenges to doing so. These challenges include seeing multiple care providers over long periods and finding access to and affording care. Current research is focusing on treatments to manage both conditions together.

One study found that a collaborative care approach combining weight-loss treatment, problem-solving psychotherapy , and antidepressant medications as needed helped reduce depression symptoms and improve weight after 12 months compared to usual care with a primary care physician.

Research also shows that weight loss through calorie-restricted diets can help improve mood and that people who've lost weight report improvement in depression symptoms . In one study, a ketogenic diet significantly reduced fat mass and depression symptoms in patients with multiple sclerosis . Mediterranean and anti-inflammatory diets have also been shown to improve depression.

Probiotics and prebiotics might also help to prevent and treat obesity and depression, but more research is needed.

How to Realistically Lose Weight While Depressed

Losing weight through diet and exercise can be more difficult if you have depression. If you are struggling to lose weight while you're depressed, it's essential to seek help.

Medical and Behavioral Interventions

Anti-obesity medications and intensive behavioral therapy can help with weight loss and also counteract weight gain that some depression medications, such as antidepressants and mood stabilizers , can cause.

Poor sleep is linked to both obesity and depression. Up to 75% of people with depression have trouble falling or staying asleep, and those with insomnia have up to 10 times greater risk of developing depression than people without insomnia.

Poor sleep is also associated with weight gain because sleep helps regulate hunger hormones. Inadequate sleep can cause you to eat more or make unhealthy food choices.

Adults should get seven to nine hours of quality sleep daily. Practicing good sleep habits can also help improve sleep.

If you are having ongoing trouble falling or staying asleep, or find yourself tired during the day , consult a healthcare provider.

Getting regular exercise can help with weight loss and has also been found to be effective at treating depression. Walking or jogging, yoga , and strength training , especially at intense levels, have been the most effective forms of exercise for helping depression, mainly when used in conjunction with psychotherapy and antidepressants.

If you are struggling with depression and obesity, it's essential to get support and help. A good place to start is by speaking with your healthcare provider, a psychiatrist, or a psychologist. There are also obesity medicine clinicians (including physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants) who are members of the Obesity Medicine Association and have received specialized training to treat obesity and obesity-related conditions.

Peer social support groups have also been found to help people successfully lose weight and keep weight off, especially if members have a shared sense of community. Support groups can also help you if you have depression by connecting you with others who are going through similar experiences and helping reduce isolation and loneliness.

It's common for obesity and depression to occur together, although why this happens isn't fully understood. Both conditions raise the risk of having certain other health conditions and a poor quality of life.

Being depressed can make it more challenging to lose weight. If you are experiencing depression and obesity, it's important to seek support and contact a healthcare provider because effective treatments are available.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Depression and obesity in the U.S. adult household population, 2005-2010 .

Blasco BV, García-Jiménez J, Bodoano I, Gutiérrez-Rojas L. Obesity and depression: its prevalence and influence as a prognostic factor: a systematic review . Psychiatry Investig. 2020;17(8):715-724. doi:10.30773/pi.2020.0099

Patsalos O, Keeler J, Schmidt U, et al. Diet, obesity, and depression: a systematic review . J Pers Med. 2021;11(3):176. doi:10.3390/jpm11030176

Fu X, Wang Y, Zhao F, et al. Shared biological mechanisms of depression and obesity: focus on adipokines and lipokines . Aging (Albany NY) . 2023;15(12):5917-5950. doi:10.18632/aging.204847

National Council on Aging. How excess weight impacts our mental and emotional health .

Afari N, Noonan C, Goldberg J, et al. Depression and obesity: do shared genes explain the relationship? Depress Anxiety . 2010;27(9):799-806. doi:10.1002/da.20704

Speed MS, Jefsen OH, Børglum AD, Speed D, Østergaard SD. Investigating the association between body fat and depression via Mendelian randomization. Transl Psychiatry. 2019;9(1):184. doi:10.1038/s41398-019-0516-4

Harvard Health. Managing weight gain from psychiatric medications .

Haregu TN, Lee JT, Oldenburg B, Armstrong G. Comorbid depression and obesity: correlates and synergistic association with noncommunicable diseases among Australian men. Prev Chronic Dis. 2020;17:190420. doi:10.5888/pcd17.190420

Nigatu YT, Bültmann U, Schoevers RA, et al. Does obesity along with major depression or anxiety lead to higher use of health care and costs? A 6-year follow-up study . Eur J Public Health. 2017;27(6):965-971. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckx126

University of Illinois. Integrated therapy treating obesity and depression is effective .

Ma J, Rosas LG, Lv N, et al. Effect of integrated behavioral weight loss treatment and problem-solving therapy on body mass index and depressive symptoms among patients with obesity and depression . JAMA. 2019;321(9):869–879. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.0557

Brenton JN, Lehner-Gulotta D, Woolbright E, et al. Phase II study of ketogenic diets in relapsing multiple sclerosis: safety, tolerability and potential clinical benefits . J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2022;93(6):637-644. doi:10.1136/jnnp-2022-329074

Johns Hopkins Medicine. Depression and sleep: understanding the connection .

National Council on Aging. How sleep affects your health .

Noetel M, Sanders T, Gallardo-GÃ³mez D, et al. Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials . BMJ. 2024;384:e075847. doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-075847

National Institutes of Health. Depression .

Obesity Medicine Association. Find an obesity medicine provider .

Ufholz K. Peer support groups for weight loss . Curr Cardiovasc Risk Rep . 2020;14(19). doi:10.1007/s12170-020-00654-4

Mental Health America. Find support groups .

By Cathy Nelson Nelson is a freelance writer specializing in health, wellness, and fitness for more than two decades.

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