Tip : Eat A Healthy Depression
What you eat has a direct impact on the way you feel. Reduce your intake of foods that can adversely affect your brain and mood, such as caffeine, alcohol, trans fats, and foods with high levels of chemical preservatives or hormones .
Dont skip meals. Going too long between meals can make you feel irritable and tired, so aim to eat something at least every three to four hours.
Minimize sugar and refined carbs. You may crave sugary snacks, baked goods, or comfort foods such as pasta or French fries, but these feel-good foods quickly lead to a crash in mood and energy. Aim to cut out as much of these foods as possible.
Boost your B vitamins. Deficiencies in B vitamins such as folic acid and B-12 can trigger depression. To get more, take a B-complex vitamin supplement or eat more citrus fruit, leafy greens, beans, chicken, and eggs.
Boost your mood with foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids.Omega-3 fatty acids play an essential role in stabilizing mood. The best sources are fatty fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, tuna, and some cold-water fish oil supplements.
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Chronic Fatigue And Anxiety/depression: A Twin Study
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
- Niloofar Afari
- Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
- Suzanne Ashton
- Affiliation:Epidemiology-Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, Hines, Illinois
- Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
- Jack Goldberg
- Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
- Dedra Buchwald
- Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
- *
- Dr D. Buchwald, Harborview Medical Center, 325 Ninth Avenue, Box 359780, Seattle, WA 98104, USA. Tel: 1 206 731 8218 Fax: + 1 206 731 8247 e-mail:
Aim To Exercise More And Start Small If You Need To
Though depressive attitudes may make it harder to work out, implementing an exercise routine thats realistic and attainable in your everyday life can ease depression fatigue.
Exercise has the added benefit of improving your sleep, too.
Its OK to start small even just walking for 30 minutes a day will likely boost your energy and mood. Exercise is truly an organic and reliable way to help address your depression fatigue.
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Or Spend Time With Loved Ones
Depression can tempt you to isolate yourself and withdraw from people you love and trust, but face-to-face time can help wash away those tendencies.
If youre unable to spend time together in person, phone calls or video chats can also be helpful.
Try to remind yourself these people care about you. Resist the temptation to feel like youre a burden. You need the interaction and they likely do, too.
Research has shown that keeping a journal can be a beneficial add-on method for managing mental health conditions.
Writing down your thoughts can help you express what youre feeling more clearly. It can also help you keep track of what symptoms youre having each day and identify what causes them.
You can make a goal to write for a few minutes each day or week. Most importantly, what you want to write about is completely up to you.
When you do the same thing day after day, you use the same parts of your brain.
Research shows doing new things can feel rewarding improve your overall well-being and strengthen your social relationships.
To reap these benefits, consider trying a new sport, taking a creative class, or learning a new cooking technique.
What Is Mental Exhaustion
Mental exhaustion is a feeling of extreme tiredness, characterized by other feelings including apathy, cynicism, and irritability. You may be mentally exhausted if youve recently undergone long-term stress, find it hard to focus on tasks or lack interest in activities you usually enjoy.
Mental exhaustion often happens as a result of overuse, like physical overuse injuries. Even though you cant point to it, it has more in common with repetitive stress injuries, like carpal tunnel or tennis elbow. Rather than overstressing a muscle group, mental and emotional exhaustion come from overstressing your mind.
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How To Reach Out For Support
Look for support from people who make you feel safe and cared for. The person you talk to doesnt have to be able to fix you they just need to be a good listenersomeone wholl listen attentively and compassionately without being distracted or judging you.
Make face-time a priority. Phone calls, social media, and texting are great ways to stay in touch, but they dont replace good old-fashioned in-person quality time. The simple act of talking to someone face to face about how you feel can play a big role in relieving depression and keeping it away.
Try to keep up with social activities even if you dont feel like it. Often when youre depressed it feels more comfortable to retreat into your shell, but being around other people will make you feel less depressed.
Find ways to support others. Its nice to receive support, but research shows you get an even bigger mood boost from providing support yourself. So, find waysboth big and smallto help others: volunteer, be a listening ear for a friend, do something nice for somebody.
Join a support group for depression. Being with others dealing with depression can go a long way in reducing your sense of isolation. You can also encourage each other, give and receive advice on how to cope, and share your experiences.
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Prioritize Getting Good Sleep
Since depression may be causing you to have disordered sleeping habits, it can be helpful to develop better sleep habits.
Sleep hygiene pretty much just means good sleeping habits. Here are some ways of implementing sleep hygiene:
- Be consistent with sleep and wake times. Try going to bed at roughly the same time each night and getting up at the same time each morning. This way, your body becomes accustomed to a certain routine that optimizes healthy sleeping.
- Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, relaxing, and at a comfortable temperature. You can experiment with different room temperatures or try out a white noise machine. With patience, you might discover the best room environment to promote sleep.
- Remove TVs, computers, and smartphones from the bedroom. This may seem like an impossible task sometimes, but avoiding harsh blue light will help you fall asleep faster.
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How To Fight Depression And Fatigue
When youre utterly exhausted and experience other symptoms of depression, it is hard to muster the energy to turn things around. It makes sense to need to wait for depression to lift before making changes. However, depression fatigue wont stop on its own.
You can, however, work with your energy level. Think of this as a gradual, yet powerful, process. Below, youll find proven strategies to help both depression and fatigue. You dont have to do everything at once. Start with one or two items that feel possible , do them consistently, and add onto them over time.
These strategies help end depression fatigue. Where do you want to begin?
Depression fatigue is crushing. You dont have to let it keep you down, though. Use strategies to deal with both fatigue and depression, and youll recover energy and improve your mood.
Treatment Of Major Depressive Disorder
Treating major depressive disorder usually takes the shape of a two-pronged approach: antidepressant drug therapy and psychotherapy. These treatment elements are the cornerstone of depression treatment, although to varying degrees of success. Antidepressants come in various forms and act in different nuances ways upon brain chemistry. The four categories of antidepressants include SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs, and TCAs. Antidepressants take 4-6 weeks to produce various degrees of symptom relief, although 30%-50% of patients do not achieve symptom relief from these drugs.
Psychotherapy is designed to treat the particular features of the depression, so for some individuals that may involve delving into childhood trauma to help process and heal these emotional wounds, while others may benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy . CBT helps patients confront their negative self-messaging in response to various triggers, and then change those thought patterns toward more productive, positive ones.
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Fatigue Cause No : Anemia
Anemia is one of the leading causes of fatigue in women. Menstrual blood loss can cause an iron deficiency, putting women at risk. Red blood cells are needed because they carry oxygen to your tissues and organs.
Fix: For anemia caused by an iron deficiency, taking iron supplements and eating iron-rich foods, such as lean meat, liver, shellfish, beans, and enriched cereal, can help.
Turn To Role Models And Experts
As you are working to streamline your life, remember that you dont have to reinvent the wheel. If there is some aspect of your life that is eating up your decision-making energy, turning to role models and experts can be a great way to simplify your life.
There are people out there who are successfully doing what youd like to be doing. Watching and learning from them can be a great source of knowledge and inspiration. Follow their success model if you think it will work for you.
Many people are more than happy to share what works for them, and even feel honored when you ask.
So if youre starting something new :
- Find out peoples best tips.
- Implement the ones that seem like they would work.
- Adjust, if necessary, for your life and situation.
You can repeat this process in many different areas of your life. This works with studying, job strategies, fitness plans, and even stress management.
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Troubleshoot Your Sleep Hygiene
Sleep hygiene is the term used to describe healthy sleep habits or behaviors you can practice that may help improve your ability to fall asleep and remain sleeping through the night.2 Following good sleep hygiene can improve the quality and quantity of sleep you get each night. It also plays a significant role in your physical and mental health.
To help improve your sleep hygiene, make sure to follow a nightly routine that allows time for relaxing activities. Finding ways to unwind before bed may allow you to quiet your mind, relax your body, and get a better night of sleep. Also, aim to get up and go to bed around the same time each day. Limit or eliminate electronics in the evening hours and shut down all screens at least 60 minutes before bed.
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Fighting Depression At Its Roots
To really beat depression, eventually you need to remove the stress factor that is triggering your amygdala to flood those downers into your brain in the first place.
The therapist is key here. They are also bound to confidentiality, and can help you identify the source of your problem.
Hopefully, it isnt death or taxes that is bothering you, because those are two of lifes constants.Loss is a classic trigger for depression. It might be loss of job or relationship or capacity to do something. Big changes, and life transitions such as Empty Nest Syndrome can be a problem too. At all ages, each of us has a weak point: it might be feelings of powerlessness, it might be high needs of security, or deep fears of abandonment.
Whatever your trigger is, part of your recovery program needs to be to identify the trigger, and take some steps in your life to insulate yourself from this stress point.
To get rid of depression for good dont get mad, get even!
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Stress And Its Link To Fatigue And Depression
Stress wreaks havoc on your mind and body. If youre dealing with stressful life situations or events or lead a fast-paced, stressful lifestyle, youre more likely to experience depression and fatigue.
Your mood and energy levels will drop when youre under stress. Thats because stress negatively impacts your happy hormone serotonin and the relaxed hormone dopamine. When your body creates less of these, you feel depressed and exhausted.
Support Them In Continuing Therapy
On a bad day, your friend might not feel like leaving the house. Depression can zap energy and increase the desire to self-isolate.
If they say something like, I think Im going to cancel my therapy appointment, encourage them to stick with it.
You might say, Last week you said your session was really productive and you felt a lot better afterward. What if todays session helps, too?
The same goes for medication. If your friend wants to stop taking medication because of unpleasant side effects, be supportive, but encourage them to talk with their psychiatrist about switching to a different antidepressant or stopping their medication entirely.
Abruptly stopping antidepressants without the supervision of a healthcare professional may have serious consequences. Typically, reaching out to a healthcare professional before stopping medication use can prevent health complications.
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Ways To Overcome Mental Exhaustion
When youre mentally exhausted, even fun things sound like work. This can make it even more challenging to manage stressors. However, it takes effort and awareness to change the patterns that lead to feeling mentally tired. The good news is that you dont have to tackle it all at once to start feeling better.
Try these 11 strategies for overcoming mental exhaustion:
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Set An Achievable Exercise And Mindfulness Goal Each Day
Taking on a goal that is too complex or requires too many steps can feel overwhelming, especially when you are feeling tired. To help with small steps, Magavi recommends scheduling an achievable exercise and mindfulness goal for each day. Thats because scheduling in advance and creating routines transform healthy behaviors into positive habits.
This could be as simple as a mindful walk on a busy day that only takes 15 to 20 minutes. But make sure it is something you will enjoy doing. Its important to individualize the activity to avoid overexertion or demoralization, Magavi said.
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What Can Cause Extreme Fatigue
Various medical and nonmedical factors can contribute to fatigue:
- Psychological factors
In some cases, fatigue may be a sign of an underlying health problem that requires medical treatment. If your fatigue persists despite lifestyle changes, talk to your doctor to rule out other causes.
Why Depression Makes You Tired And How To Deal With Fatigue
- Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms of depression.
- If you are depressed, it’s likely that you will lack energy and feel tired physically, emotionally, and cognitively.
- Depression can also make sleep less restful and restorative here’s how to get better sleep and feel less tired.
- This article was medically reviewed by David A. Merrill, MD, PhD, psychiatrist and director of the Pacific Brain Health Center at Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.
- This story is part of Insider’s guide to Depression.
For people with depression, feeling tired is an all-too-common symptom. “Tiredness or fatigue is one of the hallmarks of depression,” says Amy Ricke, MD, of Your Doctors Online.
With depression, energy levels dip, and many of the symptoms, such as profound sadness and loneliness, can further exacerbate fatigue. Here’s why depression makes you tired, how to tell if it’s the cause of your fatigue, and how you can feel more refreshed and well-rested.
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A Team Of Researchers From The Uoc And The Hospital De La Santa Creu I Sant Pau Shows That There Is A Link Between Fatigue Depression Anxiety And Other Cognitive Deficits In Patients With Post
The most common symptoms of the post-COVID-19 condition known as long covid include fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction, according to the World Health Organization . To be considered symptoms of long COVID, they must be present for at least two months during the three months after the onset of the disease.
A recent study in Brain and Behavior showed that the disease had a generalized impact on attention skills, executive functions, learning and long-term memory. Furthermore, the scientific literature estimates that between 9% and 49% of patients present fatigue four weeks after the onset of symptoms, and it may even persist for a year in at least a third of patients.
Nevertheless, a possible link between fatigue and anxiety or depression in patients with long covid had not been studied in laboratories. Now, a study by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya , which has been published in open access format in the Journal of Neurology, has now shown that fatigue in long covid patients is related to anxiety, depression and apathy.
Things To Do If You Feel Tired All The Time
Everyone goes through periods of occasional sleepiness and low energy. But if youre not finding relief through sleep or rest, its time to address why youre experiencing excessive tiredness. It might be related to a medical issue or a mental health condition like depression.
Fatigue, sleepiness, and feeling tired all the time are common when dealing with depression. Depression itself can cause fatigue, apathy, and listlessness due to the nature of the disease, said Leela R. Magavi, MD, a psychiatrist and regional medical director for Community Psychiatry.
Signs of depression related to fatigue include:
- Trouble falling asleep
- Difficulty waking in the morning
- Sleeping too long
Once youre up and moving, you may also feel sluggish and unmotivated throughout the day. If your days and nights include more periods of restlessness and sleepiness than they do bouts of energy, its time to make some small changes.
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