The Relationship Between Menopause And Depression
Menopause is the stage in a woman's life when her menstrual monthly cycle will stop. This also means that the phase of a woman's fertility is over. During menopause, due to the changes in the body, a woman will experience several symptoms one of which is depression.
What Is Depression
Depression is caused by biological factors. Serotonin and other hormones in the brain regulate your behavior and mood. The level of hormones can fluctuate and can drop which causes changes in your mood and leads to depression.
A person suffering from depression will have intense feelings of hopelessness and sadness. More often than not depression can have disastrous effects on a person as well as the people around them.
Explaining Menopause And Depression
Menopause and depression have, through time, been always observed together in women. In fact, women are more prone to depression in midlife than men simply because midlife is the onset age of menopause for women. Symptoms include decreased interest in doing activities, depressive mood, change in sleeping pattern, loss of energy, feeling of hopelessness and worthlessness, irritability and extreme restlessness.
Even for those women who have not experienced depression or have no history of the disorder can be seen to have episodes of depression. This is highly attributed to the relationship between menopause and depression.
When menopause and depression go hand in hand, it is very important to let the woman know and feel that nothing is wrong with her. She needs to realize that she is feeling right now, especially the depressive moods, is just the effect of the relationship between menopause and depression.
Coping With Menopause And Depression
Unable to cope with depression, a woman may end up feeling very depressed to a point where she tends to think about killing herself. The melancholic feelings and feelings of hopelessness could take their toll and may cause devastating damage. To avoid such things from happening, a woman should learn how to cope with the depression brought about by menopause. First see a doctor about both menopausal symptoms as well as the depressive episodes.
One way of coping with depression is to have a support group. This can be your immediate family or your set of friends, although a support group of people with the same problem can be even more helpful. Through them, you could share all your concerns and worries, your thoughts and ideas.
Another thing you can do is to keep yourself busy. You may opt to do different activities during your free time. Through this you will have less time to think about depressive thoughts and other ideas that may cause depression. It would also be good to have somebody you can do the activities with.
