Depression

Depression is a whole-body illness, one that affects the body, nervous system, moods, thoughts, and behaviour. It affects the way you eat and sleep, the way you feel about yourself, the way you react to and think about the people and things around you. Symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. There are many types of depression, with variations in the number of symptoms, their severity, and persistence.

People with depression typically withdraw and hide from society. They lose interest in things around them and become incapable of experiencing pleasure. Symptoms of depression include chronic fatigue, sleep disturbances (either insomnia or excessive sleeping), changes in appetite, headaches, backaches, digestive disorders, restlessness, irritability, quickness to anger, loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies, and feeling of worthlessness and inadequacy. A person with depression may be chronically angry and irritable, sad and despairing, or display little or no emotion at all.

The two major classifications of depressive disorders are unipolar and bipolar. Unipolar disorders are characterized by depressive episodes that most often recur at least several times in the course of a person's life. Bipolar disorders usually begin as depression, but as they progress, they involve alternating episodes of depression and mania. As a result, bipolar depression is commonly known as manic depression.

The causes of depression are not fully understood, but they are probably many and varied. Depression may be triggered by tension, stress, a traumatic life event, chemical imbalances in the brain, thyroid disorders, nutritional deficiencies, poor diet, the consumption of sugar, mononucleosis, lack of exercise, endometriosis, any serious physical disorder, or allergies. One of the most common causes of depression is food allergies. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is another common cause of depression.