How your brain being depressed makes your body exhausted.
In: Biology
When you’re happy, joyful and laughing you produce less cortisol (the main stress hormone) When you’re depressed I think the body treats it very much like a mental stress which produces more cortisol which really takes a toll and exhausts every part of your body.
I am a mental health therapist – I know more about depression than the actual brain chemistry, but here is a simple explanation:
90% of individuals experiencing depression report fatigue as a symptom. There are a few secondary factors at play:
1. Depression can cause sleep problems – insomnia and hypersomnia. A lack of consistent sleeping patterns can lead to feelings of exhaustion.
2. Many individuals with depression take antidepressants. One common side effect is fatigue and drowsiness.
3. Many individuals with depression have changes in appetite. Some individuals eat too much, and others have difficulty eating. A lack of consistent diet and nutrients can lead to feelings of exhaustion.
4. High levels of stress can also lead to depression. Stress can cause inflammation in the body that can lead to fatigue. Stress also affects levels of serotonin and dopamine – hormones that help regulate mood and energy. When these are irregular it can cause fatigue. Usually, depression results from too low of levels of serotonin, but like I said I am not a psychiatrist or MD so I’m not qualified to give a formal explanation.
Being depressed has many aspects. One of them is, that you feel like you are having “water in your gas tank” – You are not going anywhere, no matter how hard you turn the key.
Getting certain neurotransmitters to do actions that will feel rewarding in some way is essential for body to move.
Psychology msc here.
Some theories suggest that when you’re depressed the neurotransmitters are messed up and your perception of reward for doing something is also messed up. Meaning that you just don’t act. Not getting neural motivation to lift your muscles to do things can feel like exhaustion.
For example you get a dose of dopamine that will encourage you to lift you finger and buy a chocolate because your brain knows how tasty it is.
When you’re depressed chocolate might not feel like a good enough reward so you don’t get the dopamine release to even reach for it, hence feeling unmotivated and somewhat exhausted.
It does not make your body exhausted, it reduces your currently available energy.
Your body stores energy when not needed and releases energy when needed. But needed means your brain thinks you need it.
When you are depressed nothing seems to be important. When nothing important is going on your brain decides it is a good time to rest and save energy.
If something happened to scare you or otherwise think something important was going on, you would have a flood of energy.
Latest Answers