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The Painful Reality: How Depression Hurts Your Body

American journalist, author, and editor Hara Estroff Marano defined depression as a “disorder of the body as much as of the mind”. With that definition in mind, I seek in this article to explore the trail of destruction that depression leaves around the body.

The Physical Toll of Depression: How It Affects Your Body

The mind cannot exist in the absence of the body. On the other hand, the body is normally referred to as a vegetable if the mid is absent. This has led to the common medical phrase “brain dead”. This interconnectivity between the two, sort of opens a Pandora’s Box since the treatment of one often requires that the needs of the other are kept under advisement.

For instance, if you consider the symptoms of depression, you can easily come to the conclusion that depression, while being a problem of the mind, often expresses itself through physical means such as insomnia and inactivity.


People may also lose the desire to eat properly, which eventually affects the body’s health.


It is this multi-faceted approach to depression that makes it one of the most dangerous ailments in the world. Severe cases of depression have been known to lead to suicidal tendencies.

Scientists have come up with conclusive evidence to suggest that depression works more like a cancer; attacking various body parts at once thus making it very difficult to control.

There is a much deeper interrelation between depression and the heart, which is thought of as the source of all emotion and feelings. However, this is not the angle that depression takes; evidence exists that depression can result in the occurrence of heart disease. This is because depression has the same effect as other ailments and drugs that raise the possibility of cardiac arrest.

Evidence also exists pointing to the fact that depression alters blood platelets. These are the circulating elements, which are charged with the responsibility of blood clotting. In essence, we can begin to see just how depression hurts the individual.

Depression hurts other parts of the body as well, leaving footprints all over the body and a trail; of destruction that is not easy to mend.

For instance, scientists have proven that depression often causes an acceleration of changes in bone mass, which places the individual at a higher risk of getting osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a disease of the bone that makes the bone weak and makes them susceptible to fractures. It results in the deterioration of bone mineral density, bone microarchitecture, and the alteration of various bone proteins.

Even then, the most real example of just how depression hurts is the occurrence of physical pain. For most people suffering from depression, the symptoms of depression usually include physical pain, which is normally vague in origin.

A depressed individual may suffer some pain whose source he or she cannot fathom. These pains may manifest as headaches or abdominal pain and musculoskeletal pains in the lower back as well as pain in the joints and neck. These painful periods may come in different combinations giving a new meaning to hurting depression.

However, as is often the case, these are just small bushfires meant to distract attention from the main issue. As such, while doctors are busy looking for the source of the problem and treating only the symptoms, depression takes a more comfortable seat.

When depression begins to hurt the physical being, then it is usually imperative that various stopgap measures are taken to solve the issue quickly.

The problem, in this case, is usually that both the doctor and the patient can take a very long time to arrive at the correct diagnosis. This means that most of the treatment plans that will be given will be stop-gap measures that do not tackle the root of the matter.

In a study that encompassed 25,000 students, it was determined that most of the students who suffer from depression often had various unexplained physical pains.

When depression hurts, especially in a physical way, it is easy to forget and begin thinking about other irrelevant causes. As such, while depression is an emotional disorder, it manifests itself in a variety of very painful physical symptoms, which can be confused for the onset of other diseases.

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