Why does depression make you feel so tired?
Autopsies of deceased patients suffering from depression have shown certain parts of the brain being decreased compared to normal size of healthy brains. MRI scans also show a decrease in activity when examining depressed individual’s brains compared to healthy people’s.
There’s still a lot doctors don’t know about the nature of depression, but what evidence is available seems to indicate that the brain is not functioning properly for those suffering from depression. The desease also appears to kill brain cells, resulting in reduced brain mass.
This has neurological consequences that aren’t entirely understood, resulting in fatigue, among various other symptoms. The working theory for decades has simply been a decrease in neurotransmitters, but this is far from telling the whole story.
What’s fairly well established is decreased levels of norepinephrine and dopamine in depressed brains. Norepinephrine is largely responsible for energy, but this can sometimes be manifested as feelings of irritability and restlessness.
Dopamine is still a very misunderstood neurotransmitter, as it seems to be associated with a number of mechanisms in various parts of the brain that handle functions such as attention, motivation, pleasure, addiction, movement, anticipation and symptoms of schizophrenia.
The reason I mentioned that these neurotransmitters don’t tell the whole story is to help you understand that replacing these neurotransmitters won’t necessarily solve your lack of energy in the long term.
Stimulants, such as ritilin or adderal can provide energy at first, but become ineffective over time due to the brains building tolerance of them. They can also cause anxiety, irritability and restlessness.
When you’re depressed, and energetic at the same time, it can create a very unpleasant feeling of dysphoria. Bipolar sufferers sometimes experience episodes of this known as a mixed state, which can be very dangerous due to increased risk of suicide.
I personally experienced this sensation when taking the drug bupropion and after going cold turkey from a max dose of venlafaxine. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.
Attempting to solve the fatigue, without solving the depressed mood, isn’t always an ideal scenario.
quora
