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Clinically depressed people can find it hard to tell the difference between their own negative emotions, like anger, guilt and frustration.
This could be part of the reason that depression is so hard to deal with.
It may be helpful for people experiencing depression to be more specific about which negative emotion they are feeling, the research also suggests.
The study’s first author, Dr Emre Demiralp, explains:
“It is difficult to improve your life without knowing whether you are sad or angry about some aspect of it.
For example, imagine not having a gauge independently indicating the gasoline level of your car.
It would be challenging to know when to stop for gas.
We wanted to investigate whether people with clinical depression had emotional gauges that were informative and whether they experienced emotions with the same level of specificity and differentiation as healthy people.”
Participants in the study — half of whom were experiencing clinical depression — were asked to report their emotions at random intervals over a period of a week.
Each time they reported how they felt across 11 different emotions, 7 negative and 4 positive:
The results, published in the journal Psychological Science, showed that people who were depressed found it difficult to distinguish between negative emotions (Demiralp et al., 2012).
In contrast, non-depressed people were clearer which negative emotions they were experiencing.
For the positive emotions, however, both the depressed and non-depressed participants could distinguish them equally well.
Dr. Demiralp said:
“Our results suggest that being specific about your negative emotions might be good for you.
It might be best to avoid thinking that you are feeling generally bad or unpleasant.
Be specific.
Is it anger, shame, guilt or some other emotion?
This can help you circumvent it and improve your life.
It is one of our overarching goals to investigate approaches for facilitating this kind of emotional intelligence at a large scale in the population.”
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Are you getting enough of this crucial vitamin? Up to 50 percent of people might not be.
Are you getting enough of this crucial vitamin? Up to 50 percent of people might not be.
Depression can be a sign of vitamin D deficiency, research finds.
The vitamin is also thought to play a role in regulating serotonin, a neurotransmitter important for mood.
One study has linked vitamin D deficiency to a 75 percent higher risk of depression.
Symptoms of depression include moodiness, lack of motivation and tiredness.
Depression is also linked to physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, dizziness and muscle pain.
Foods that are rich in vitamin D include oily fish and eggs, but most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.
That is why levels are typically lower in the body through the winter months in more Northern climes.
Up to 50 percent of young women may be deficient in this vitamin, other research has shown.
One small case study involved 3 women who were given vitamin D replacement therapy for 12 weeks.
All had previously been diagnosed with depression and were taking antidepressants.
The results showed that all three women felt their depression lift significantly.
Dr Sonal Pathak, the study’s first author, said:
“Vitamin D may have an as-yet-unproven effect on mood, and its deficiency may exacerbate depression.
If this association is confirmed, it may improve how we treat depression.”
Although only a small study, other much larger studies have pointed to a link between vitamin D deficiency and depression.
One study included 12,600 people, who had their vitamin D levels and any symptoms of depression tested.
The results showed that people who were more depressed had lower vitamin D levels.
Dr Pathak said:
“Screening at-risk depressed patients for vitamin D deficiency and treating it appropriately may be an easy and cost-effective adjunct to mainstream therapies for depression.”
The study was The Endocrine Society’s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston (Pathak, 2012).
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