Why women have depression 2 times more often than men

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Psychotherapists believe hormones are not the only ones to blame.

What is depression

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders, affecting more than 300 million people. According to the Ministry of Health, they told about the increase in the number of patients with depression of the representative of the World Health Organization, in Russia there are about eight million patients with depression. True, few know what it is.

The word "depression" has been replicated, but everyone understands something different under this concept. Most often, depression is simply called a bad mood or a blues that prevails in the fall or winter.

But in fact, this is a difficult condition in which a person is constantly in a depressed mood. It is supplemented by sleep and appetite disturbances, feelings of anxiety and guilt. Sometimes a person falls into apathy: he cannot work and even perform some minor household activities (brush his teeth, for example, or go to the store). People with depression are at high risk of suicide, disability and quality of life.

This means depression must be treated. But our attitude towards mental health still leaves much to be desired.

Why are we talking specifically about depression in women?

Both sexes are susceptible to mental illness, and men can also get sick. But women suffer from depression more often than men: 8.5% of women compared to 4.7% of men.

A significant gap is almost two times. Where it comes from, no one knows for sure. However, no one knows exactly why depression appears at all. Scientists suspect hormones, heredity, traumatic life circumstances are to blame. There are also several theories about why women get sick more often.

Because women have a special hormonal background

When it comes to women's mood, many people have a desire to write off everything on physiology and the notorious PMS, from which all the troubles. Hormonal fluctuations really affect mood: before puberty, the frequency of diseases in children of different sexes does not differ, but after it girls start to get sick more often. Why is depression more prevalent in women? …

Depression cannot be attributed to the menstrual cycle alone: it lasts longer than a standard cycle and is influenced by many factors. But physiology clearly did not stand aside.

Because women can give birth

The statistics of morbidity is also influenced by a purely female version of depression: postpartum. This is not about the banal fatigue and lack of sleep, which probably all parents experience, but about a protracted state with all the signs of depression, which appeared precisely after childbirth. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Depression and Mental Health by the Numbers: Facts, Statistics, and You, 10-15% of women develop postpartum depression.

Because women live worse

You can argue as much as you like about who has a harder time: women or men. But in the world as a whole, women often live poorer, they have limited access to resources, including health care Depression in women: Understanding the gender gap. In developed countries, women often face a double burden: both at work and at home, doing household chores.

Women are more likely to experience depression in leadership positions, according to Women in Positions of Power Show More Signs of Depression Than Men at the University of Texas. Researchers suggest that this is due to stereotypes: women have to overcome them when they get a high position, while men are less likely to experience prejudice at work.

Women are more likely to be abused. According to the WHO data on Violence against Women, every third (!) Has experienced physical or sexual violence at least once during their life. Any such episode can trigger depression.

Because it is so accepted

It is believed that women react to everything that happens to them much brighter than men. Therefore, they pay more attention to their feelings and give them a way out.

As the psychotherapist Olga Popova says, in many families it is believed that the boy needs to be taught to restrain emotions, not to show, to suppress them. He is taught to be strong, taught to count in difficult situations only on himself, not to complain about poor health and life circumstances, thus showing the strength of his character.

Olga Popova psychotherapist

Interestingly, until the end of the last century, it was believed that depression in men is an extremely rare occurrence. Recent research data suggest the opposite: depression is quite common among the male population of the Earth.

How female depression differs from male depression

The general symptoms of the disease are the same in both sexes. The difference is in the details.

Women get sick physically

According to Olga Popova, in women, depression has a pronounced somatic component and is disguised as a variety of diseases of the body: cardiovascular, reproductive, neurological, gastroenterological and other diseases. Therefore, patients turn to different doctors, and the psychotherapist is the last to reach.

Depression often begins after stress, manifesting itself at first as weakness, malaise, headache, dizziness, sleep and appetite disturbances. Such a blurred picture leads to the fact that women do not even suspect that this is depression, and not "vitamin deficiency" or something like that.

Women feel anxious

In women, depression is often associated with other mental disorders, each of which itself requires treatment. For example, anxiety. The woman begins to anticipate a threat, an uncertain danger. She is haunted by the fear of failure at work or in her personal life. She becomes very restless and deeply worries about the life, health of her family and friends, for their well-being.

Often during an attack, anxiety is combined with a rapid heartbeat, heart pain, dizziness, feeling short of breath, nausea, and abdominal cramps. Against this background, the depressed mood remains unnoticed.

Olga Popova

It is difficult for others to understand why a person is constantly worried - after all, there are no objective reasons for anxiety. Therefore, people with anxiety disorders often decide that they are winding themselves up, and a sense of guilt for their own condition is added to common problems.

As the psychotherapist notes, in the clinical picture in men, it is not anxiety that will come to the fore, but rather hard-controlled aggression, anger and irritation.

Eating behavior is disturbed in women

Eating disorders are also a symptom of female depression.

A woman suddenly begins to suffer from bouts of overeating (bulimia), trying with the help of food to cope with her negative emotions and feelings: anxiety, fear, resentment, disappointment, irritation, sadness, boredom, and so on. She just seizes her problems and worries when she takes another piece of cake, another cake, ignoring the absence of hunger. Weight gains, and this turns into a separate source of anxiety, despair and sadness.

Less commonly, depression can develop anorexia - refusal to eat.

How to recognize depression

The main symptoms of depression do not differ between men and women, and here are the signs on which it can be suspected.

1. Constant sadness, a sense of despair, hopelessness.
2. Constant guilt.
3. Loss of interest in things and activities that you used to enjoy.
4. Sleep problems: insomnia or, conversely, drowsiness.
5. Inability to concentrate.
6. Incomprehensible pains for which the cause cannot be determined.
7. Change in appetite: loss of taste and hunger, or, conversely, a constant desire to chew something.
8. Suicidal thoughts.

What to do with depression in women

Depression is depression, and it doesn't really matter what gender the person is sick with. Therefore, it is treated the same way in men, women and even people who have not decided on gender.

Treatment can be roughly divided into two methods: pharmacological (with pills) and psychotherapeutic (with a specialist). In fact, one method rarely works without the other: drugs are good at removing depression, but they do not teach how to cope with its return and do not explain how to live with different manifestations of the disease.

Olga Popova notes that it is important to remember the seriousness and danger of depression, which knows how to enter life imperceptibly and gradually. Over time, it becomes heavier and, without treatment, erases all the joy and colors of life, increases anxiety, sadness, despair and takes away the last strength.

Advice from loved ones like “you need an affair”, “give birth to a child and everything will pass”, “buy yourself a new dress”, “go to a beautician” will not help. Unfortunately, they can deteriorate.

Olga Popova

The best advice would be to offer to see a psychotherapist and help in finding such a doctor.