Rule Out Other Causes
First, you have to differentiate between what you are feeling and the more chronic, serious depression. Being tired, irritated, or hopeless are also symptoms of other forms of depression that have different treatments.
It is therefore critical to rule these out before treating the morning depression. Talk to your medical doctor, health care provider, or therapist to understand if you may have something more than temporary mood swings or if you have hypersomnia.
Its also important to rule out any physical causes by meeting with your medical doctor. You might be doing things to solve a different issue but there is an underlying cause or a cause that may have been overlooked.
In the end, your symptoms will not go away. Thats why it is vital that you find the right causes so that you can treat yourself correctly.
What Morning Depression Feels Like
Depression upon waking described by sufferers as deep sadness, a lack of desire starting the morning, a lack of motivation, feeling of emptiness, unexplained unhappiness, heaviness, and a desire to sleep as much as possible.
They also say that when the alarm buzzing, their brains look for excuses as to why they should not wake.
These excuses, when remembered, later on, do not make sense to the depression sufferers. When completely immersed with their daily routine, a few hours later, they regret that they did not wake earlier. They also realize that staying asleep was sort of surrendering to the depression and excuses their minds created.
According to research, this morning depression phenomenon is called Diurnal Mood Variation.
This includes people who suffer from symptoms of depression during certain hours of the day, usually in the morning, while being emotionally balanced and grounded later on.
What causes this specific morning depression condition and how can you avoid it, or at least reduce it significantly so that it will not hit you with intensity in the mornings?
Take Deep And Conscious Breaths
Deep breathing is a simple and efficient way to reduce your stress levels and regain control in your mind. When you start feeling overwhelmed at work or in any other environment, sit down and take a few deep and conscious breaths. Breath in until you feel your diaphragm expand and then slowly let out your breath. You can focus on breathing by slowly counting to five or ten while you take a breath in and then counting to five or ten while you exhale.
Make sure you focus on breathing your with diaphragm. You should feel your stomach move rather than your shoulders to take in a deep breath. Try to take in five to ten deep breaths before you return to the task that feels overwhelming. You will find that the slight interruption and focus on breathing actually gives you the chance to step away from the project or task for a moment and regain a feeling of balance. You can then focus on the task without feeling overwhelmed.
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Whats For Breakfast Start Thinking Food
Thinking about food or your first cup of coffee can be great motivation. If your stomach starts grumbling enough while youre forcing yourself to think about eggs, bacon, and French toast, youll be more likely to pull yourself up.
This doesnt always work, though, especially if youre experiencing a loss of appetite from depression. Still, know that eating something in the morning even if its just a slice of bread will help you get up.
Plus, if you take medications in the morning, its usually a good idea to have something in your stomach.
What Causes Morning Depression
Morning depression can be caused by multiple things. But why is depression worse in the morning? Simply because this is mostly caused by a disturbance in your system, more so in your sleep.
Sleep is a very important activity as it helps us rest and regenerate ourselves. When sleep is disturbed, our mornings can be awful. Lets take a look at the list below of how we develop morning depression.
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Causes Of Morning Depression
A 2013 study found that people with depression often have disrupted circadian rhythms. This disruption is one of the main causes of morning depression.
Your body runs on a 24-hour internal clock that causes you to feel sleepier at night and more awake and alert during the day. This natural sleep-wake cycle is known as the circadian rhythm.
The circadian rhythm, or natural body clock, regulates everything from heart rate to body temperature. It also affects energy, thinking, alertness, and mood. These daily rhythms help you keep a stable mood and stay in good health.
The rhythms of certain hormones, such as cortisol and melatonin, help your body prepare for certain events. For example, your body makes cortisol when the sun rises. This hormone gives you energy so you can be active and alert during the day. When the sun sets, your body releases melatonin. That hormone that makes you sleepy.
When these rhythms are disrupted, your body starts to make hormones at the wrong time of day. This can have a negative effect on your physical health and emotional well-being. For instance, when your body makes melatonin during the day, you may feel very tired and irritable.
People with morning depression often have severe symptoms in the morning, such as feelings of sadness and gloom. However, they feel better as the day goes on. Symptoms may include:
Meet Yourself Where You Are
Depression is common. It affects millions of people, including some in your life. You may not realize they face similar challenges, emotions, and obstacles.
The key to navigating depression is to be open, accepting, and loving toward yourself and what youre going through.
Every day with this disorder is different. Its important to take your mental health seriously and accept that where you are right now isnt where youll always be.
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Common Symptoms Of Morning Depression
In addition to waking up depressed, typical morning depression symptoms can include:
- Feeling lethargic when you wake up in the morning, even if you had a full nights sleep
- Struggling to establish a morning routine
- Difficulty waking up or getting out of bed
- Having little to no interest in events or activities you have planned during the day
- Experiencing issues with concentration during the morning hours
- Waking up in a low mood
- Excessive sleeping during the day due to sleep deprivation
Taking Time To Manage Your Health
Taking time to manage your mental health is an essential part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. When you ignore your mental health, you may become overwhelmed with stress from your work and home life. By taking time to keep your mind and emotions in a healthy place, you will feel confident when taking on new tasks. Fortunately, mental health exercises only take a few minutes, or even seconds, to help you stay balanced and focused throughout your day.
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Get Up In Time For An Interesting Routine
Getting up with just enough time to rush out of the house is challenging when dealing with morning depression. Rushing out to start your day can intensify the feelings of sadness, fatigue, anxiety, and you will take a lot of time to overcome these feelings. This can affect your job performance or relationships.
It can be ideal to engage in some interesting activity before you head out. This can be as simple as checking out your social media pages, playing with your pet, stretching, or listening to morning birds. Allow yourself at least 10 to 15 minutes of some fun activity that takes less energy.
To ensure you have enough time for an exciting routine, you can use an alarm or handle all your morning preparations before you go to bed.
Connect With Your Social Network
At times when you are feeling low, reaching out to family and friends may be the last thing on your mind. However, staying connected with others in your life can help shift your mindset and mood to be more positive as it allows you to focus on something important outside of yourself and also get some much-needed emotional support.
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Habit 3 Keep Up With Your Interests And Balance Out Your Responsibilities With Fun Time
Instead of feeling threatened about the gruesome tasks waiting for you each day, balancing your responsibilities with fun activities will help you avoid getting burnt out and maintain your enjoyment in life to look forward to each day.
The more you can balance responsibility with fun, the better you can recover from the stress of day to day pressure. This gives you a better chance of becoming a more resilient person.
Morning Depression: The Best Solution You Will Ever Find
Lets explore what its like to have morning depression: Have you ever woken up in the morning and experienced sadness that enfolded you? Do you find yourself struggling to get out of bed?
Like no matter how hard you try you cant put a smile on your face in the morning?
You are not sleepy, but something heavy, keeps holding you down, sort of a pinch in the heart that says, Stay in bed. Dont get up.
BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEEPPPPP!!! *annoying alarm going off*Is it morning already? Already you can feel the depression. Youve been awake for just seconds and you already want to get back to sleep.Maybe just a few more minutesThen a few more.And a few more after that.
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Pick A Daily Relaxation Habit
Depression often results when one part of our brain demands we should make a move, yet alternate parts oppose this idea.
Its like we are run by a negative committee and unfortunately when it comes to depression that committee usually out rules the taking action part of our brains because it wants to keep us safe.
How does this relate to the morning time and how we feel?
Well, if we dont have daily sources of relaxation and/or joy OR if we go too long without help, parts of our brain will actually go on strike, and eventually, depression will ensue.
Thats why finding a daily habit thats both unwinding and stimulating is something that you should make time for each and every day.
Get outdoors more, walk around the block, or commit to listening to a 5 min meditation to relax the mind. Your mind needs self-care.
The more self-care and healing you provide your brain the better you can move on to bigger goals that require more self-discipline, time, and energy so you can wake up feeling not so depressed.
What Causes Depression Or Anxiety
Depression and anxiety can happen for no obvious reason. But in many cases it can be triggered by certain life events, such as:
- money or finance issues
- the time of year.
These situations might make anyone feel low and not everyone who experiences these goes on to develop depression. But thinking about any triggers can help you understand your feelings.
Everyone feels down from time to time, but if you’ve not been feeling yourself for a while it’s time to talk to someone like your doctor, nurse or a trusted friend or family member.
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Habit 1 Put More Light On In The Room Before You Wake Up
When it’s darker, your body produces more melatonin, which is the hormone that makes you sleepy.
It is helpful to have an automated lighting system timed to come on an hour or two before to help reduce melatonin production as it gets closer to your wake up time.
Some people go further using a piece of equipment called a Mindspar, which shines a specific grade of blue light that can help you feel alert and alive faster.
Small Steps Big Impact
If a person feels sustained, intense, feelings of sadness or loss of interest in activities, they may have clinical depression. People also refer to this condition as major depressive disorder.
However, there are small steps you can take to help you gain more agency in your life and improve your sense of well-being.
Read on to learn how to incorporate these strategies in a way that makes sense for you.
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How Depression Age And Activity Connect
Smagula and his colleagues analyzed a survey of 4,390 adults who completed measurements of depression and activity data.
A device worn on the right hip called an Actigraph accelerometer was used to measure activity during waking hours, while a nine-item questionnaire was used to assess the presence or absence of clinically significant depression symptoms. Overall, depression was most prevalent among people between the ages of 45 to 59, women, and Black participants.
Age revealed itself to be an obvious differentiator when it came to being active in the morning. Overall, depressed adults 30 and older were less active throughout the day compared to depressed adults younger than 30, and this effect was largest in the morning hours.
The relative activity deficit that was associated with prevalent depression symptoms accumulated most rapidly over a few mornings and continued until late in the night, the study team writes.
The question of why this affected people older than 30, the researchers write, is perplexing. Smagula speculates the answer could be the social and cultural forces that shape when were active. Life circumstances influence when we choose to sleep and choose to be awake. Younger people, for example, may be active earlier simply because they have to get to school.
What Do I Do If Im Worried That A Relative Or Friend Has Depression Or Anxiety
If you think a friend or relative is experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety, try to talk to them about it.
You may feel uncomfortable bringing up a sensitive topic, especially if the person you’re concerned about doesn’t often talk about their emotions. Explain why you are concerned but avoid diagnosing their problem or forcing solutions.
They may be unwilling to talk about it, but let them know that you’re willing to listen when they’re ready.
There are various ways you can help them, such as:
- Offer your support, listen and reassure them that how theyre feeling can be improved.
- Stay in touch, call or visit regularly. The risk of depression increases when people feel alone and unsupported.
- Encourage them to make an appointment with their GP or another health professional. Offer to go with them to appointments.
- Encourage them to keep active and healthy. Plan occasional outings to get them out of the house.
Supporting a relative or friend with depression can be both rewarding and stressful. There is information and support for carers where you can get help for the difficulties you experience. Contact Carers Direct, Carers UK and the Carers Trust for more information.
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What You Can Do
If the symptoms of morning depression sound familiar to you, you can take steps to get help.
Get the right diagnosis. Talk to your doctor or health care provider to understand if you may have something more than temporary mood swings.
Take care of your overall health. Try to eat well, stay active, and manage any long-term conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. Physical health plays a role in your mental health.
Ask for a medication checkup. Your doctor or pharmacist can review if your drugs or drug interactions may be behind your morning depression.
Show Sources
Circadian Rhythm Of Mood In Mdd
An early study under ambulatory conditions over 2 weeks compared circadian rhythms in drug-free MDD patients before and after recover}’ with healthy controls. Lowest, circadian mood occurred around the time of awakening during depression, several hours later than after remission or in normal controls . The circadian variation of motor activity, body temperature, and urinary potassium was reduced during depression.12 A hint for a phase delay and lowered circadian amplitude?
In a 40-hour constant, routine study of seasonal affective disorder, the circadian rhythm of mood in controls could be contrasted with the overall lower mood in the depressed patients . What is clearly seen in the latter group is the mood-enhancing effect, of sleep deprivation during the second half of the constant routine.
Mood changes across a 40-hour constant routine protocol in control middle-aged women and women with winter depression . Both groups show a circadian rhythm in addition, patients improve on the second day after sleep deprivation. .Course of mood as assayed by the Adjective Mood Scale completed at 2-hour intervals throughout six 20-h days in healthy subjects. Analysis of the sleepwake and circadian clock-related components reveals the strong physiological components underlying subjective mood. Redrawn from ref 14.
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Waking Up Feeling Unmotivated
Many people live with this type of depression every day. I did. I really hated the mornings. Its not because Im a night person or because I was tired or didnt get enough sleep. I just couldnt find a good enough reason to wake and drag myself out of bed.
I didnt realize it back then, but I was depressed. I suffered from morning depression. You know whats weird? This depressing feeling disappeared shortly after I started my day like it was never there.
Today I wake up happy, excited and charged with energy. Ill tell you exactly how this happened, but first, lets talk about what causes early rise sadness.
Morning depression applies only to the early hours of the day. And the depression fades away later on like it never existed.
People who usually cope with morning melancholy feel energetic with an elevated mood a few hours after waking up they are inspired mainly in the evening and night time.