by Sarah Howell

Created on: June 14, 2009   Last Updated: June 21, 2009

Depression is an illness that normally covers the whole-body. This is because the illness involves the nervous system, the mood, thoughts, and behavior. Depression can effect a lot of different aspects of your life, your eating and sleeping habits, The way you feel about yourself or people and things around you. There are many different symptoms cause by depression that can last for weeks, months or even years. Symptoms are different depending on the type of depression you may have.

Most people with depression can feel withdrawn and try to hide from the world. People with depression ofter lose interest in things that once made them happy, they stop doing hobbies and things that once made them experience pleasure. Other symptoms can cause fatigue, and sleep disorders, which could be either sleeping to much or even to little. It can change their appetite, headaches, backaches, digestive problems, restlessness, irritability, quickness to anger, a feeling of worthlessness or inadequacy, and many but not all think of their death. Some thoughts a depressed person may have is the thought the world would be better off without them.

There are two major types of depression, unipolar and bipolar. Unipolar disorders are depressive episodes that most often recur at least several times in the course of that person's life. Bipolar is usually begins as depression, but as it progresses the start to have alternating episodes of depression and mania. Another name for Bipolar is manic depression. This is the name most often give in less severe cases of bipolar.

The cause for depression is not fully understood, but there is more then likely many different reasons depending on the person. Depression can be triggered by a tension, stress, a traumatic life event, chemical imbalance in the brain, thyroid disorders, nutritional deficiencies, poor diet, the consumption of sugar, mononucleosis, lack of exercise, endometriosis,and physical disorder, or even allergies. One of the most common causes of depression is, believe it or not, a food allergy.

It is often said that heredity is also a large cause of depression. In almost 50% of people suffering from depression one or both parents have experienced depression in some point in their lives. Some also believe that depression can be "caught" just like a cold or the flu. Dr. Ronald M. Podell said in his book, Contagious Emotions: Staying Well While Your Loved One Is Depressed says that in a marriage if one is depressed then the other

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