Does depression make you tired/exhausted – varieties and types of depression

Depression is the one of the commonest psychiatry problems seen in a community. Apart from major depressive disorder, minor varieties of this disorder can cause significant morbidity and suffering.

One of the three main criteria to diagnose depression is feeling low in energy. This can manifest as sudden onset tiredness, fatigue, and laziness in a previous workaholic. In addition to making you tired, depression can lower your day to day mood, and reduce the feeling of pleasure. Symptoms of severe depressive episode.

In addition to severe variety of this disorder, many more people are suffering from minor varieties of depression that are known to cause tiredness.

Atypical depression

This is a type of moderate depression. It is characterized by variably depressed mood with reactivity to positive events. Over eating and over sleeping is another feature of atypical depression. It is in contrast to regular depression where lack of sleep and poor appetite dominate. In addition to above features patients with atypical depression get extreme fatigue /tiredness and heaviness in the limbs. This makes working difficult. Pronounced anxiety is another symptom of depression. Atypical depression is common among people with high rejection sensitivity (react exaggerated way to real or perceived rejection).

Minor depression disorder

Minor depressive disorder and mixed anxiety/depressive disorder can cause tiredness. Most common symptoms are

1. Fatigue (tiredness)

2. Anxiety

3. Irritability

4. Poor concentration

5. Sleeplessness

6. Multiple body aches and pains

As you can see above features are very common among us. However, patients with minor affective disorder presents to general practitioners with multiple bodily complaints. For an example pain in the limbs, arms, back and headache that fleet, can be a symptom of depression. It is usually associated with tiredness and insomnia.

However, minor depression disorder can incapacitate the person. It can have serious personal and occupational consequences. Therefore, seeking medical advice when you are excessively tired can help you.

Other causes not associated with depression but makes you tired

Anemia and serious underlying physical illnesses such as heart failure, kidney failure can make you tired. Therefore, seeking medical advice and undergoing basic investigations is necessary.

Further reading

Atypical depression – Mayo clinic