Category: Depression

Mental health problems can lead to a vicious circle that badly damages relationships.

Women who are depressed lose their ability to read emotions and this damages their relationship, research finds.

Women’s depression also causes their husbands to become less empathic.

The loss of ’empathic accuracy’ on both sides erodes the relationship, leading to more depression — and so the vicious circle continues.

The conclusions come from a study of 50 couples who had been together for an average of five years.

Couples recorded how their relationship was going over a period of three weeks.

The results showed that when a woman was depressed, she was worse at reading her partner’s emotions.

Depression had no effect on men’s empathic accuracy.

However, when women became less empathic, their partner also became less empathic — so mutual understanding was lost in both directions.

The study’s authors write:

“…women’s depressive symptoms are associated with poorer interpersonal perception—both their own and their partners’.

This impairment is specific to negative feelings…empathic accuracy is an interpersonal mechanism that underlies the association between depressive symptoms and interpersonal stress.”

This shows the extremely damaging effect of women’s depression on a relationship.

Women become less empathic when depressed, and this damages the relationship.

Dr Reuma Gadassi, the study’s first author, explained that the effect spreads from women to men:

“It’s called the partner effect.

Women’s depression affects their own accuracy.

But it also affected their partner’s accuracy”

Dr Gadassi said this had important implications for treatment:

“…you can’t understand depression without taking account of gender.

Bringing only the depressed woman into therapy is not enough.

You really have to have both partners in the room.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Gadassi et al., 2011).

Avoiding antidepressants has its benefits, says psychiatrist Professor Madhukar Trivedi.

Exercise and psychotherapy are often better than antidepressants for treating moderate depression, a depression expert argues.

Exercise helps to reduce inflammation in the body, which lowers depression and heart disease risk.

While exercise can be difficult to maintain when feeling hopeless, there are ways to combat this.

Professor Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist and co-author of a study on depression and exercise, said:

“Maintaining a healthy dose of exercise is difficult, but it can be done.

It just requires more effort and addressing unique barriers to regular exercise.”

Professor Trivedi has some recommendations for depressed patients:

• Exercise at the same time each day, but don’t worry if you have to skip a day or two.
• Log your progress somewhere.
• Change exercises to keep them interesting.
• Take a friend along.
• Get someone to hold you accountable for doing the exercise.

Avoiding antidepressants has its benefits, said Dr Trivedi:

“There is value to not starting a medication if it’s not needed.

Being active and getting psychotherapy are sometimes the best prescription, especially in younger patients who don’t have severe depression.”

Exercise may also be best for people with chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes and kidney disease.

Fitness is midlife reduces depression risk

The study included almost 18,000 people who were tracked from middle age onwards.

The results showed that people who maintain good fitness levels in midlife are at a much lower risk of depression.

Those with higher levels of fitness were also much less likely to die from heart disease.

The results are also relevant to younger people, said Professor Trivedi:

“This is the age where we typically see physical activity drop off because they’re not involved in school activities and sports.

The earlier you maintain fitness, the better chance of preventing depression, which in the long run will help lower the risk of heart disease.”

The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry (Willis et al., 2018).