Feeling of sadness

Psychologists say that normally people have only 6 basic emotions, which are happiness, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust. What is sadness? Sadness is characterized by a low mood or feeling down, often in response to something that was disappointing or discouraging, or caused other negative feelings.

Sadness is associated with increased activity of the right occipital lobe, the left insula, the left thalamus the amygdala and the hippocampus. The hippocampus is strongly linked with memory, and it makes sense that awareness of certain memories is associated with feeling sad.

Sadness can happen on its own, but is usually relieved by the passage of time, self-care activities, or doing something the patient enjoy to cheer himself up.

The 5 Stages of Grief is a theory developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. It suggests that we go through five distinct stages after the loss of a loved one. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying (1969).

Along with the emotional baggage it carries, extreme sadness can cause distinctive physical sensations in the chest: tight muscles, a pounding heart, rapid breathing, and even a churning stomach. Severe sadness and stress, such as grief, can even lead to an elevated risk of heart attack. And aside from these acute symptoms, depression is known to exacerbate overall chronic pain.
Feeling of sadness

Sadness can cause depression

Sadness is a normal reaction to difficult times in life and usually passes with a little time. Sadness is only a small part of depression. In general, sadness is a feeling of a level of unhappiness, unrest, or mental suffering. There are many reasons for sadness--it is a normal human response to upsetting situations. Sadness may be caused by a loss of some kind or an unexpected and unwanted change.

Depression usually begins with feelings of discouragement or sadness. If it gets really bad, the depressed person can feel swallowed up by hopelessness. Many depressed people feel like they no longer get enjoyment from things they used to love doing. If depression gets extreme, there might be a kind of numbness or emptiness, like having no feelings.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the most common illness worldwide and the leading cause of disability. They estimate that 350 million people are affected by depression, globally. Women with depression typically have symptoms of sadness, worthlessness, and guilt.

There are three types of depression: mild depression, moderate depression and severe depression. Moderate depression, or a feeling of hopelessness, lasts longer and is more intense. Moderate depression is often brought on by a sad event, such as a death of a loved one or loss of a job. It usually does not interfere with daily living, but can become severe. If it persists, professional help may be warranted.
Sadness can cause depression

Meaning of Depression

Meaning of Depression
One of the difficulties in conceptualizing depression is essentially semantic, that term has been variously applied to designate: a particular type of feeling or symptom; a symptom complex (or syndrome); and a well defined disease entity.

Not infrequently, normal people say they are depressed when they observe any lowering of their mood below their baseline level. A person experiencing a transient sadness or loneliness may state that he is depressed. Whether this normal mood is synonymous with, or even related to, the feeling experienced in the abnormal condition of depression is open to question. In any event, when a person complains of feeling inordinately dejected, hopeless or unhappy, the term depressed is often used to label this subjective state.

The term depression is often used to designate a complex pattern of deviations in feelings, cognition and behavior that is not represented as a discrete psychiatric disorder. In such instances it is regarded as syndrome, or symptoms –complex. The cluster of signs and symptoms is sometime conceptualized as a psychopathological dimension ranging in intensity from mild to severe. The syndrome of depression may at times appear as a concomitant of a definite psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenic reaction; in such a case, the diagnosis would be “schizophrenic reaction with depression.” At times, the syndrome may be secondary to or a manifestation of organic disease of the brain such as general paresis or cerebral arteriosclerosis.

Finally the term depression has been used to designate a discrete nosological entity. The term is generally qualified by some adjective to indicate a particular type or form as, for example: reactive depression, agitated depression or psychotic depressive reactive. When conceptualized as a specific clinical entity, depression is assumed to have certain consistent attributes in addition to the characteristics signs and symptoms; these attributes include specifiable type of onset, course, duration and outcome.
Meaning of Depression