According to statistics, depression is one of the most common nosologies among patients with mental disorders.
The main signs of depression are low mood and the inability to experience pleasure, that is, anhedonia. Additionally, mental and physical inhibition, sleep and appetite disorders, pessimism and guilt appear. People cannot work and simply live in society, so questions arise about how dangerous this condition is and whether it is possible to die from depression.
Why can a disease lead to death?
Most cases of depression occur in middle-aged and older adults. This condition develops as a result of somatic diseases or occurs against the background of difficult life situations. It is possible for the disease to develop even in adolescents, for example, after a quarrel with parents.
Depression itself is not fatal. However, it can lead to serious consequences from which patients die. The mental state inevitably affects the functioning of internal organs and systems, and physical well-being. Chronic depression in severe form several times increases the risk of hypothyroidism, neurosis and many other somatic diseases, impairs metabolic processes and slows down tissue regeneration. Therefore, it is extremely important to quickly get rid of a bad mood and return to a full, healthy life.
Reasons why depression can lead to early death:
- Reduced attention and slow reactions can lead to accidents, injuries and traffic accidents.
- Weakening of the body's immune defense can cause the development of both infectious and inflammatory diseases and cancer.
- Changes in body weight, refusal of food and physical activity can trigger the development of severe metabolic diseases.
- Suicidal acts.
Thus, depression is no less dangerous a disease than cancer, tuberculosis or AIDS. However, it is much easier to recover from depression than from a severe infection or cancer. Refusal of treatment immediately transfers the patient to a risk group, which also includes people with severe and incurable diseases.
Why you should absolutely not brush off stress
Each of us has experienced stress at least once in our lives when preparing for exams, before a public speaking, at competitions, before an interview or after being fired - there are many reasons. However, many do not attach importance to this, forgetting what dangerous consequences of stress can overtake them a little later. We will remind you about them.
How stress affects the body
Short-term stress can sometimes be beneficial, for example, to increase performance and productivity. But when you experience stress too often or for too long, it becomes chronic and begins to not only affect your brain, but directly harm your body.
The physiology of stress is such that when entering this state, an important paired organ of our body, the adrenal glands, is actively involved in work. They secrete special hormones: cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine. Moving through the body along with the blood flow, these hormones enter the blood vessels and the heart; in particular, adrenaline makes the heart beat faster and increases blood pressure.
In fact, the adrenal glands are responsible for the “second wind” that opens in a person in a critical situation. But if this situation drags on, the adrenal glands continue to work without stopping, without even having time to recover. Let's take a closer look at the consequences of stress on our body.
Dangerous effects of stress
- A stressful state weakens the human nervous system and overloads it, depleting the adrenal glands, and a regular increase in blood pressure causes hypertension. All this increases the chances of a heart attack or heart attack. The hormone cortisol released during this process can disrupt the functioning of the endothelium - the first step towards the development of atherosclerosis.
- The effects of stress also include irritable bowel syndrome and heartburn. When your brain senses stress, it transmits a stress message to the enteric nervous system, which controls the smooth muscles of the gastrointestinal tract. At the same time, the natural rhythmic contractions that move the food eaten are disrupted, and susceptibility to acid increases. Through the enteric nervous system, stress can change the composition and functioning of intestinal bacteria, which impairs digestion and overall health.
- Read also: 7 yoga exercises that help relieve stress Does stress affect slimness? Certainly. Cortisol increases your appetite: it tells your body to replenish its energy reserves by eating carbohydrate-rich foods - and the consequences are that you overeat in an attempt to calm yourself down.
- High cortisol levels can also contribute to the accumulation of visceral, or intra-abdominal, fat. This fat not only makes it difficult to fit into jeans, but also actively releases cytokines - substances that can increase the risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
- The consequences of stress also manifest themselves in the deterioration of immunity, as hormones affect the cells of the immune system in different ways. Chronic stress can suppress their function, making you more susceptible to infections and slowing recovery.
- Finally, stress can further deteriorate your health by causing acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbances, fatigue and irritability.
Can you die from stress?
There are three stages of stress: anxiety, resistance and exhaustion. At the first stage, the body produces stress hormones and prepares for defense; at the second, it throws all its strength into resisting irritants and tries to adapt to the current situation.
And if the stressful state continues, and it reaches the third stage, then exhaustion sets in: the body’s reserves can no longer be mobilized, which leads to the occurrence of physical diseases and psychological disorders. And since the consequences of stress also include serious illnesses, in the absence of proper treatment they can actually lead to death.
It turns out that, fortunately, you will not die from stress as such, but the lingering consequences caused by it can lead to anything. Therefore, we advise you not to let things take their course and start fighting stress so as not to trigger its consequences - we have already written about how this can be done in the article “Anger Management: Methods for Effectively Dealing with Stress.”
The following video will help you find out the symptoms and causes of stress:
Source: https://megapoisk.com/posledstvija-stressa-kak-perenaprjazhenie-vlijaet-na-nash-organizm
What types of illness are deadly?
The most dangerous are moderate and severe depression. These types of pathology are most often characterized by a deep decline in mood and persistent thoughts of death that engulf patients. People in such states are dominated by melancholy, apathy, psychomotor retardation, anxiety and restlessness. Suicidal thoughts and tendencies may appear. Delusional ideas of guilt and pronounced disturbances in social functioning appear; the person simply cannot work and live normally in society.
Such deep disturbances in the mental sphere certainly affect physical well-being. The body in this state is extremely weakened and ceases to fight adverse environmental factors. In all tissues, resistance to viral, bacterial and fungal infections is significantly reduced.
Of the clinical forms, the most dangerous are bipolar and recurrent depression, as well as cyclothymia.
How dangerous is vegetative-vascular dystonia?
Vegetative-vascular (neurocircular) dystonia is a phenomenon that most people face in the modern world. However, unlike well-known diseases (such as ARVI, for example), which you can get sick more than once or twice, calculate the duration of the course in advance and get better within a week, getting rid of VSD is not so easy. Partly also because the need for treatment is not always realized by the suffering patient.
Despite the fact that the international classification does not recognize VSD as a disease in the strict sense of the word, this complex of symptoms and disorders significantly complicates a person’s life. Chronic pain, changes in physiological and psychological state, unpredictability of exacerbations - ignorance is frightening, and the neurological consequences make you think about the worst.
What can exacerbations lead to and is it possible, in principle, to die from VSD? To answer the question, let’s take a closer look at what this disease is.
How not to die from depression?
In order to overcome death from despondency and melancholy, you first need to correctly diagnose such disorders in yourself. This can be done independently using special tests that are freely available. In addition, you can consult a doctor who can make a more professional opinion about the patient’s condition. To avoid the negative impact of the disease, it is necessary to strictly adhere to the prescribed treatment and monitor the functioning of internal organs and systems using laboratory tests.
Additionally, you can play sports or find hobbies that would bring moral satisfaction and peace of mind.
What diseases does it masquerade as?
A failure in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system means that the body’s control mechanism itself is disrupted - a kind of “breakdown in the command center” that distorts the work of all reporting departments.
Which specialist can diagnose
To diagnose a problem, you have to go from the effect to the cause, but the effects can manifest themselves in such different symptoms that it’s easy to get confused when deciding “which doctor to see.”
As a rule, when symptoms characteristic of VSD occur, patients turn to:
This is due to the fact that the symptoms of vegetative-vascular dystonia can often be confused with other disorders in the functioning of a particular organ, but more often with their systems.
What are the symptoms confused with?
Due to its versatility, VSD can be hidden under other diseases, in particular cases dangerous to human life:
Is it possible to cure dystonia by chance, starting with treatment of the concomitant disease?
NCD can be both the cause of the disease and a consequence of its initial development.
A situation may arise when the started course of treatment helps in eliminating one cycle of symptoms, but instead others worsen. The treatment of dystonia requires an integrated approach, expressed primarily in psychological awareness and acceptance of the problem. Without this, it is impossible to effectively overcome the problem.
Prevention of depressive disorder
There are several preventive measures that will help avoid the development of depressive disorder. The following steps will help you change your life:
- Reducing the amount of stress in life. Modern people experience great psychological stress at work, and sometimes at home. Change is necessary for a person to experience comfort and peace.
- Rational distribution of work and rest schedules, healthy sleep 8 hours a day. These activities will allow a person to fully relax and gain strength, and the nervous system to restore the amount of neurotransmitters for normal functioning.
- Healthy and rational nutrition. All the beneficial substances that our body needs must be obtained from food. It should be of high quality and bring pleasure. Additionally, you can take vitamin and mineral complexes.
- Hobbies, entertainment and travel create a good mood. This is the best way to prevent depression.
- Quitting alcohol and tobacco. Bad habits poison the body and aggravate the course of any disease.
- Spend more time with your loved ones and family. Warm communication in a pleasant family circle will give you a feeling of need, happiness, and simply pleasant emotions.
- Physical activity and sports. These activities will help not only improve your well-being and normalize metabolic processes in the body, but also simply switch gears and take your mind off pressing problems.
Depression is a serious pathological condition that requires immediate medication or treatment regimen. Fatal and incurable depression does not exist in nature, but without treatment, the patient’s condition can seriously worsen and lead to irreversible negative consequences.
What to do to avoid dying?
To avoid the many complications associated with depressive disorder, it is important to begin treatment for it as soon as possible .
A person with depression is given special drug treatment that reduces the severity of symptoms and increases the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
Can be assigned:
Medicines are prescribed taking into account the patient’s symptoms and can be replaced with others during the treatment process.
the most effective in the treatment of depressive disorder, which allows one to achieve recovery in a short time.
Other types of psychotherapy are also used, such as Gestalt therapy, art therapy, and hypnotherapy.
Advice from psychologists for people suffering from depression:
- Always realize that depression is not a weakness or a personality trait, but a full-fledged disease that needs to be treated.
Treating it as a weakness does not bring the patient closer to recovery, but only aggravates his condition and increases his sense of worthlessness.
Practical recommendations for dealing with depressive disorder , which may be useful in combination with other types of therapy:
- try to break off communication with people who cause discomfort;
- try to be in the fresh air more often;
- activity is always more useful than inaction, so overcome yourself and try to work, do what you like, meet with friends;
- don’t push yourself: always try to get enough rest;
- exercise regularly;
- try to even out your daily routine and follow it carefully;
- adjust your diet so that it contains more healthy foods.
The sooner treatment for depression is started, the less it can harm both a person’s mental and physical health, so it is necessary to seek help when the first symptoms appear.
How to get out of alcoholic depression? Advice from psychologists will help you!
Depression - extended over time, suicide. Death tendency:
Causes of dystonia
The danger posed by VSD is directly proportional to the cause of its occurrence. Disturbances in nervous regulation can be triggered by a wide range of problems, ranging from psychological disruptions to serious internal pathologies.
The causes that provoke vegetative-vascular dystonia can be divided according to the stages of their occurrence:
During the period of prenatal development of the fetus, the future appearance of dystonia can be affected by oxygen deprivation, trauma during intrauterine development or during childbirth, and maternal use of alcohol, nicotine, and narcotic substances.
In the first years of life, a determining role can be played by an unbalanced diet, a sedentary lifestyle, severe illnesses, an unfavorable family environment (the presence of regular conflicts and a tense atmosphere), and experienced psychological trauma.
At this time, hormonal changes in the body, increasing mental stress, emotional disorders taken as manifestations of “adolescence”, a sedentary lifestyle and the prevailing number of hours spent at the computer are added to a number of previous reasons.
Hormonal changes in women during pregnancy, advanced pathological diseases, prolonged smoking and alcohol consumption, excessive workload (both physical and mental - the origins of VSD are often associated with working at the computer), prolonged exposure to stress, undisclosed causes of the development of neuroses and violation of the regime is just a small list of reasons that can cause disruption in the course of the nervous regulation of the body.
Additional factors for the development of VSD
At any age, in addition to the main common causes, third-party complications can also arise. They do not depend on a person’s healthy lifestyle.
These include:
Risk factors
What does progressive VSD threaten a person with besides the development of complications and the appearance of general discomfort? First of all, unpredictable crises. PA, dizziness, a state close to loss of consciousness, weakness and disorientation in space. Such conditions are especially dangerous for people in certain professions. Pilots, drivers, factory machine operators and others are at risk, because in the event of a critical situation, a crisis can lead to the death of not only the patient, but also other people.
Extra-crisis consequences of neurocircular disorders
In addition to the situational danger, the consequences of VSD over time lead to complications of old diseases. Prolonged stress and the development of neuroses already have a negative impact on the human body, but in the presence of congenital pathologies the situation becomes aggravated. Functional disorders of the autonomic nervous system undermine health and can take a person with a disease from a tolerable chronicity to death.
Why is vegetative-vascular dystonia dangerous?
Despite the fact that dystonia is not a death sentence, its manifestations are extremely difficult for the patient to tolerate. Is VSD in itself dangerous? Perhaps not - however, an important point for understanding the situation is precisely its impact on the vital organs of a person.
This is especially true for the cardiovascular system. It is impossible to die from dystonia itself, but it is quite possible to die from a heart attack, which its prolonged deterioration can lead to. The same situation occurs with any other organ whose work is affected by the sphere of influence of the human autonomic nervous system.
The danger of PA during a vegetative crisis
Recurrence of sharp pain in the chest, darkening of the eyes and fainting states can be associated both by the patient and by those around him with symptoms of a heart attack. Panic attacks, as frequent accompaniments of dystonia, only heat up the atmosphere. The characteristic psychological state that accompanies the course of the disease is fear, anxiety, especially fear of death.
They don’t die from VSD, but they are very afraid to die. Individuals prone to hypochondria especially suffer from these conditions.
More about the disease
The answer to the question whether VSD is life-threatening depends on the nature of the disease in each individual patient. In many ways, the determining factor is the psychological state - individuals prone to anxiety, suspiciousness, depression and neuroses are primarily at risk.
Contraindications for VSD focus on the mental aspect - a person cannot be left alone during an exacerbation of crises, thus allowing him to completely immerse himself in an isolated state of personal hell. Isolation from society, a sedentary lifestyle and disrupted daily routine are the first mistakes during a vegetative crisis.
Side effects of dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system
Manifestations of VSD are known for the development of various kinds of phobias (or intensification of existing ones), especially the fear of death that accompanies every change in physical condition.
Patients may also experience the following unpleasant symptoms:
Everyone experiences these symptoms differently.
Manifestations of VSD
The symptoms are easily confused with other diseases and look like this:
It seems that everything is not so scary, death from VSD does not occur. But let's see if this disease is so simple and safe.
Let's take any of its symptoms, for example, excessive sweating or hyperhidrosis. What's dangerous here? But for an unstable, weak person, you can build the following sequence: VSD - hyperhidrosis - panic (they will see, guess, they will laugh, I’m afraid that I will sweat and sweat even more) - isolation - depression - avoidance of people - loneliness - despair - I don’t want to live. There is someone's life in this chain and it is at risk. So is it possible to die from vegetative-vascular dystonia?
