Difference between Stress and Depression
Stress and depression are two common words which are even used frequently by children in their pre-teens. Most of us, marred by our lifestyles and work, often feel that stress is taking its toll. During a bad phase, we also struggle hard to free ourselves from the pangs of depression. However common the usage of these two words may be, hardly have we known the difference between the two.
Stress is a tension arising in body that comes from our daily life problems. For instance, if the exams of your kids are approaching soon, chances are you may start feeling the stress already and more than the kid! The deadlines looming at work, the problem of making ends meet at month- end causes stress. In stress, physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms would show as a response answer from the body mechanism. Now, you would have understood that irritation, sudden hunger cravings or loss of hunger.
On the contrary, depression is the result of biochemical imbalance in the body and would show only through mental indications. As both of the ailments, have mental symptoms in common and no wonder that to most people, they appear same. However, depression is not a byproduct of our daily life or problems we face on day to day basis, it occurs because of apathy towards oneself or life, lack of confidence and other factors such as pessimist attitude towards life. Stress has nothing to do with lack of motivation factors in your life. Even if you are earning in six figures or otherwise have a happy life, you may feel stress now and then because of work or time-mismanagement.
Stress shows through sleeplessness, palpitation of the heart, chest pain, upset stomach and headache. It can also affect your metabolism whereas depression may lead one towards drugs and even suicidal attempts. You can also feel some common symptoms of stress when at the verge of depression such as amnesia, meaningless worry and sadness. Also, depressed patients would eat very little, cry for no reasons, isolate themselves from other and general life and start abusing drugs or alcohol as a refuge. It is seen that even some people experiencing stress, do the same but their escapism to drugs or apathy and withdrawn symptoms are momentary while depression has more negative and dangerous impact on people’s lives.