Chronic aches and pains with no apparent physical cause are a nightmare. Even worse, many people spend months or years in search of explanations.
Strangely, these physical symptoms may be symptomatic of depression. Depression is thought to be a mental or emotional issue, yet it has physical symptoms that can be overlooked or even confused.
If you’re dealing with chronic pain, headaches, or other unexplained physical distress, it’s worth thinking about how much depression may play a part. Healthy Families, an Albuquerque therapy practice, works with clients who are feeling lost and struggling to connect the dots between mental health and physical symptoms.
Here’s Why Depression Can Be Linked with Physical Pain
Depression is a complex disorder that affects more than mood. It alters how the brain processes pain signals, frequently amplifying the sensation of discomfort. This interaction involves the nervous, immune, and stress hormones and plays out in a complex relationship. When depression disrupts these systems, it can create physical symptoms, including:
Chronic headaches or migraines
Tightness or tension of their muscles
My stomach hurts, or my stomach aches, or I feel sick, or I have a stomachache
Pain in the back or joint
Fatigue or a general sense of physical heaviness
And while no apparent medical cause exists, these symptoms can be honest, even debilitating.
This issue is especially true if conventional medicine does not seem able to return you to normal, and you are frustrated, disbelieving, hopeless, etc.
How to Understand Whether Depression Is in Your Pain Cause
The problem is not every physical ache has roots connected to depression — but there are a few signifiers of an internal emotional cause:
Associated Emotional Symptoms: If you feel chronic sadness, irritability, or lack of enthusiasm for things you used to be excited about when your physical pain happens, then depression is likely a factor.
Pain Gets Worse in Stressful Situations: Is a painful episode worse during stressful times or when you’re feeling particularly low?
No Medical Cause: If a medical examination shows that the aches and pains are not likely caused by a medical condition, it might be worth considering a psychological connection.
These symptoms should be taken seriously with an open mind. Emotional health is an important aspect of physical health as well.
See Counseling for Pain Related to Depression
Strange pains can disrupt daily life, rendering even basic activities seem impossible. Failing to recognize the potential link to depression can prolong suffering and delay effective treatment. With the guidance of a skilled therapist or counselor, you can find clarity, relief, and a route forward.
At Healthy Families of Albuquerque, we understand that depression is a complex experience and something that can have an impact on your body as well. Guided through the causes of their pain by our work's evidence-based, holistic, and compassionate nature, our patients learn to create their own coping strategies and modify and lessen their symptoms.
How Therapy Can Help with Depression-Related Aches
Counseling and therapy can be transformative for people whose physical pain has no clear medical explanation but is rooted instead in depression. Therapy pulls together the emotional and physical parts of your experience:
Finding the Deeper Emotional Needs
Therapists help you understand emotional triggers that can be painful at a fundamental level. Whether that be unresolved trauma, lingering stress, or entrenched feelings of guilt or worthlessness, identifying these stressors is the initial step toward feeling relief.
Learning Coping Strategies
Therapy teaches you tools to manage those emotional—and even physical—symptoms productively. Daily practices like mindfulness, relaxation exercises, and grounding help to calm the body and allow clarity to enter the mind.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a standard treatment for depression that has been shown to work. This therapy focuses on identifying and combating unhelpful thought patterns by providing healthier or more positive alternatives. By working on these thought processes, CBT can reduce emotional suffering, which can relieve physical symptoms.
Addressing Lifestyle Factors
Therapists will work with you to help you with lifestyle changes to improve your physical and emotional wellbeing. Therapy often goes hand in hand with exercise, better sleep, and some dietary alterations in reducing depression-related pain.
Building a Support Network
Ways to fight feelings of alienation, which can be a factor in depression and physical symptoms of depression, is through building a support network. Therapy can help you create a support system of friends, family, or support groups who will share and validate your experiences.
Benefits of Fighting Both Emotional and Physical Symptoms
Permanent relief comes with a full-spectrum approach to treatment. When emotional wellbeing is feeling better, somatic symptoms feel better, so:
More zest and urgency to accomplish things
More extraordinary ability to cope with stress and adversity
Improved relationships and communication with relatives, partners, and friends
The Role of Compassionate Counseling at Healthy Families of Albuquerque
Contact Healthy Families of Albuquerque Today for Depression Treatment.
Our team of therapists training assists those with depression that presents itself through physical symptoms as well. Continuing with your story and treating the mind and body of your diagnosis, we believe in customizing a path that starts with you and your story.
Our therapists are trained to create a safe, supportive, and nonjudgmental environment to help you understand your symptoms and root causes and develop a plan for recovery.
We provide an approach that may involve talk therapy, cognitive behavioral techniques, or breakthrough lifestyle counseling. Our goal is to help you take control of your own health and well-being.
When to Seek Help
If you’ve been living with unexplained aches and suspect that depression might be at least partly to blame, getting professional help is a good step. Chronic pain, combined with sadness, hopelessness, or apathy about life, is not something you have to endure alone.
Therapy is not weakness—it’s the ultimate power to move to care for your emotions, joints and control what happens next.
A Path Toward Healing
Physical depression symptoms and depression can feel overwhelming, but they don’t need to define the rest of your life. Through therapy, relief will happen, and your joy will be returned if you try to avert the link between your emotional and physical health.
We at Healthy Families of Albuquerque support you on your journey. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and begin your journey toward understanding and healing. Together, we can help you find the relief you’ve been seeking.
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