Understanding Depression and Hormonal Factors

Depression has many factors, and that's why I like to look at each one,

because there can be different factors that are coming in.

So I always look at history.

When did it start? When did you start having this?

And you know, with a lot of ladies, it's around puberty.

So there's a hormonal factor there.

You see, the hormone that's displaced,

for instance, by the contraceptive pill is progesterone, and progesterone is called happy hormone.

You displace happy hormone, you've got a sad lady.

And that's one of the biggest contributing factors to postnatal depression,

to premenstrual tension, is this hormonal imbalance.

If a lady's on the pill for seven years before she gives birth to her babies,

that hormonal imbalance that was created by the pill can come through to her children.

So can you see the aspects that are there?

Plus, a big contributing factor is lack of sleep.

Dr. Matthew Walker, he wrote the book Why We Sleep.

He did intensive studies on this and quoted many other studies.

He showed that 10 nights in a row of six hours sleep a night doubles the risk of depression.