Wed 04/Jan/2023 – 07:16 AM
Women are more susceptible to mood swings than men, and this may be due to hormonal fluctuations experienced by women, but there are some other factors that may affect the mental health of women. womanaccording to So Sun.
4 reasons why women are more susceptible to depression
1. Hormonal fluctuations in women
Levels of the main sex hormone testosterone in men don’t change much over the course of their lives. In contrast, once women start menstruating, girls experience large fluctuations in the female sex hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, throughout each month as part of their menstrual cycle.
This helps explain why girls’ depression rates double, and in the first year following giving birth, up to 15-20% of new mothers experience depression, according to the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
2. Amenorrhea, which is accompanied by a decrease in the hormones of happiness
At menopause, women’s estrogen levels start to wane and then stop completely, which also leads to a significant drop in levels of mood-boosting hormones, so up to 20% of menopausal women experience bouts of depression.
In the lead-up to this change, women have higher levels of a protein in the brain called monoamine oxidase, which breaks down levels of the feel-good chemical serotonin, prompting mood swings.
3. Women are more likely to suffer from winter depression
About 6 out of every 100 people suffer from seasonal depression or the so-called winter depression, which is one of its possible causes, is that sunlight helps produce serotonin, a chemical that gives the body a feeling of happiness, which is actually lower in females.
4. Women don’t sleep well
Women are 40 per cent more likely than men to have insomnia, not sleep well, and wake up during the night, according to a review published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
This affects women’s moods, as one study of 10,000 adults indicated, people with insomnia were 5 times more likely to be depressed.
