Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness. Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters. Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities, such as sex, hobbies or sports. Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much.
You may notice that someone: has lost interest in doing things they normally enjoy. seems to be feeling down or hopeless. has slower speech and movements or is more fidgety and restless than usual.
It can also cause you to withdraw from your social relationships even from people to whom you are closest. Most people with depression experience a loss of energy and lack of motivation that can negatively influence your life. You may find it challenging to be productive at work or do well in school.
Facial expression of sadness
One very strong and reliable sign of sadness is the angling-up of the inner corners of the eyebrows. Few people are able to manipulate these muscles voluntarily, making it especially difficult to fake (unlike some other facial movements).
Poor mental health can make a person act out of character, but the stigma means they can find it hard to speak out.
But some cases of depression are more severe, with intense symptoms that may include significant appetite and weight loss, sleep problems, and frequent thoughts of death or suicide. Such depression can be paralyzing. You may isolate yourself and have trouble getting out of bed or leaving the house.
With sadness, the eyes look heavy, droopy. With anger, the eyebrows straighten and the eyes tend to glare. With confusion, the skin between the two eyebrows can wrinkle briefly. There's a connection between what your emotions and body language.
Sometimes, the only signs that a person may show are physical, such as fatigue, insomnia, or weight changes. Other signs of hidden depression can include using alcohol or drugs, being irritable or angry, and losing interest in pleasurable activities such as sex and hobbies.
People who are depressed tend to use the pronoun “I” more, indicating a greater focus on self. They also use “absolute” words like “must,” “completely,” “should” or “always,” reflecting an overly black-or-white outlook.
Those who are depressed sometimes turn their anger outward instead and lash out at those around them. Depression can amplify negative emotions that can be hard to control, and afterward, you might feel bad about how you expressed yourself—setting up a situation that feeds on itself and that is difficult to escape.
Depression and Vision
Light sensitivity: Patients may experience discomfort in daylight without a pair of sunglasses. Watery and strained eyes: Some individuals report watery eyes and pain from strained eyes. Eye floaters: Patients sometimes report the appearance of spots in their vision.
If someone looks down at the floor a lot, they are probably shy or timid. People also tend to look down when they are upset, or trying to hide something emotional. People are often thinking and feeling unpleasant emotions when they are in the process of staring at the ground.
Key points. The eyes express all the emotions and states of mind and body. Eyes soften in love, harden with anger, widen in fear, narrow in suspicion, roll in exasperation, glaze with boredom, and weep in sadness.
A person with a sad expression on their face conveys a potent message. Drooping eyelids, downcast eyes, lowered lip corners, and slanting inner eyebrows have an arresting effect on observers.
Clinical depression is the more-severe form of depression, also known as major depression or major depressive disorder. It isn't the same as depression caused by a loss, such as the death of a loved one, or a medical condition, such as a thyroid disorder.
Sadness. Facial movements: Inner corners of eyebrows raised, eyelids loose, lip corners pulled down. Sadness is hard to fake, according to researchers. One of the telltale signs of sadness is the inner-brow raise, which very few people can do on demand.
Body Language: The eyes or head will generally be lowered (this is sometimes referred to as the head “hanging”), and the person will often slouch or hunch over, as if folding in on themselves. They may physically move away from people spoken to.
Individuals usually look away when they are thinking, hesitating, or talking in a non-fluent way. This behavior likely serves two purposes, the first of which is to shield themselves psychologically from the embarrassment of being judged for not proceeding.
Sadness Microexpression
Inner corners of the eyebrows are drawn in and then up. Skin below the eyebrows is triangulated, with inner corner up. Corner of the lips are drawn down. Jaw comes up.
Depressed patients have been found to maintain shorter periods of eye contact and show more gaze aversion compared to control participants (Hinchliffe et al., 1970; Waxer, 1974). In two experiments of the present study, we investigated the effects of a perceiver's affective state on eye contact judgments.
In some cases, toxic behavior may stem from underlying psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, or borderline personality disorder. People with these conditions may engage in toxic behavior as a way to cope with their own emotional struggles.