Memory impairment can happen for many reasons, but there’s one cause that may surprise you: depression. This mental health condition can have a significant impact on cognitive processes, like thinking and remembering. Here’s what you need to know about depression and memory loss, including solutions for memory impairment and when to seek professional help.
Memory impairment can happen for many reasons, but there’s one cause that may surprise you: depression. This mental health condition can have a significant impact on cognitive processes, like thinking and remembering. Here’s what you need to know about depression and memory loss, including solutions for memory impairment and when to seek professional help.
What causes memory loss?
While depression is a possible cause of memory loss, it isn’t the only one. Short-term memory loss and impairment can have a number of possible causes.
Here are some of the most common reasons people experience memory loss. Fortunately, many of them can be reversible:
- Head injuries, which can cause both memory loss and impairment
- Certain medications, including benzodiazepines, narcotics, seizure meds, and others
- Hypothyroidism, which can lead to forgetfulness
- Low vitamin B-12 levels, most common for older people
- Substance use and addiction, especially alcoholism
- Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression
- Diseases that impact your brain, such as brain tumors
Long-term memory loss can be caused by:
- Aging: memory loss is a normal part of growing older
- Dementia: an umbrella term that refers to a group of symptoms, including memory loss
- Diseases in the brain causing it progressive damage, including Alzheimer’s disease
Does depression cause memory loss?
Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions, affecting between 11.1% to 14.5% of people worldwide. It’s well known to feature symptoms such as sadness, anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), fatigue, hopelessness, irritability, sleep issues, and eating disturbances.
What’s mentioned with less frequency is how depression can impact your cognition, causing impairments like difficulty concentrating, slower processing speed when thinking, and short and long-term memory impairment.
Studies have found a correlation between cognitive impairment and mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder.
One of the most challenging symptoms of depression is the way it alters thinking. Depressive disorders can cause something called cognitive distortions. In simple terms, this means that a depressed brain often skews life with a negative slant which may feel accurate but isn’t really.
Cognitive restructuring is one helpful cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) skill for depression. You can use this tool to reframe negative thinking, helping improve symptoms of depression and prevent it in the future.
Learn how to battle depression naturally, using skills and behaviors like this one.
There are many unknowns in terms of the exact way depression impacts the brain. But we know that it can change thinking, slow down cognitive processing, and lead to memory loss or impairment. Some research indicates a correlation between depression and problems with memory.
