Women Who Think Too Much

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New Clues to Women Veiled in Black
By SUSAN GILBERT

Published: March 16, 2004

For centuries, doctors have recognized women's vulnerability to depression and proposed a variety of explanations. The female of the species, with her "excitable nervous system," was thought to wilt under the strain of menstruation and childbirth, or later, the pressures of work and family.

But researchers are now constructing more scientific theories to explain why women are nearly twice as likely as men to become depressed. Social bias and women's higher rates of physical and sexual abuse and poverty, experts say, clearly play a role. But scientists are also studying genes that may predispose girls and women to the disorder.

They are examining the likely role of estrogen and even linking the development of clinical depression to negative thinking, which is more common in women than in men.

There is no question that women bear the brunt of the illness that Winston Churchill referred to as his "black dog."

The National Comorbidity Study, a large survey of adults in the United States released last year, found that 1.7 women for every man had experienced at least one episode of depression. Roughly the same ratio has been found in recent studies in nine other countries, including Canada, Brazil, Germany and Japan, said Dr. Marta Meana, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

"This is a global phenomenon," said Dr. Meana, who will address the issue at a meeting of the International Association for Women's Mental Health in Washington this week.

It is unlikely that any single gene, hormone level or type of experience explains the higher incidence of depression in women, experts say.

Instead, several genes probably work in concert with the ebb and flow of reproductive hormones to change brain chemistry in ways that might set the stage for depression, especially after an emotional ordeal.

Another risk factor appears to be something that researchers call overthinking, a tendency to dwell on petty slights, to mentally replay testy encounters and to wallow in sad feelings. Studies show that this type of negative thinking is far more common in women than in men, and that it can be a harbinger of clinical depression.

"The gender difference in overthinking is strongly tied to the gender difference in depression," said Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a professor at the University of Michigan and a leading researcher on women and depression.

About half the risk of depression is thought to be genetic. [snip]

... findings suggest that more genes may help to set off depression in women than in men, Dr. Zubenko said, explaining in part why more women become depressed. ...[snip] For one thing, the sex difference in depression is most pronounced in women during their reproductive years, when sex hormone levels are highest. Before puberty, boys and girls have roughly equal rates of depression. The incidence of depression climbs in both sexes during puberty, but the climb is steepest for girls.

In a national telephone survey of 4,028 adolescents ages 12 to 17, about 14 percent of girls and 7 percent of boys met the criteria for major depression.[snip]

In their reproductive years, women are also especially prone to bouts of depression when their sex hormones are in flux — just before menstruation and just after childbirth. Two subtypes of depression that affect only women — premenstrual dysphoric disorder and postpartum depression — occur then.

A leading theory is that sex hormones help induce depression in some women by affecting messenger chemicals in the brain that influence mood. [snip]

[snip]Specifically, women who usually suffered from premenstrual syndrome, a condition characterized by moodiness in the week or so before menstruation that is less severe than premenstrual dysphoric disorder, found that their moods lifted when they were given a drug that kept their hormone levels low.

When their hormone levels went back to normal, these women felt blue. But women who did not suffer from premenstrual syndrome did not experience ups and downs in mood during the study.

Such findings indicate that it is not hormone levels per se that make some women feel moody or depressed at times of hormonal flux, but an underlying vulnerability, said Dr. Mary Blehar, formerly of the National Institute of Mental Health and now director of cancer prevention, control, behavior and science at the National Cancer Institute.

"What that vulnerability is is the big question," she said.

Genes may tell much of this story [snip] ...but biology cannot entirely explain the sex difference.
"It's not just genetics," Dr. Steiner said.

Women, Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema says, are at least twice as likely as men to be abused, and abuse often leads to depression. Another important factor, she said, is the greater tendency of girls and women to ruminate over the common curveballs of life, like criticism at work or school or rejection by a friend.

In studies over the last decade, Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema has consistently found that women react more strongly than men to such experiences, mulling them over and over without being able to come to a resolution or to simply move on. Dwelling on problems causes the initial sadness to snowball, she said.

By contrast, men are more likely than women to distract themselves from a problem, often by going off and doing something active, a healthy reaction, Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema said, because it blunts the emotional sting of everyday disappointments and setbacks.

Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema's studies have found that people who habitually ruminate but are not depressed are more likely than non-ruminators to develop depression later.

There may be biological reasons behind women's tendency to brood, but no genetic predisposition or difference in the brain has been found.

Still, Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema said, "There are cultural and personality contributors to rumination."

Women tend to forge intense emotional connections and to care deeply about relationships, she said. [snip]

In her research, Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema has found that the sex difference in negative thinking is apparent in children as young as 9, several years earlier than the sex difference in depression emerges.

In a book published last year, "Women Who Think Too Much" Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema recommends a variety of strategies to help teenage and adult women cut down on overthinking.

Staying active can help. For teenage girls, playing a sport or engaging in other extracurricular activities can keep them from brooding about bad grades or broken romances.

"If you have your self-esteem hinged on one thing, like a single relationship, you don't have a fallback if something goes wrong," Dr. Nolen-Hoesksema said.

Another strategy is to cultivate a circle of friends. "When women ruminate, we blow things up," she says. "It helps to have friends who can help you reflect on a problem and find a solution."

Just make sure, she adds, that the friends are not too prone to rumination themselves.

I've been told many times that I   "overthink," so in some ways this research is comforting in that it seems to shed more light on some typical female behaviour.

OTOH--I can't not think!

Instead, I have an opposing theory.
Women don't overthink.
Men think too little.

Comments

[Vanessa]

1. One of my friends counsels new mothers who suffer from depression after giving birth. Her belief is that it occurs in about 60% of mothers, and if this were known, its effects would be contained slightly more, as most women's response to depression is to feel guilt at the depression, and hide it, instead of seeking help.

2. Isn't it males who are most highly represented in the suicide statistics, though?

[Anne]

Well DUH! Two both theories :>