Procrastination can be found as a common habit of many people around us. Depression is not something common and cannot be addressed silly. But have you ever thought that these two things can be related? Can procrastination be considered a sign leading to serious mental illness like depression? Such doubts will be clarified with a detailed explanation by the end of this article. We would also be giving explanations on both of the conditions to help you have a distinguished understanding of the same. The connection of procrastination with other mental illnesses other than depression has also been discussed.
What Is Depression? An Overview
Depression is a mental condition in which the patient experiences sadness in whatever activities they are engaged in. The victims would feel disappointment in almost every moment of life. This condition can be termed clinical depression or major depressive disorder. As a consequence of this particular mental state, people would also be inclined to a suicidal mental state. However, it is always possible to get the patient back to life with early diagnosis, treatment, and support from the people who are close to them. You may also look into yourself in order to find this condition of prolonged sadness.
The relationship between procrastination and depression
If you come across a person who is always in the habit of postponing their assignments, there is nothing wrong is suspecting a depressed mental health in the person. If they postpone their work and actions and try to get them done right before the deadlines of the same, it might be due to their lack of energy. People with energy and enthusiasm may start these works early and would be able to experience joy and satisfaction with the completion of their tasks.
However, those who are suffering from depression on account of their persistent state of disappointment and sadness would postpone the execution of their decisions and assignments. Apart from this, there are also a couple of more complicated connections between these two conditions and they have been discussed below.
- Lack of concentration
People with major depressive disorder would not be able to concentrate on work for a longer period of time. This would make them distracted easily while engaging in activities. When they lack the required amount of concentration to get things done, it is obvious to have the tendency to postpone the work until right before the deadline, which may help them have a trigger to complete it without any distractions. Lack of concentration would also take more time than expected to complete the assignments. This would again deteriorate the mental condition of the individual suffering from the mental condition by adding to the burden of disappointment carried by him or her. It may also harm the self-confidence of the person and lead to doubting their own potential to accomplish even the simplest of assignments in life.
- Lack of motivation
When we usually accomplish things, we would experience a kind of joy and satisfaction. These feelings would lead us to sense pride and strengthen the element of self-confidence in us. Experiencing such inner feelings would act as fuel to take up the next assignments that come our way and prove our worth. However, those having depression would not be able to sense these feelings. Hence they would be left with no fuel or motivation to take up and accomplish the upcoming work. Thus lack of motivation and the inner compliment can also be a cause of the procrastination habit in an individual and its root cause can be again identified as clinical depression.
- Anxiety issues
People with depression can also possibly have issues of anxiety. So when these people get assigned work and they normally procrastinate, it would finally lead them to an overwhelmed condition and anxiety. Hence when the next work turns up, they fear this anxiety and again feel like procrastinating it. Thus anxiety, procrastination, and depression also work in a loop that affects each other.
These are all the major connections between clinical depression and the habit of procrastination. Anxiety, concentration issues, and self-esteem issues are the other mental conditions associated with procrastination apart from depression, all of which eventually lead to depressive behavior.
