Have you been feeling lethargic and unmotivated lately? Are you struggling to get things done? If you answered yes to both questions, you might also wonder if you’re depressed or lazy. You may even find yourself Googling ‘Am I depressed or lazy?’
While these two can feel similar, they’re very different. While laziness is being able to perform the tasks, you need to but choosing not to, depression is a mental health condition that can lead to a physical and mental inability to not complete the tasks you need to.
This article inspects both, helping you properly identify how you’re feeling and create solutions to ensure you can get stuff done once more.
Am I Depressed or Lazy? 3 Key Differences
Trying to work out whether you’re feeling depressed vs. lazy can mean examining all the symptoms you’re experiencing. While similar in the way they feel, depression and laziness need to be dealt with differently.
Below are three of the key differences between the two to help you get a clearer picture.
Laziness is a behavioral sign
Unlike depression, laziness is behavioral. Being lazy is a disinclination to do the things you need to get done, rather than being physically or mentally incapable of doing them. While one may lack the energy to carry out a task, laziness is described as reluctance to perform it and is characterized by a lack of motivation to utilize one’s energy for the task.
Depression, on the other hand, is characterized by low energy or fatigue, depressed or low mood, and anhedonia–or an inability to feel pleasure. This makes depression a mental health disorder that is not controlled by choice.
When a person is lazy, they choose not to complete a task. It is a transient emotional response and can be resolved through willpower. Depression often requires more than just willpower to resolve and cannot be helped.
Laziness comes and goes
As a transient emotional response, laziness also comes and goes. This means that while you may feel lazy one day or when you need to carry out a particular task, it will not universally hinder your ability to complete chores and tasks.
Laziness may be an aversion to a particular chore, too. For example, if you don’t like household cleaning, you may put it off and refuse to use your energy to do it because you simply don’t like doing it.
Depression, on the other hand, is less about the task at hand and more about how you feel in yourself. Depression can last for a long time and is a consistent feeling. While a lazy person may have productive days, someone who is depressed may not be able to get motivated again for a long time.
Laziness does not require professional intervention
While laziness may interfere with your life, you rarely need any professional help to resolve it. It can be resolved by implementing steps to overcome laziness and lack of motivation. Steps could include breaking tasks down, creating to-do lists, and small rewards.
Depression may require professional interventions. Treating depression often requires professional help, like talking therapies, antidepressants, and changes to lifestyle factors.
Signs of Depression
Symptoms of depression include the following:
- Feelings of sadness, emptiness, hopelessness, and tearfulness
- Angry outbursts
- Irritability and frustration
- Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
- Sleep disturbances
- Tiredness and low energy
- Lack of appetite
- Weight loss or weight gain
- Anxious thoughts and restlessness
- Slower thinking and body movements
- Feelings of worthlessness
- Guilt and self-blame
- Trouble concentrating and making decisions
- Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death
- Suicidal thoughts, attempts, or suicide
- Unexplained physical symptoms, like back pain and headaches
Signs of Laziness
- You procrastinate on important tasks
- Disinterested in normal activities
- Feel tired frequently
- You are distracted easily
- You may have low energy
12 Ways to Identify if You Are Lazy or Depressed
If you’ve been searching ‘Am I depressed or lazy?’ then we can help. Below, we’ve gathered 12 ways that you can identify what it is you’re feeling. In our experience, these 12 signs will help you to see the difference between depression and laziness and find ways to resolve your issues. Take a look to learn more.
1. You’re experiencing physical symptoms
One key way you can distinguish between laziness and depression is whether you’re experiencing physical symptoms. Like many mental health conditions, depression can manifest physically too. You may experience back pain or headaches where the cause is unclear.
More and more, we’re understanding that mental and physical health are intrinsically linked. However, with depression, the link between mental health and physical pain may run deeper. Depression can cause dysregulation of certain transmitters in the brain, namely serotonin and norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters are linked to pain, so as their levels reduce, you may experience more physical pain.
Laziness is not caused by changes in brain chemistry and has no links to hormonal dysregulation. This means you’re very unlikely to experience physical pain caused by feeling lazy.
2. You feel angry
Anger is linked to the psychology of depression. The emotion can manifest as irritability, frustration, and hostility to others. You may also experience angry outbursts caused by depression which are out of character for you and lead to guilt and regret later.
Signs of angry outbursts can include flushing, sweating, pounding in the chest, difficulty taking a deep breath, and shaking.
This kind of anger is not associated with laziness. You may feel irritated with yourself for being lazy or putting off important tasks. However, if you feel angry for no reason or get angry over the smallest things, you may be experiencing depression instead.
3. You’re losing weight
A common symptom of depression is a loss of appetite. This can lead to unintentional weight loss. Depression affects people differently, so while some may have an increased appetite, others may go for days without eating or drinking properly.
Not eating enough can lead to many complications, including malnutrition and muscle loss. If you’ve noticed that you’re not eating properly, are not finishing meals, or are forgetting to eat, it is likely that what you’re experiencing is not laziness but depression.
4. You’re gaining weight
Unfortunately, depression can also make you gain weight. People with depression sometimes find comfort in food and emotionally eat. This is thought to help your serotonin levels and can give you a hint of relief and satisfaction. Eating has been linked to reward responses in the brains of patients with depression.
Lazy people may find that they gain weight from lack of exercise or from eating food that isn’t healthy, like ordering multiple takeouts a week because they don’t want to cook. While both are linked to weight gain, people experiencing depression may rely on food to experience satisfaction and small increases in mood.
5. You’re drinking or smoking more
Recreational drinking is common, but when you begin relying on your vices for the temporary soothing effect they offer, you may need to seek advice and professional help. Like with food, alcohol and smoking can both offer relief for depressed people and may even help to dull the pain they’re feeling.
Alcohol itself is a depressant, so if you’re already feeling low mood, adding alcohol into the mix can make things worse. While you may feel numb for a time, the after-effects can cause significant harm to your mood.
Lazy people are unlikely to begin looking for ways to numb the pain or find relief.
6. You feel nothing
It is a common myth that depression is simply feeling sad all the time. While sadness may come into how you feel, everyone feels sad and low sometimes. When someone is experiencing depression, they’re likely to experience what is known as apathy and anhedonia.
Apathy is synonymous with indifference and is characterized by a complete lack of emotion about a thing or activity. Anhedonia is a lack of pleasure and loss of interest in activities. Both can feel like an emotional flatline and are not typically associated with feelings of sadness.
While being lazy leads to you feeling unmotivated to do anything, you are unlikely to feel disconnected and apathetic when you are simply lazy.
7. You find yourself daydreaming
If you feel lazy, you may find that you procrastinate and daydream instead of doing the chore or task you should be doing. However, if that daydreaming is taking over your life and you’re spending hours on end daydreaming, it could be a sign of depression.
This kind of daydreaming is known as maladaptive daydreaming and includes a tendency to escape reality and construct fantasy worlds where you’re happy and satisfied. It can be linked to both depression and trauma and is a clear sign that you’re not just being lazy.
8. You’re unable to stop scrolling social media
This sign can be a little harder to spot because lazy people will also choose to look at social media, watch TV, or sit around rather than do the task at hand. However, if you’re spending hours on social media and you’re using it to find relief, you could be using it as a crutch.
In recent years, the popularity of social media has meant that more research has been done on its effects. Research often indicates that increased social media use can lead to increased depression.
Spending your life scrolling through social media posts about other people’s lives can often leave you feeling down and depressed about your own life. Social media users tend to share their highs online while avoiding sharing their lows. This can lead to feelings of jealousy due to others’ picture-perfect lives.
Taking a step back from social media and finding a balance between scrolling for relief and scrolling for entertainment can help you to feel more yourself again.
9. You cannot make a decision
One way depression and laziness differ is that laziness is often a choice. It may not feel like a choice and may come from low energy or tiredness, but you can choose to use the energy you have to complete your daily tasks.
When you’re experiencing depression, you may not have the motivation to make any decisions about your life due to a combination of low energy, low self-worth, and apathy about the outcome of the decision.
You may no longer feel confident in your ability to make decisions or you may simply not care anymore about which option you choose. An inability to make a decision is associated with depression but can also be associated with other mental health conditions too.
10. You don’t care about the way you look
A lack of interest in your appearance can be a sign that you’re experiencing depression. While getting dressed up and putting on makeup isn’t always necessary, if you feel like there’s no point anymore, you could be experiencing depression.
This sign can often be confused with laziness, particularly by others. Other people may be quick to point out that you no longer get dressed up because you simply can’t be bothered, but you may be experiencing serious apathy that leads to an inability to care about how you look.
If you consistently feel like there is no point in trying to look good, or you feel ashamed of the way you look, you may be experiencing depression rather than simply being lazy about the way you look.
11. Hygiene is no longer a priority
Often, people who are depressed will find personal hygiene exhausting. The simple act of taking a shower can be draining and, since it feels like there is no point anyway, it gets neglected. If you’ve noticed that you don’t care about your hygiene anymore, you may be experiencing depression.
This differs from laziness in a few ways. If you’re being lazy and choose not to wash your face one evening, it differs from completely neglecting your hygiene for days on end. Actively choosing not to brush your hair one evening differs from being unable to shower.
12. You think about death more
A significant symptom of depression is thinking about death, suicide, and even attempting to harm yourself. Lazy people will not think like this.
If you are having suicidal thoughts or have attempted to harm yourself, you must seek professional help. A mental health professional will support you and help you find solutions for the way you are feeling.
There is no shame in reaching out for help.
Conclusion
Depression and laziness both get stigmatized. While laziness is a behavioral choice, depression is a mental health condition that requires professional help. Depression can be mistaken for laziness, as can many other mental health conditions, which is why it is important to understand the difference between the two.
While you may feel unmotivated and not want to expend your energy when feeling lazy, you physically and emotionally cannot do something when you are depressed.
Depression can have serious and life-threatening consequences if left untreated. If you have read this article and think you may be depressed, you must reach out to a mental health professional for support.
Lazy? We Can Help with It
If you’ve gotten to the end of this article and have realized that your behavior is laziness, we can help! Virtue Map is a procrastination-crushing tool for success that can transform your life and help you to achieve your goals.
It combines neuroscience, CBT, and behavioral research to help you achieve daily tasks in a manageable way. For more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch. And if you want to read about some of our success stories, then check out our reviews.
