What exactly are hormones?

Question

Are they causing me to be depressed?

Answer 1

Hormones are chemical messengers that pass information from one part of the body to another. They are usually produced at only one site in the body and matched with specific receptors.

So hormones don't by themselves CAUSE depression. People talk about hormone imbalances, especially among women, and that usually means that there is some physical, mental, and/or emotional stress on the body that is causing hormones to be produced.

Most of the web pages on the links between stress and hormones are a little on the technical side, but you can check them out if you want, by typing "hormones depression" into a search engine.

The link below is a good general source for information on hormones.