Where Mood and Thinking Overlap

Mood and thinking are quite closely related. Think of a time when you were feeling high anxiety about something, and it doesn’t matter what.  You probably noticed that thinking clearly was much more challenging than usual because clarity of thought had to fight past a lot of anxious white noise. 

Or recall that time when you were feeling depressed, and someone asked you if you wanted chicken or beef or tofu in your fried rice. . . it was almost impossible to muster the psychic energy to make even such a simple decision. Right? 

These are just some of the ways that mood—anxiety and depression, especially—can impact the clarity of our thinking.  The strong interrelationship between thinking and mood has significant implications for an older person’s independence, ability to function daily, and overall well-being. 

Read on to explore how thinking and mood interact with one another. 

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Late-Life Depression

Multiple late-life changes raise the risk of developing depression. Many life transitions are experienced as losses, with resulting feelings of grief, loneliness, and loss of purpose that can culminate in depression. Retirement, fantasized about by many of us, is experienced as a loss of personal and professional identity, individual agency, involvement, and accomplishment by others.

Older adults are at risk for loneliness and the social isolation that often accompanies it. Bereavement can trigger depression even amid a robust social network. Chronic medical conditions can cause pain and can diminish pleasure from previously enjoyed activities, limit physical ability, or even cause disability. Medications to address these symptoms may trigger or worsen depressive symptoms. 

Depression is NOT a part of the normal aging process. If depression is suspected, it is vital to take it seriously by acting early to obtain a comprehensive evaluation: depression is a type of pain and suffering, and treatment can make it better. 

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Late-Life Anxiety

As with depression, multiple late-life changes can lead to the onset of anxiety. Changing health can precipitate anxiety about care needs and independence in the future. Changes in the here and now—such as retirement, relocation, or the loss of a loved one—can be stressful and anxiety-producing. 

Fear about falling, about finances, about the depth of connection with family and friends, about facing still more change, all these fears can add up to anxiety. 

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Mood and Thinking Overlap

Strong interrelationships between thinking and mood mean that changes in one can have major effects on the other. 

Thinking and mood share numerous biological mechanisms. Changes in brain structure and function affect mood and thinking alike, particularly via alterations in chemical messengers, like serotonin and dopamine, that the two systems share. 

Late-life depression often impedes thinking, especially attention, concentration, memory, and switching between tasks. Depression causes thinking to feel slow and joyless, diminishes motivation, and the accompanying fatigue can make it feel all but impossible to get up from the couch. 

Anxiety typically gets in the way of anything that requires focused attention, and it can make multi-tasking into an all but overwhelming proposition. Anxiety symptoms tend to correspond more closely with cognitive performance than those of depression; mild anxiety may even improve cognition, but moderate to severe anxiety generally leads to worse cognitive outcomes.¹

At the same time, older adults who have conditions like Alzheimer’s disease or vascular cognitive impairment may experience apathy or irritability as part of the disease process. Some neuroinflammatory conditions, like multiple sclerosis, or cerebrovascular disease, like stroke, can impact mood and cognitive function alike. 

Mood disorders like depression are, in some cases, precursors to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (ADRD),² though frequently the time lag between mood symptoms and dementia diagnosis is measured in decades, and researchers remain unsure whether depression predisposes to ADRD or is part of the underlying ADRD disease process. 

Conversely, cognitive changes can make it harder to cope with life stressors, which can then make underlying mood problems worse, setting up potentially unhappy feedback loops. 

In medicine, understanding the dynamic interplay between cognition and mood helps patients and the clinicians who care for them tailor interventions to maximize thinking and feeling throughout the aging process. 

Aging brings inevitable challenges, but happiness can—and should be! —cultivated across one’s lifespan. Activities, relationships, and a positive mindset can help older adults enjoy a high quality of life while maintaining their overall well-being.

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Do you have another question that the Sunday Health brain health experts can answer? We invite you to send your questions to hello@sundayhealth.com.

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Sources

1. Gulpers BJA, Verhey FRJ, Eussen SJPM, Schram MT, de Galan BE, van Boxtel MPJ, Stehouwer CDA, Köhler S. Anxiety and cognitive functioning in the Maastricht study: A cross-sectional population study. J Affect Disord. 2022 Dec 15;319:570-579.
2. Wu Z, Zhong X, Peng Q, Chen B, Zhang M, Zhou H, Mai N, Huang X, Ning Y. Longitudinal Association Between Cognition and Depression in Patients With Late-Life Depression: A Cross-Lagged Design Study. Front Psychiatry. 2021 Oct 22;12:577058.