What is apathy: 7 main symptoms, ways to get rid of it

Greetings, friends!

Each of us has at least once encountered such a state when we want absolutely nothing. There is no joy or sadness, the mood is simply “nothing”, and any good or bad news causes practically no emotions. This condition is called apathy. Sometimes it goes away without a trace after a good rest, and sometimes it can persist for months, preventing a person from living and working normally. Today we will look in detail at what apathy is, why it occurs, by what symptoms it can be identified and how to get rid of it. Let's begin.

What is apathy?

Apathy is a state manifested in total indifference to everything and a complete lack of motivation. A person immersed in this state loses interest in work, entertainment, relaxation and even communicating with friends. The term “apathy” is derived from the ancient Greek word “apatheia,” which translates as “passionlessness” (more meaningfully translated as “lack of passion for life”).

The key feature of apathy is that a person becomes equally indifferent to all areas of his life. He even reacts equally neutrally to both good and bad news. In psychology, apathy is considered not as an independent diagnosis, but as a symptom of a number of other disorders and diseases. The causes of apathy vary, and in some cases you can get rid of it on your own, but sometimes you may need qualified help from a neuropsychiatrist.

Symptoms and signs

To identify apathy, you need to know its signs :

1. Indifference, including to what previously caused negative emotions and disgust.
2. The monotony of speech is quiet and emotionless.
3. Previously outlined plans cease to be of interest, new ones do not appear.
4. The speech contains phrases: I don’t care, leave me alone, I don’t care.
5. A closed lifestyle, social contacts and public life cease to be of interest; there is no desire to go to various events or meet with friends.
6. Answers to questions are brief, to the point of being ignored.
7. Loss of the ability to enjoy life, to be happy, to enjoy the moment.
8. Previous hobbies cease to please, a person can abandon his hobby, it becomes uninteresting and does not carry any meaning.

The patient may behave inhibited , activity is reduced.

With a pronounced symptom, memory loss and problems with thinking may be observed.

Apathy can manifest itself clearly when others notice the patient's condition.

However, there is also a hidden option , when a person feels depressed, but does not show it. It is in the second case that sudden deaths occur more often.

Signs of apathy

Apathy is quite noticeable from the outside, especially if you have known the person for a long time. Having immersed himself in this state, he behaves more detached, passive and indifferent. Please note that every person periodically behaves more calmly and phlegmatically (how is that?) than usual. But in a state of apathy, there is a noticeable lack of interest in many significant things. A person no longer strives to exchange emotions; it is as if the need for love and communication disappears. Relatives often take this personally and are offended by the person for paying much less attention to them.

You can determine the presence of apathy in yourself or a friend by the following signs:

1. poor health, lack of strength, constant fatigue, drowsiness;
2. lack of interest in everything, a rather indifferent reaction to good and bad events;
3. solitude, reluctance to go out and communicate with friends;
4. slow response to an appeal (the person does not answer immediately or does not answer correctly);
5. slow, monotonous, almost completely emotionless speech;
6. lack of desire to take care of oneself (a person ceases to pay due attention to hygiene, appearance, health);
7. “nervous” habits (foot tapping, hand rubbing, finger snapping, etc.).

Treatment and prevention

To cure apathy, it is necessary to accurately determine its cause. The treatment program and its duration will depend on the root cause. Sometimes, if apathy appears against a background of stress and overexertion and it lasts for a short time, it will be enough for a person to rest well in a calm environment.

A treatment program for apathy may include:

• psychotherapy;
• physiotherapy;
• physical exercise;
• medications.

To prevent apathy, it is necessary to avoid stress, follow a work and rest schedule, get enough sleep, take daily walks in the fresh air, and watch your diet. Vitamin and mineral complexes will be useful. You should also limit your alcohol consumption and give up other bad habits.

If you notice that you have lost your “thirst for life” or that your favorite activities no longer bring you joy, consult a doctor. Medical specialists will make a diagnosis and suggest a course of treatment. It should be remembered that apathy can be a symptom of a serious illness that requires immediate treatment. Contact the SM-Clinic for qualified medical care for you and your loved ones.

Causes of apathy

In most cases, people attribute apathy to fatigue or bad mood, but the list of its causes is much wider. The most significant factors are:

1. Anxiety

. The human psyche is fragile and vulnerable, so it has developed certain protective mechanisms. And one of these mechanisms is ignoring too strong stimuli. Therefore, excessive anxiety can lead to apathy simply because the brain is trying to reduce stress levels.

Apathy and laziness

The way out of apathy depends on the patient himself. If a person is ambitious, demanding of himself, and active, then he can independently fight laziness and apathy. To do this, you need to make a strong-willed effort and everything will work out. If you don’t make a strong-willed effort, you risk falling into the clutches of depression.

Apathy and laziness can keep a person fixated on these sensations for a long time. Therefore, you should not let them into your life for a long time. Having accepted them as a respite for a short time, get out of the state, do not drag it out. Determine the time frame for your vacation. Let it be a vacation of up to seven days, change the environment, relax, but do not take antidepressants without a doctor’s prescription and do not get carried away with alcohol. The best thing you can do is get enough sleep, which will restore your strength and energy.

Apathy and laziness are a natural state that signals that you need rest because you are leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Analyze the situation, what exactly led you to it. If necessary, consult a doctor if the condition persists.

How to get rid of apathy?

If you correctly understand what apathy is, then you already know that it is an undesirable state that does not lead to anything good. Of course, sometimes it occurs for natural reasons - this is the body’s way of signaling to us that we just need to take a break from everything. But in most cases it is better to get rid of it as soon as possible. Obviously, the most effective remedy against apathy caused by fatigue is good rest.

It is better to choose some moderately active pastime , for example, relaxing by a pond or in the village. Passive relaxation on the couch won't help much here. Too much load is also ineffective, but 1-2 days can be devoted to playing badminton or volleyball. The main thing is that after intense physical activity you have at least a couple of days left for the body to recover.

The main rule during the entire vacation is to completely protect yourself from work and from most everyday activities. Therefore, it is better not to consider vacationing at home or near home at all - go to the village, to the sea, to the lake, to the forest or to any other accessible place. You need to spend at least a few days in a “foreign” environment, with full awareness that work and everyday bustle are far away.

It is important to consider that apathy is a fairly advanced crisis state. It arises for various reasons, but almost always we are talking about a large pile of problems accumulated over many months. Therefore, it is impossible to get rid of apathy in 1 day , even if it is the best and most eventful vacation of your life. If the cause of this condition is fatigue, a long vacation is necessary. If the causes of apathy are hidden more deeply, the help of a psychotherapist may be required.

Of course, you need to start treating apathy with good rest. In order for it to be of sufficient quality and effectiveness, the following requirements must be met:

1. You need to rest quite actively, but without exhausting yourself with heavy physical activity. Walking, swimming, active games, hiking, outdoor recreation are great options. If, instead of having a good rest, you go to the dacha and dig up a garden, this can only worsen the state of apathy, even if such an activity gives you pleasure.
2. You need to rest as far as possible, ideally in a new and completely unfamiliar place. Your brain must understand that work, problems and everyday hustle and bustle are far away and are now inaccessible to it. This is the only way to completely get rid of unnecessary worries and relax for a good rest.
3. While on vacation, try to sleep at least 8 hours every day. Keep in mind that lack of sleep and oversleeping are equally harmful to health and well-being.
4. Try to minimize the amount of alcohol. Perhaps sometimes it really helps to relax better and throw problems out of your thoughts. But its detrimental effect on health will ultimately greatly impair the quality of your rest.
5. Forget about work and problems altogether. Make sure that nothing makes you think about the things you are trying to take a break from. All issues at work should be resolved, there should be no “tails” that can weigh on you. Ask colleagues or subordinates not to call you unless absolutely necessary.

Of course, the more time you spend relaxing, the better. But even if you only have a week, this is enough to have a good rest and “reset” your thoughts. But the fight against apathy will need to be continued even after returning from vacation. To do this, always observe the following principles:

1. Remember that the optimal sleep duration is 7-8 hours. Less sleep is not enough for good rest, but if you sleep more than 8 hours, the quality of sleep deteriorates greatly.
2. Have breakfast every morning and watch your diet. Your energy depends on the quality of your diet, as well as the timely supply of nutrients to your body.
3. Create a schedule and stick to it. Typically, people who avoid schedules feel like it limits personal freedom and takes up a lot of time. In practice, it turns out the opposite: people who live according to a schedule usually manage to get more done and have several hours of free time every day that can be spent on anything.
4. Eliminate irritants. We constantly put up with unpleasant little things, without thinking that some can be eliminated altogether. Try to eliminate from your life everything that throws you off balance. Is the sun shining in your eyes at the office? Find a way to close it (stick a poster on the desired part of the window, if your bosses don't mind). Remember that every irritant can be eliminated or weakened. For example, if we are talking about a damaged relationship with a colleague, you can make peace (for example, using the advice of Dale Carnegie) or simply stop attaching importance to this confrontation.

If you have had a good rest and taken care to improve your living and working conditions, but the apathy does not go away, you need to contact a neuropsychiatrist. This is a specialist whose profession involves knowledge of psychology and neurology. His competence includes mental health disorders associated with diseases and organic lesions of the nervous system.

Why does apathy occur?

Today, there is a whole block of reasons that can lead to the formation of true psycho-emotional apathy:

• brain pathologies. These may be serious organic brain lesions, tumors, malnutrition of brain tissue, vascular diseases, atherosclerotic changes, which often occur in older people;
• psychiatric diseases. For example, apathy often develops in schizophrenia;
• depression. The combination of apathy and depression can lead to suicidal thoughts;
• chronic fatigue syndrome. The syndrome is accompanied by constant fatigue, decreased mental and physical performance, which does not stop even after rest and can last six months or more. Chronic fatigue syndrome always overlaps with true psycho-emotional apathy;
• any type of addiction - alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction;
• medicines. Such medications include tranquilizers, oral contraceptives and others. If apathy occurs due to taking medications, then usually after they are discontinued the person returns to his previous normal state;
• stress. The life of a modern person is associated with constant emotional stress. For example, for a whole year now the entire population of the planet has been kept in fear by the coronavirus epidemic. The disease is new, unstudied, there are many dead, there is no effective treatment. Each person has his own reserve of strength of the central nervous system, and some may develop apathy against the background of a large amount of negative information;
• endocrine disorders. First of all, this includes a malfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary system, thyroid gland, and adrenal cortex.

Laziness with apathy

There is one character trait that is completely inappropriate in everyday life, but almost every apathetic person experiences it. Psychology claims that laziness is the eternal companion of apathy. And in order to get rid of it, you need to manage your time and mentally prepare yourself for the fact that you need to do something. Motivation is also very important.

It could be an episode of your favorite TV series after finishing your to-do list, or a delicious lunch. Everyone has their own levers of pressure on the psyche, the main thing is to pick up these keys and not allow inaction. Another method of dealing with laziness is to take it to the point of absurdity. This is a very effective way: sit in a chair and do nothing, absolutely nothing. And so you need to sit until there is a sincere desire to complete the necessary tasks, for which just recently there was no moral or physical strength.

How to deal with apathy

How to overcome apathy is of interest to all those suffering from this condition. First of all, you must want to overcome apathy with all your heart and connect all your thoughts with this. It is important to understand what causes indifference to everything that is happening. Understand within yourself what exactly led you to apathy. Your subconscious will tell you what you need to return to your original state, when you were happy, harmonious and everything that happened pushed you to action, and to an indifferent contemplation of life from the outside, as an outside observer who did not want anything for himself. The paws of an apathetic state are insidious and they drag you deeper and deeper. Initially, this is an uncomfortable state, but over time a person gets used to it and it seems to him that it’s not bad at all to be apathetic and go with the flow. You don’t want anything, but you just want one thing, to be left alone. Days pass lying on the couch, living them from morning to evening and not changing anything in my life.

Apathetic people believe that there is no need to change anything, nothing will change anyway. It is important to realize that being content with little and not wanting a better life for yourself is the lot of weak, disillusioned people in life, who have suffered fiasco and have forgotten the simple truth that failure is an experience for which you need to thank fate and move on without looking back. It all depends only on you and on your desire to get rid of apathy once and for all. First, get some sleep and start thinking in a new way, remove negativity, laziness, lethargy, and indifference from your life.

How to deal with apathy? You need to find out the reason and admit to yourself that your apathy is caused, for example, by failure, stress, failure to realize your desires and aspirations, or, on the contrary, you are very devoted to your work and are “burning out” there. By understanding your problem at the root and changing your attitude towards it, only then will changes occur and you will be able to overcome apathy.

Still don't know how to deal with apathy? You need to remember yourself in childhood, adolescence, when the state of apathy was not familiar to you, when you did not know disappointments, did not get offended, but knew how to enjoy little things and your aspirations for life were not so high. To be able to enjoy little things is an art and the most important thing is to carry this throughout your life. It is very important not to expect anything, because when expectations are not met, a person falls into despair. Leave expectations, don’t expect anything from what is happening, and it will only please you in the future. Remember that failure is replaced by success, this is natural and there is nothing wrong with it if the opposite happens. Accept your apathetic state, be sad, and then perk up and move on through life with a smile. There is such a thing as an inner smile. Smile with your soul, and you will feel joyful, and those around you will read your smile on your face. Treat your failure as just another stage in life and believe in yourself. Tell yourself: I can do everything, I will do everything, I am already fighting laziness and doing what is expected of me. By doing this, first of all, you prove to yourself that you have the will and inner strength.

Set goals for yourself, small ones at first, then big ones. As you accomplish small goals, you will move forward and feel confident. Confidence will give you strength, activity and you will understand that you are on the right path. There will be no place for laziness in your life, since activity will push you to action. You will want to win and double all your achievements. You will be proud of yourself and others will notice your changes. The most important thing is not to stop and keep moving towards your goals. You may need to adjust your action plan as you move towards your goals.