Social connectedness is important
The brain mistakenly interprets the pain of depression as an infection! Thinking that isolation is needed, it sends messages to the sufferer to "crawl into a hole and wait for it all to go away"! This can be disastrous because what depressed people really need is the opposite: more human contact!
Which is why social connectedness forms one-sixth of his "lifestyle based" cure for depression! The other five elements are meaningful activity (to prevent "ruminating" on negative thoughts),regular exercise,a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids,daily exposure to sunlight,and good quality,restorative sleep!
Meds have only around a 50% success rate
Moreover,of the people who do improve,half experience a relapse! This lowers the recovery rate to only 25%! To make matters worse,the side effects often include emotional numbing,sexual dysfunction and weight gain!
Results
A research shows that every patient who put the full programme into practice got better!
The answer lies in our lifestyle
Up to 20% of the UK population will have clinical depression at some point,twice as many as 30 years ago! Where has this depression epidemic come from?
Our standard of living is better now than ever before,but technological progress comes with a dark underbelly! Human beings were not designed for this poorly nourished,sedentary,indoor,sleep-deprived,socially isolated,frenzied pace of life! So,depression continues its relentless march!
Our environment may have evolved rapidly but our physical evolution hasn't kept up! Our genome hasn't moved on since 12,000 years ago,when everyone on the planet were hunter- gatherers! Biologically,we still have Stone Age bodies! And when Stone Age body meets modern environment,the health consequences can be disastrous!
Hunter- gatherer tribes still exist today in some parts of the world and their level of depression is almost zero!
The reasons? They're too busy to sit around brooding! They get lots of physical activity and sunlight! Their diet is rich in omega-3,their level of social connection is extraordinary,and they regularly have as much as 10 hours of sleep! We need eight! At the moment we average 6.7!
We can adapt our modern lifestyle to match our genome by harnessing modern technology,such as fish oil supplements to increase our intake of omega-3! All well and good!
But I can't escape the feeling that the six-step programme seems like common sense! Isn't it obvious that more sleep,exercise and social connectedness are good for you? Well,the devil is in the detail!
People need to know how much sunlight is most effective,and at which time of day! Taking supplements, for example,is a complex business! You need anti-oxidants to ensure that the fish oil is effective,as well as a multivitamin! Without someone spelling it out,most people would never do it!
It all makes sense,but will I try it myself? I don't suffer from depression,but wellbeing sounds nice! I'm not so sure about the fish oil,but I might just give it a go!
