Psychologists agree that there is a common trait in people who are unhappy. They tend to have a negative pattern of thinking that is often hooked to some event(s) in the past or the future, or in other words, is removed from the present. It could be a desire to look younger, or recalling a traumatic event repeatedly. Over a period of time, this pattern can take cognitive roots and turn into clinical depression.
Thinking hooked to the past arouses feelings of guilt, resentment and sorrow. While thoughts hooked to the future cause feelings like anxiety, phobias, fear, stress and sadness.
The biggest killer of our times, research says, is depression or unhappiness per se. In the U.S.A, one of the most affluent societies on the planet, a recent study sponsored by the World Health Organization and the World Bank found unipolar major depression to be the leading cause of disability in the United States. Prevalence of depression is approximately 1 in 18 or 5.30% or 14.4 million people in USA. (1).
The total annual cost of depression in Europe was estimated at Euro 118 billion in 2004, which corresponds to a cost of Euro 253 per inhabitant. Direct costs alone totalled dollar 42 billion, and comprised of outpatient care (Euro 22 billion), drug cost (Euro 9 billion) and hospitalization (Euro 10 billion). Indirect costs due to morbidity and mortality were estimated at Euro 76 billion. This makes depression the most costly brain disorder in Europe, accounting for 33% of the total cost. The cost of depression corresponds to 1% of the total economy of Europe (GDP). (2)
In developing countries where stark poverty reigns with stunning affluence, the figures of unhappiness could be even more alarming.
What makes unhappiness particularly dangerous is that it takes root within an individual’s body and branches off into a plethora of diseases that range from colds and flu to Cancer. There is no arguing now that depression has a great role to play in lowering the body’s natural immune system against diseases.
Most of us know that depressed people have chemical imbalances in the brain. To many this seems to be a situation that cannot be alleviated by the depressed individual. Some depressed people start considering themselves as victims and blame their episodes of anxiety and gloom on their brain’s chemical disposition. A startling study however, that has emerged in recent times reveals that individuals with depression CAN alter their brain’s imbalanced state towards balance!
Dr Bob Murray and Dr Alici Fortinberry write in their article, “Healing Depression Safely without Antidepressants”:
We now (also) know that the brains of depressed people are not only out of balance chemically, they also tend to have a smaller hippocampus, which controls emotions and memory, and a less active frontal cortex, the command-and-decision making center. The good news is that we can “grow” new brain cells in those areas, through a process called neurogenesis. (3)
Neurogenesis or the birth of new cells in the brain, relieves chemical imbalances and hence chronic depression. Stress, or how we respond to different situations, has a great role in increasing chemical imbalances in our brain.(4)
This really means that one needs to ‘train’ the mind into seeing things in a way that moves the attention from stress to relaxation. In our next post, we will look at how we can train the mind to be happy!
References:
(1)http://www.depressionperception.com/depression/depression_facts_and_statistics.asp
(2)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17007486
(3)http://www.upliftprogram.com/article_together.html
(4)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis
Comments
4 responses to “The Dynamics of Depression”
Our mental healths are not developed in isolation, but are also the product of the enviro end we are dwelling in. We can experience great terror if we are in fact life-affirming, but are being constantly beaten down with messages of negation. Therefore there is a very strong communal aspect to mental health.
In 2010 I visited the American Embassy with a visa application in hand. Everyone in the embassy was gravely quiet and seemed to be in fear of their life. The American officials, as usual, were deeply insulting to the applicants—something that adds to the atmosphere of terror and shame. In all that crowd, I noted one young tween boy who was smiling brilliantly. The only one who was looking beyond himself at others, paying them attention, exuberant, smiling. I looked at him and corrected my own behavior.
It turned out, to my shock, that this young boy was being taken to America for special education for he was deemed to have attention issues!
The only sane person in the house was being roped in by fearful pygmies!
I have seen many genuinely brilliant, intelligent and warm people being subjected to the same treatment and as ever , it aggrieved me to see another one going down. In a few years, this boy will have heard enough crap about how dysfunctional he is, and his brain will adjust to this ‘reality’—rather this composition of reality—by adjusting its shape and chemical balance.
No one can live long and indefinitely in defiance if their environment , whether it is enriching or toxic.
And therefore we can never adequately address issues of mental health by looking at the individual. In fact this approach can almost by cruel at times, for it us holding the one who is RECEPTIVE to their environment responsible for possible toxicity of the environment. This is the subject matter of at least two movies that I recall—’Changeling’ featuring Angelina Jolie, and ‘Haunted’ featuring Aiden Quinn.
The one being deemed mad, insane o depressed
The one being deemed mad, insane or depressed is often the sanest one there is. And in families, it is often the person who is familiar with , privy to, and the target of everyone else’s shadow side.
I would suggest that it is cruel to look at mental health issues without contextualising the individual. Often, the individual is put at too great a risk or responsibility. Spiritual of motivational teachings are especially liable to make this error , for they make every issue an issue of capability, aspiration or morality, whereas often the issue is pragmatic. If the sick/suffering client is being told that they can magically themselves inwardly without somehow gaining or negotiating mastery of outer elents, then I would like to see a therapist demonstrate it.
Therapists cheat clients out if reality: they themselves undergo treatment and journeys, but tell the client that treating disease is a matter of capability. Easier to say this when the therapist or coach themselves is being supported.
These kinds of “you can do it” studies must be taken with a punch of salt. Real life stories will clearly show what exactly works or worked. And I would beg all therapists to consider the influence of outer elements and community. The very least thing a client can be alerted to is an indication and admission of what is beneficial and what is harmful.