7 dimensions of depression explained (video)

Various speakers, Big Think, 2/14/21; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

7 dimensions of depression, explained: Dr. Daniel Goleman, Johann Hari, Pete Holmes, more

(Big Think) According to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), more than 264 million people suffer from depression. It is the leading cause of disability and, at its worst, can lead to suicide. Unfortunately, depression is often misunderstood or ignored until it is too late.

• Psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman
• Researcher Johann Hari
• Dr. Julie Holland, MD
• Comedian Pete Holmes
• Neuroscientist Dr. Emeran Mayer
• Psychiatrist Dr. Drew Ramsey, and more

outline several of the social, chemical, and neurological factors that may contribute to the complex disorder and explain why there is not a singular solution or universal "cure" that can alleviate the symptoms.

From gaining insight into how the brain-gut connection [where most neurons reside] works and adopting something closer to the Mediterranean Diet, to seeking help from medical or spiritual practitioners, depression is a personal battle that requires a personalized strategy to keep it at bay, as well as more research and understanding.

Check Drew Ramsey's book Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety: Nourish Your Way to Better Mental Health in Six Weeks

TRANSCRIPT

JOHANN HARI: When I feel depressed, like loads of people, I say I feel down, right? And as I was learning about the causes of depression and anxiety for my book, "Lost Connections," I started to realize, I don't think that's a metaphor. There is this amazing professor at Stanford called Robert Sapolsky who in his early 20s went to live with a troop baboons in Kenya. And it was his job to figure out when are baboons most stressed out. So his job was to hit them with little tranquilizer darts and then take a blood test and measure something called cortisol, which is a hormone that baboons and us release when we're stressed. And baboons live in this hierarchy, so the females don't interestingly but the men live in a very strict hierarchy. So if there's 30 men, number one knows he's above number two, number two knows he's above number three, number 12 knows he's above number 13. And that really determines a lot. It determines who you get to have sex with, it determines what you get to eat, it determines whether you get to sit in the shade or you're pushed out into the heat. Yeah, it's a really, really significant where you are in the hierarchy. And what Professor Sapolsky found is baboons are most stressed in two situations. One is when their status is insecure. So if you're the top guy and someone's circling which comes for you, you will be massively stressed. And the other situation is when you feel you're at the bottom of a hierarchy, you've been kind of humiliated. And what Professor Sapolsky found is when you feel you've been pushed to the bottom, what you do is you show something called submission gesture. Baboon will put its body down physically or put its head down, it will put its bottom in the air and it will cover its head. So it clearly seems to be communicating, "Just leave me alone, you've beaten me. Okay, you've beaten me." And what lots of scientists, people like Professor Paul Gilbert in Britain and Professor Kate Pickett and Professor Richard Wilkinson also in Britain have really developed is this idea that actually what human depression is in part, not entirely, but in part, is a form of a submission gesture. It's a way of saying, I can't cope with this anymore, right? Particularly people who feel they've been pushed to the bottom of hierarchies or who feel remember the other stressful situations when you feel your status is insecure it's a way of just going, "Okay, can I retreat?" "I don't want this fight anymore." "You've beaten me." It's a kind of very strong evolutionary impulse where you feel you're under attack to just submit in the hope that the stress and anxiety will then go away. The sources of the stress and anxiety will then go away. And one thing that is so important, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson really developed this, is they've shown so as inequality grows, depression and anxiety grow. They've shown, this is very robust effect, right? This helps us to explain it. One in five Americans will take a psychiatric drug, one in four middle-aged women in the United States is taking a chemical antidepressant in any given year. And I began to think, could it really be that just so many people are just mysteriously lacking a specific chemical in their brain? Why does it seem to be rising so much if that's the cause? If you live in Norway, your status is relatively secure, right? No one's that high, no one's that low, movement between where you are is not so extreme. If you live in the United States, especially today which is...

• Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/neuropsych/depression...

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Chemical Midlife: 1 in 10 on Anti-Depressants

Claire Bates (dailymail.co.uk)

Overwhelmed by life? One in 10 middle-aged adults in Europe take anti-depressants

Seeking chemical happiness: Why one in 10 of us reaches for the anti-depressants in middle age

It's a time of life when many adults reach the peak of their careers and are busy raising their children, but a new study reveals you are most likely to be depressed in your late 40s.

Researchers from the University of Warwick and the University of Stirling found one in 10 middle-aged adults acrossEurope took anti-depressants in 2010. [They do not work but rely on placebo effect and are toxic]. The rates were greatest in the UK alongside Portugal, France, and Lithuania.

In Britain, seven percent said they had been on drugs such as Prozac for more than four weeks, while two percent said they had taken them for under a month or from time to time.

This means 5.5million adults in the UK were on anti-depressants at some point last year.

Middle-aged women who were unemployed, divorced, or separated were the most likely to pop the pills.

Co-author Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick, said: "As we live in the richest and safest era in the history of humans, perhaps we are going to have to ask ourselves why one in ten of Europe’s middle-aged citizens need a pill to cope with life.

"That is an awful lot of people relying on chemical happiness."

The scientists said that the results supported the hypothesis that most of us experience well-being in life as a U-shape. So we start and end our lives relatively content but become bogged down by stresses and strains at work and home leading to a mid-life crisis. More

What's the Alternative?

Wisdom Quarterly

If you cannot afford to be depressed, you cannot afford to eat poorly, no matter how much it costs to eat well instead. We are the only people happy to ruin our health to get rich then go give that wealth away to try to get well again.

There is so much that can be done, a plethora of therapies and solutions. But the one thing we refuse to do is listen to the condition. Why are we depressed?

Oftentimes it is appropriate. It becomes inappropriate and debilitating. Nevertheless, chemical allopathic drugs do not themselves work. Being paid attention to, given something, taken care of, feeling side effects (that reinforce the placebo effect)... all of these give us hope. We are being sold hope and cancer. With help comes a high price -- soaring health care costs, toxic livers (full of fluoride, heavy metals, enzyme disruptors, and artificial excipients).

The shocking truth is that MOST of our serotonin is made in the gut, not the brain. Eating well (food combining" for smooth digestion) and avoiding "food complementing" (for complete protein, which means food goes undigested ruining our digestion and serotonin levels) is often enough.

Utilizing an alkalizing diet also helps so long as we alkalize the blood not the stomach. The stomach needs to be acidic. Anyone who thinks s/he has an "acid stomach" is almost certainly lacking acid. Antacids are a terrible idea! Instead, the solution is vegetarian digestive enzymes. Digest more, be depressed less with no intestinal distress.

Anyone who has gut problems is likely to become depressed. There is an ancient Chinese saying: We are only as healthy as our intestines and only as young as our backs.

Good digestion is a blessing we do almost everything we can to ruin -- with sugar, starch/grains/carbohydrates, alcohol, vinegar, artificial and "natural" flavors (all of which are artificial excitotoxins toxic to braincells but legally called "natural" because they mimic a naturally existing flavor), gluten and grain damage (Celiac disease), chemical sweeteners...

• Food Combining Chart (acidalkalinediet.com)

Our "Food Pyramid" is a testament to the Four Food Lobbies. No human group in history or prehistory has ever eaten this way. If one wants to see the danger in such a diet, here is how:

Go to an Indian reservation. Its food supply is provided by the American government and wholly subsidized. It therefore follows American (Food Pyramid) guidelines. You will not find worse health -- obesity, acne, diabetes (insulin resistance), hypoglycemia, heart disease, high cholesterol, alcoholism, oxidative stress (premature aging), sugar addiction, and depression.

The other major cause of depression is lack of steady sleep (due to stimulant use, worry in reaction to stress), failing to exercise (a little many times a week is much better than a lot a few times a week), and toxicity. Heavy metals can be cleared by chelation.

But good luck trying to get any help for any of these things from an allopathic doctor. Such doctors and the medical industry in generally is utterly vested in disease and symptom treatment. Health means invasive treatment in this sense. But this is not holistic or sustainable but enslaving and bankrupting.

• Eat fats that heal (which are satiating)
• Avoid all processed carbohydrates and sugar
• Eat greens daily, preferably at every meal
• Eat antioxidant rich organic fruits and berries
• Consume clean proteins (unfried, cruelty-free, vegetable-based)
• Drink lots and lots of water (unfluoridated and never in plastic)
• Eat daily probiotics (cultured food, not fermented)
• Eat as much fiber/roughage as possible ensuring as many bowel movements as meals in a day
• Detox through exercise, sweating, deep breathing, bathing in chlorine-free water (use a shower filter)
• Avoid hydrogenated fats in plastic containers (which means processed oils such as canola and soy oil, even though they do not say so on the label)
• Avoid putting chemicals on skin such as sunscreen (replacing it with antioxidants and phytonutrients), sodium lauryl sulphates (and related chemicals) or in hair.

There is much we can do to avoid depression. If it all seems like to much to be responsible for in our own lives, consider that we are doing all these things that need avoiding. Simply stop. There are countless alternatives.

Work as Therapy: Cubicle as Couch

The author of "Listening to Prozac" on how we work it out at work
WSJ.com

In his role as therapist, a psy-chiatrist sometimes offers an astringent form of reassur-ance. It goes, “No, you’re not crazy; things are as bad as you imagine.” Addressing anyone entering the job market today, I would acknowledge the obvi-ous: conditions are bleak.... We rely on good jobs for our sense of well-being. Today, young people are routed into employment that has scant relationship to their aspirations. The losses of pay and opportunity are serious, but my concern goes beyond work as a source of income or even of achievement to work as it shapes our identity. Who we are in our solitary moments and in our close relationships is a product of who we are on the job. Increasingly, it’s the workplace, as much as the home, that provides lessons about how to face personal challenges. More>>

• New Ph.D.s Look Abroad for Jobs
• Bright Spots on the Job Front
• Advice for Senior Job-Hunters