
Summary:
Depression and isolation are running rampant. And, what we have believed to be âcures,â antidepressants, arenât solving the issue like we thought they would. While there may be some short term relief, most taking the prescriptions find themselves still depressed. People struggling with depression and loneliness can do all that modern medicine is prescribing they should do, but even still, they canât find relief. Why is this? â Problem of the book.- 1) How are people still depressed while taking antidepressants? How can they still be depressed even though they are doing everything modern medicine is prescribing?
- 2) Why are so many people feeling depressed and anxious? What has changed over time?
- 3) “Could something other than bad brain chemistryâ be causing depression in people? If soâwhat is it?
Questions & Implications:
- Studies have shown that the effects of antidepressants are marginalâthe majority of their effect on ârecoveryâ were in someway related to placebo, being either a natural recovery cycle or the story the patient had been told about the medication. Getting better sleep can have more of a meaningful impact on a patientâs status than taking antidepressants. Not to mention, the side effects on antidepressants are/have been real; gaining weight, sexual dysfunction, etc.
- Antidepressants arenât as effective as has been promised. And the percentage of people on antidepressants who continue to be depressed is highâbetween 65 and 80 percent.
- Antidepressants donât work like weâve been told to believe, soâŚwe can assume thereâs a story we have told about them that is untrue â why the inaccurate story? And whatâs the incentive for the inaccuracy?
Actions & Takeaways:
- ââŚdepression isâin factâto a significant degree a problem not with your brain, but with your life.â (51)
- Highly stressful events and long term stressors present in life can dramatically increased your likelihood of becoming depressed. On the inverse, stabilizing forces in your life; supportive friends and partner can reduce the probability.
- Living in poverty, were long term stressors among those.
- Causes of Depression are disconnections from things we innately need.
- 1) Disconnection from Meaningful Work
- 2011 and 2012 â Gallup poll of millions of workers across 142 countries concluded that â13 percent of us say we are âengagedâ in our jobsâwhich means they are âenthusiastic about, and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner.ââ (64)
- â63 percent say they are ânot engaged,â which is defined as âsleepwalking through their workday, putting timeâbut not energy or passionâinto their work.â (64)
- ââŚ24 percent are âactively disengaged.â They, Gallup explained, âarenât just unhappy at work; theyâre busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplishâŚActively disengaged employees are more or less out to damage their company.â (64)
- âNearly twice as many people hate their jobs as loves their jobs.â (64)
- Your position in the work hierarchy plays a very close relationship to your likelihood of becoming depressedâŚ(the higher you are, the less likely, the lower, the more likely).
- âIf you worked in the civil service and you had a higher degree of control over your work, you were a lot less likely to become depressed or develop severe emotional distress than people working at the same pay level, with the same status, in the same office as people with a lower degree of control over the work.â (68) â It would seem that the missing component in workplace satisfaction was/is autonomy.
- 2011 and 2012 â Gallup poll of millions of workers across 142 countries concluded that â13 percent of us say we are âengagedâ in our jobsâwhich means they are âenthusiastic about, and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner.ââ (64)
- 2) Disconnection from Other People
- Studies have shown that âloneliness preceded depressive symptoms. You became lonely, and that was followed by feelings of despair and profound sadness and depression.â (77)
- Why does loneliness cause depression and anxiety so much?
- A primal argument is made â all our instincts were honed not for life on our own, but life within a tribe. Loneliness can be thought of like a thirst for water. Itâs an emotional reaction letting us know that we need to reconnect.
- As societies, statistics are showing that we are trending away from âactive involvement in community organizations,â between 1985 and 1994, this involvement dropped by 45 percent. (79)
- Study asking a simple question, âHow many confidants [people you could turn to in crisis]Â do you have?â
- In 2004, the most common answer was 0. Several decades ago, the most common answer was three.
- The sense of community and close friendships has only dropped. Itâs more common that Americans believe themselves to have no close friends.
- Difficulty is, that the more lonely people become, often the more difficult they are to spend time around. Likewise, lonely people are often skeptical of others, because they donât feel they have anyone looking out for them. (82) â This is a snowball effect of loneliness â Strangely enough, itâs a situation where the thing we most need (connection) becomes harder to obtain. The thing we need most, we donât want?
- Why does loneliness cause depression and anxiety so much?
- How do you end loneliness?
- Studies have found that âto end loneliness, you need other peopleâplus something else. You also needâŚto feel you are sharing something with the other person, or the group, that is meaningful to both of you.â (83)
- âA one-way relationship canât cure loneliness. Only two-way (or more) relationships can do that.â (83)
- You need âmutual aid and protection.â
- Responsibility â A sense of connection is limited with one person feeling like they are being taken care of?
- Studies have found that âto end loneliness, you need other peopleâplus something else. You also needâŚto feel you are sharing something with the other person, or the group, that is meaningful to both of you.â (83)
- Studies have shown that âloneliness preceded depressive symptoms. You became lonely, and that was followed by feelings of despair and profound sadness and depression.â (77)
- 3) Disconnection from Meaningful Values
- It seems as if this is a large battle between intrinsic and extrinsic values.
- Thinking extrinsically poisons your relationships with people.
- Extrinsically focused people experience far fewer flow states. â Far less enjoyment of doing things for the sake of doing them.
- You are always worrying and wondering what other people are thinking about you.
- Materialistic people are chasing values that donât fill our basic needs (of connection)
- Key definitions:
- Intrinsic motives ⠓…things you do purely because you value them in and of themselves, not because of anything you get out of them.â (95)
- Extrinsic motives â ââŚthings you do not because you actually want to do them, but because youâll get something in returnâwhether itâs money, or admiration, or sex, or superior status.â (95)
- Intrinsic Goals vs. Extrinsic Goals (96)
- Achieving extrinsic goals doesnât correlate to any increase in day to day happiness.
- Achieving intrinsic goals does make people significantly happierâless depressed and anxious.
- Values can change over time thoughâŚso when are people materialistic?
- Coercion? Like advertising!
- You have to escape the circumstances where you environment is encouraging materialism, these cripple your internal satisfactions â you have to then replace these environments with actions that will provide the internal satisfaction and encourage intrinsic goals. (103)
- How to re-connect to the meaningful values
- Start with your own values
- Ask yourself if you are setting yourself up for success!
- âAm I setting up my life so I can have a chance of succeeding at my intrinsic values? Am I hanging out with the right people, who are going to make me feel loved, as opposed to making me feel like I made it?âŚâ (104)
- It seems as if this is a large battle between intrinsic and extrinsic values.
- 4) Disconnection from Childhood Trauma
- âThe greater the trauma, the greater your risk of depression, anxiety or suicide.â (112)
- 5) Disconnection from Status and Respect
- âThe more unequal your society, the more prevalent all forms of mental illness are. Other social scientists then brok this down to look at depression specificallyâand found the higher the inequality, the higher the depression.â (121) â Inequality & mental health, what might this imply for a country like the United States? Is capitalism, at least how it currently is, a recipe for mental illness amongst the people?
- In unequal societies, people are questioning their own status. âAm I maintaining my position? Whoâs threatening me? How far can I fall? Just asking these questionsâas you have to when inequality growsâloads more and more stress into our lives.â (121)
- 6) Disconnection from the Natural World
- ââŚpeople who moved to green areas saw a big reduction in depression, and the people who moved away from green areas saw a big increase in depression.â (126)
- Â How might you remedy?
- Nature walks, â studies conducted that had people in cities take walks in nature showed that moods improved as did concentration. For people who were depressed, ââŚtheir improvement was five times greater than the improvement for other people.â (127)
- Exercise â significantly reduces depression and anxiety.
- Biophilia â ââŚan innate love for the landscapes in which humans have lived for most of our existence, and for the natural web of life that surrounds us and makes our existence possible.â (128)
- 7) Disconnection from a Hopeful or Secure Future
- At direct contrast with various modern trends
- Gig economy â These are inherently insecure, unstable jobs.
- Lacking regulations of businesses, making it difficult for workers to organize and protect their rights.
- What is reasonable security? What is security for the entrepreneur? Creating value
- At direct contrast with various modern trends
- 8 & 9) The Real Role of Genes
- ââŚgenes increase your sensitivity, sometimes significantly. But they arenâtâin themselvesâthe cause.â (148)
- The snowball effect comes into play here â the more lonely you are/feel, the more your brain continues to change.
- The experience of being lonely, isolated and materialistic all change your brainâas does the healing from that. (145)
- 37 percent of depression is inherited, severe anxiety between 30 and 40 percent. (Height is 90 percent inherited for perspective) (147)
- 1) Disconnection from Meaningful Work
- Curing Depression is about Connection â Hari calls these âReconnectionsâ
- 1) To Other People
- Does trying consciously to make yourself happier actually work? (180) â The topic of SELF-HELP. Instead: How can I make my community better?
- âIf you deliberately try to become happy, you will not become happierâif you live in the United States. But if you live in Russia, Japan, or Taiwan, you will become happier.â (180)
- In the West, our way of looking at life is more individualistic. In Asia, itâs more collective. âIf you decide to pursue happiness in the United States or Britain, you pursue it for yourselfâbecause you think thatâs how it works. You do what I did most of the time: you get stuff for yourself, you rack up achievement for yourself, you build up your own ego.â (181)
- Pursuing happiness in Russia, Japan or China is done by trying ââŚto make things better for your groupâfor the people around you. Thatâs what you think happiness means, so it seems obvious to you.â (181)
- And, the data shows, the Western version of happiness doesnât workâŚthe more you believe happiness to be a social thing, the better off you are. (181) ââŚif we return to seeing our distress and our joy as something we share with a network of people all around us, we will feel different.â (181)
- Community! â The role of community in personal well-being. Thinking we versus I.
- The search for individual solutions is a trap. We dive further into our own egos.
- Does trying consciously to make yourself happier actually work? (180) â The topic of SELF-HELP. Instead: How can I make my community better?
- 2) Social Prescribing
- Wasnât sure as to the difference here between connections to others and social prescribing.
- However, seems to stress more social programs. Used an example of âdog shit alley,â where a group of depressed patients worked together to take this run down, dirty alley and turn it into a community garden.
- Wasnât sure as to the difference here between connections to others and social prescribing.
- 3) To Meaningful Work
- Fact is, most people dislike their work. ââŚ87 percent of us feel either disengaged or enraged by our jobs. You are twice as likely to hate your job as love it, and once you factor in e-mails, those work hours are spreading over more and more of our livesâfifty, sixty hours a week.â (201) â Work satisfaction
- Example of a democratic cooperative â Baltimore Bicycle Works
- Six full partners, all share the proceeds â at the time of Hariâs visit, there were 3 apprentices who spent a year training, working, etc.  who would then be evaluated after a year to become full partners if they were seen as a good fit. â Importance of Equity & OwnershipÂ
- âThe goal is for everyone to feel equally committed to the cooperative, and able to find a way to make the best contribution they possibly can to it.â (206)
- This style of work provides a âreconnection,â because you feel your are choosing it, you directly benefit from it, you have a respected status or status isnât at play at all, and you are connected to evaluating the future. You know where you could be working 5 years from now â no pressure or insecurity. (208)
- Six full partners, all share the proceeds â at the time of Hariâs visit, there were 3 apprentices who spent a year training, working, etc.  who would then be evaluated after a year to become full partners if they were seen as a good fit. â Importance of Equity & OwnershipÂ
- âA major study by scientists at Cornell University investigated 320 small businesses. Half had top-down control, and half let the workers set their own agenda in a model that was closer to the democratic system at Baltimore Bicycle Works. The businesses closer to the democratic model grew, on average, for times more than the others.â (209)
- 4) To Meaningful Values
- Decipher between what our your values and values that have been placed upon you, or expected of you from society.
- This might be where a sorting of your personal philosophy may come to benefit. What do you believe? Are you acting in accordance with those values?
- 5) Sympathetic Joy & Overcoming Addiction to the Self
- Sympathetic Joy is a method for cultivating âthe opposite of jealousy or envyâŚItâs simply feeling happy for other people.â (220)
- The practice (220-221):
- 1) Close your eyes and picture yourself. You imagine something good happening to youâfalling in love, or writing something youâre proud of. You feel the joy that would come from that. You let it flow through you.
- 2) Then you picture somebody you love, and you imagine something wonderful happening for them. You feel the joy from that, and you let that, too, flow through you.
- 3) Then you picture somebody you donât really knowâsay, the clerk who serves you in the grocery store. You imagine something wonderful happening to her. And you try to feel joy for herâreal joy.
- 4) You picture somebody you donât like, and you try to imagine something good happening for that person. And you try to feel joy for that person.
- 5) Then you picture somebody you really dislike, or someone you really envy
- Do this everyday for fifteen minutes.
- The practice (220-221):
- Psychedelics â Psilocybin experiment â Role in overcoming the addiction to the self / âbreaking our addiction to ourselvesâ
- âSome 80 percent of people who were given the highest dose of psilocybin said, two months later, that it was one of the five most important things that had ever happened to them.â (233)
- Psilocybin & Smokers â âAfter just three sessionâŚ80 percent of them quit, and were still off cigarettes six months later. Thatâs a higher success rate than any comparable technique anywhere.â (234)
- Study â University College London, Psilocybin and treating Depression â (only a preliminary study), ââŚbut they found that nearly 50 percent of patients saw their depression go away entirely for the three-month period of the trial.â (234)
- These results were dependent on one thing, âYour likelihood of recovering from depression or addiction was dependent on how intense a spiritual experience you had during the drug experience. The more intense the spiritual experience, the better the outcomes afterward.â (234)
- ââŚwhat both deep meditation and psychedelic experiences teach us is the ability to see how much of that selfâthat egoâis constructed.â (235)
- ââŚthese substances most often leave people with a profound sense of connectionâto other people, to nature and to a deeper sense of meaning.â (236)
- âTheyâve recognized the connection between themselves and othersâŚThey feel more motivated to connect to others. They feel more motivated to care for themselves in healthy ways, rather than destructive ways.â (236)
- Sympathetic Joy is a method for cultivating âthe opposite of jealousy or envyâŚItâs simply feeling happy for other people.â (220)
- 6) Acknowledging and Overcoming Childhood Trauma
- 7) Restoring the Future
- âIt is a well-established fact that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to become sick in almost everyday. In the United Status, if you have an income below $20,000, you are more than twice as likely to become depressed as somebody who makes $70,000 or more. And if you received a regular income from property you own, you are ten times less likely to develop an anxiety disorder than if you donât get any income from property.â (247)
- Wealth, Mental Health, & Inequality â Poverty & Well-Being
- If something like a Universal Basic Income was to help provide people with some sort of foundationâŚ$12,000 a year even, would that then bring more people out of these âdepression risk sector?â Whatâs the difference between complacency, and desperation? Would $12,000 a year, take people out of desperation? Or would it really turn us into more complacent people?
- Canadian Basic Income Experiment â Dauphin (rural community in Manitoba) â Universal Basic Income 1970s (245 –
- $19,000 (in U.S. dollars) per year by the govt. guarantee
- 3 years into the experiment a conservative government took power in Canada and shut down the experiment.
- What were the results?
- Students stayed at school longer and performed better
- Number of low-birth-weight babies declined as more women delayed having children until they were ready.
- Parents with newborn babies stayed at home longer to care for them and didnât rush back to work.
- Depression and anxiety in the community fell significantly
- Drop of 9 percent in serious mental health disorders and severe depression (in 3 years)
- Great Smoky Mountains â Native American tribal group & Casino (250)
- Everyone received $6,000 a year rising to $9,000 later
- “Behavioral problems like ADHD and childhood depression fell by 40 percent.â (251)
- Everyone received $6,000 a year rising to $9,000 later
- Universal Basic Income
- Implications, workers are empowered to say ânoâ to substandard jobs. Employers have to react with improving work conditions, increasing wages, etc.
- âIt is a well-established fact that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to become sick in almost everyday. In the United Status, if you have an income below $20,000, you are more than twice as likely to become depressed as somebody who makes $70,000 or more. And if you received a regular income from property you own, you are ten times less likely to develop an anxiety disorder than if you donât get any income from property.â (247)
- 1) To Other People
Key Points, Quotes & Definitions:
- What has led to the depression, anxiety and antidepressant circumstance to be as it is?
- Early trials & placebos â
- 25 percent of the effects of antidepressants were due to natural recovery, 50 percent were due to the story you had been told about them, and only 25 percent to the actual chemicals. â Irving Kirsch â The impact of antidepressants was much lower than anticipated.
- Early trials & placebos â
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