Why Is Depression On The Rise?

Why Is Depression On The Rise?

Cases of depression have been rising worldwide at an astonishing rate over the past few years. The rise in anti-depressant medications has been nothing short of spectacular, to the extent that some sources are starting to use terms like ‘epidemic’ when describing modern depression. Since the mid 1990s, global antidepressant prescriptions have more than doubled in Western nations, and reports of depression-like problems are hugely on the rise elsewhere. But why? Is modern society causing depression? And, if so, how? 

Here are a few of the major theories pertaining to the modern depression phenomenon:

Increased Diagnosis

As those of us suffering from them are all too aware, diagnosing and treating mental illnesses is still a problematic area for medical science. There’s a lot of it that we don’t understand, and the whole subject is still surrounded by a lot of miscomprehension and confusion. It’s only relatively recently that medical science has even begun to get to grips with the complexities of mental illnesses like depression, and it’s taken even longer for information regarding depression to filter down to family doctors and health insurers. Not so long ago, people with depression may not even have realized that they were ill - they put the horrors in their heads down to aberrant personality traits, or external events. Some therefore believe that there are no more depressed people in the world than there used to be - it’s simply that modern people and modern health authorities know how to recognize the problem, and sufferers are more likely to seek treatment for it. While the statistics show a marked increase in depression, in reality depression levels are the same, and treatment statistics have gone up.

Lifestyle Factors

Some, however, disagree. They are of the opinion that depression is tangibly upon the rise. These people seek explanations for the problem within the modern milieu. Some point to modern lifestyle factors as contributory factors. Modern lifestyles are far more indoor and sedentary than they used to be. Furthermore, the diet of many Western individuals leaves much to be desired - with an excess of salt, sugar, and saturated fats. Research is beginning to show that time spent outdoors, particularly in natural surroundings, can have an extremely positive impact upon the symptoms of depression, and even help to fend it off. This may suggest that our indoor lifestyles could be partially to blame for modern depression - we’re not getting enough outdoor time to defend our brains against the ravages of depression. Furthermore, unhealthy, sedentary and poorly nourished lifestyles render us in general far less physically healthy. As our brains are just as reliant upon healthy physical systems as the rest of our bodies, poor nourishment and poor levels of fitness naturally have a considerable impact upon our brains’ ability to cope with life in general.

Stress And Sleep

In theory, things like computers, the internet, and the hordes of ‘labor-saving’ devices with which we are surrounded these days should give us more time and make us less stressed. In fact, we use the extra time we have to cram in more work and assign ourselves more tasks. This is not necessarily our faults on an individual level - it’s simply the pattern to which society pulls. However, all of this extra work has a definite impact upon our stress levels. While our ancestors may have had relatively few tasks to complete per day, which took a lot longer than they now would, we are faced each morning with an enormous number of things to do. We catapult ourselves into high-powered, time-poor schedules, working furiously against the clock to do everything we’re supposed to - and then we lie awake at night worrying about the things we’ haven’t done, or the things we did not do well enough. This causes us to be chronically stressed, and chronically sleep-deprived. Both of these things are absolutely atrocious for our mental health, and are well-acknowledged to contribute towards depression.

What Can We Do?

The jury is out on whether or not actual depression rates are rising, or whether we’re just better at recognizing the illness. However, if you think that the modern world can in some way be held accountable for depression, then it would seem that there are a few things you can do to reduce your risk of falling prey to it, or lessen your symptoms. These are as follows:

• Eat healthily
• Exercise regularly
• Spend time outdoors as much as possible
• Don’t overburden yourself with work
• Get plenty of sleep

Post Written by Anne Farns