Depression: Disease of the future

By: Bikal Dhungel 

Death of Robin Williams ( a Hollywood star ) shows that Depression has nothing to do with money. It can affect the rich as well as other classes. The World Health Organisation states that worldwide 350 million or more people of all ages are suffering with depression which can lead to suicide if no action is taken. 

The matter of concern is if the treatment is available. In the least developed countries, there are barely any psychologists or psychotherapists actively involving in treating depression. In rich Europe, for example in Germany, the patient should wait 3 months in average to meet a psycho therapist. This is a long time for somebody suffering with this disease. The WHO points that there are several influencing factors of depression namely social, psychological and biological.

The social factor is what one can make change in.

Our society is moving towards more individualism. Individualism in one way has helped the western society to thrive as people had more time to think and discover creative ideas which later helped the society as a whole. On the other side, it is not without faults. People became more focused on themselves, their jobs or whatever they do but in an individualistic manner. One had to wait until Christmas and Easter to meet their families. One had to take an appointment to meet friends. This created loneliness. On the other hand, the society moved towards performance oriented one, materialistic one and one that values 'being', 'achieving', 'doing' etc more than anything else.

The result was emotional distress. People started to compare themselves with others and persued to do more than their peers by working overtime, by disregarding their health and relationships.

To enjoy the little time they have, people prefer to use things where they dont need other people like playing video games, other games in the internet, doing things alone, watching TV or spent time in internet. To feel being loved, one should go to the places like Disco today.

We humans are naturally social beings, we have lived in societies throughout the history and our pattern of life today is unnatural, it is a new process that we just know since recently. Lack of proper human connections, our thoughts cannot be expressed as we wish to be, our feelings are not being shared, they are being pressed in our minds and our mind is not peaceful. This resulted in anxiety, stress and eventually depression. Stress and depression are mostly found in western, individualistic society. More and more people are suffering with burn-out syndrome and the authorities are helpless about how to tackle this issue as this cause an enormous economic burden on the society. Billions of working hours are lost on absenteeism yearly due to stress related reasons.

Other factors like inequality, joblessness, financial burdens, health problems are adding oil to this problem. At least some countries have started to understand this problem and enacted rules and regulations to tackle the issue. For example in Sweden, 6 hours of daily work was tried. If this experiment works, people have more time for their family, friends and time to spend on the things they love or their hobbies. This might make them happy and lower the risk of stress or depression.

The number of people signing themselves for Yoga or other form of meditation is also increasing. It took a long time for the scientific community to accept that mindfulness is indeed a science rather than a religious belief. Even some universities started to teach mindfulness. However, this only is not enough. People should be encouraged to do more physical activities, eat healthy foods, invest on their health, invest time on things that make them happy, practice love and compassion etc. This will reduce the number of people suffering with depression.

A public health approach is needed to realise this. For example a safe cycling highway might be necessary if we want to encourage people to cycle rather than drive cars. If the road is dangerous, this might not be logical. The Danish capital of Copenhagen has established itself as the most bicycle friendly city in the world and more people cycle to work than anywhere else. Health insurance companies are studying if paying people to join the Fitness Club would reduce their cost of sickness. The result is yet to come.

For a society without stress and depression, we need to change few things and namely: using technology to make our life simpler but not overusing it and making us so addicted to it for example the electronic devices like iphones. We should spend required time for our physical and mental health. Practising compassion and taking care of fellow humans would make us more happy than others. Being charitable is equally good for us like for the ones we help. Close connection to the nature is always good. Spending some time daily for things we love which might be reading a book, playing a game or talking or listening to people we like etc would enrich our life. These are all things that we can do in personal level. When people are healthy, the society is healthy and when the society is healthy, the country is healthy. A healthy country means less number of people who feel alone and depressed in this world of 7 billion, a healthy country is where there are others who stands with you when you need them. Then only, the purpose of life could be fulfilled.