Unhappiness vs Depression
Unhappiness and depression are on the same platform. They both are caused due to our disconnection from what makes us happy.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
Depression is caused by the lack of what we need to be happy:
- We need to belong to a group.
- We need to be valued by other people.
- We need to know that we are good at something.
- We need to know we are secure in our future.
If the work you're doing isn't meaningful, people are bound to get anxious, depressed and unhappy. The most stress-inducing is the work that is monotonous and boring.
To be happy, we need to have meaningful values:
- Avoid materialism and consumerism.
- Find lost connections with nature and people.
- Be more giving.
- Avoid social media
- Live by basic values like loving your friends and family, and doing what we love.
RELATED IDEAS
- People with lower cholesterol levels are more likely to die violent deaths.
- If you put primates on a low-cholesterol diet, they become more aggressive. Lowering animals’ cholesterol seems to affect their levels of serotonin. Even fruit flies start fighting if you interfere with their serotonin levels.
- Studies have linked serotonin levels in people to violence, impulsivity, suicide, and murder.
- In a randomized controlled trial, statins were found to increase aggression in post-menopausal women though, oddly, not in men. Giving statins to Nile tilapia made them more confrontational and altered the levels of serotonin in their brains.
- "I'll be happy when..."
- Problems come and go quickly
- Material things bring happiness
- Perfection is the key to happiness
- Stability equates to happiness
- "My parents had it harder than I did..."
All of these are myths that give off the precedent that this is what happiness should be but it is mostly consumed by denial, detractory, and envy. Being able to accept the good with the bad will aid us into finding ourselves and explore what happiness truly means for us.
Attributing depression to spontaneously low serotonin is "deeply misleading and unscientific".
According to Dr. David Healy, there was never any basis for it, ever. It was just a marketing copy.