What is Digg?86 Comments
- srs2000, on 11/03/2009, -8/+74Nice to see that people still talk out of their ass.
Sure.. A lot of people claim or are diagnosed as depressed when they are not truly.. But a lot of people are seriously depressed.
Anyone who has lived with serious depression will tell you there is no upside. Thinking about a situation over and over and over in your head does not change it. It just drives you crazy. Being closed off and withdrawn leads to being more closed off and withdrawn.
"Evidence: people who felt depressed before tackling challenging math problems tend to score higher than happier test-takers, Andrews and Thomson reported in a 2007 study."
This is evidence? People who "felt depressed" ...? The real depressed people likely wouldn't even be there. I guess that "evidence" also proves that ignorance is bliss? - WordsnCollision, on 11/03/2009, -0/+42Next week, The Downside of Optimism.
- illinest, on 11/03/2009, -3/+42i felt a similar response to this since I've got a lot of first hand experience with clinical depression. 'Crippling' is much closer to the truth than 'beneficial'.
- AdmiralAcbar, on 11/03/2009, -1/+36So crippling guilt and loneliness will help me with a math problem? Great...
- meruru, on 11/03/2009, -0/+21I can't wait to be depressed!
...I think I'm doing it wrong - Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -3/+23You're misunderstanding the article. No one is saying that depression isn't horrible and unpleasant for the person who experiences it, just that depression must have, at some point in our evolutionary history, served a purpose because it wasn't selected out of the population. As stated in the article, the tendency to have depression can, in fact, increase the chance that DNA will be passed on successfully. I had never heard the specific theories mentioned in the article before, but I learned about a different theory which sounds better to me.
The most basic symptoms of depression (decreased interest in normal activities, decreased appetite, decreased sociability, decreased sex drive) are all things which serve to remove a depressed person from their environment. If a cave man is depressed, it's very possible that the world around him is not a good place to be. Maybe there has been a recent influx of new predators in his range (the increased stress of losing a loved one might lead to depression), maybe a particular food source has become increasingly scarce (again, increased stress due to inability to feed himself), or maybe he's lost most of his loved ones to infectious disease. If this cave man doesn't get depressed and continues to interact with his potentially toxic environment at normal levels, he's putting himself at greater risk for death. On the other hand, if he gets depressed and he withdraws and starts to eat less and avoid others, he may be saving his own life. Once the environment becomes less toxic, his depression will lift and he'll have survived.
This article isn't saying there's some kind of upside to depression in modern times, since obviously we have better ways to adapt to a toxic environment. All it's doing is presenting some long-standing theories from the field of Evolutionary Psychology about the potential evolutionary benefits of depression. - raptorlightning, on 11/03/2009, -2/+15It is a crippling condition, and most of the legal drugs do nothing to combat "true" depression.
Yes, it helps me think about things better, but you know, I'd rather not think about things as much because then I realize how ***** up this world is, how much better I could make it, and how I have no power, and will have no power to change anything.
/emo - fragMasterFlash, on 11/03/2009, -0/+12Having a good sense of humor is a valuable life skill. Too bad it isn't one they teach in school.
- Praelior, on 11/03/2009, -0/+12I think this article could only make some sense when the depressed person is rational, and still capable of rational thought. For some clinically depressed people, the ruminition, the writing, the eureka moments inevitably lead to them contemplating and justifying suicide.
From a common sense perspetive, I disagree that ruminition should be encouraged. I read in a book that the key to stop worrying, (slight offshoot from depression), is to stop your ruminitions, and to remind yourself that they are fantasizing silly worst case scenarios that more than likely won't happen.
http://www.amazon.com/Worry-Cure-Seven-Steps-Stopp ...
I think I butchered the message of the book, but its worth checking out.
Also, this quote is absurd
"Evidence: people who felt depressed before tackling challenging math problems tend to score higher than happier test-takers"
I don't want to generalize, but I would conjecture that stress/anxiety most people feel before a test or stressful situation is different than clinical depression. - rhansell10, on 11/03/2009, -0/+11I liked this upside of depression article. I was laid off for 5 months recently, and I was starting to become depressed. Actually, I found myself doing the same routine each day and usually being rejected by jobs that I was sure fit for, causing me anxiety. It seems I could have done two things here: 1) take a pill for this depression symptom or 2) do something about it.
I started a dozen little projects to fix up my house. I rode my bike for a few miles every other day, going farther and farther each time. I couldn't fix my job situation, but I certainly handled it better. I basically analyzed my situation and fixed it myself. Isn't this the only true way to handle depression? - KokomoNYC, on 11/03/2009, -0/+11Borrowing on credit to an absurd extent.
- Liam000, on 11/03/2009, -2/+13sorry but this is bullcrap. even if depression is an adaptation doesnt mean we shouldn't cure. just because it is natural doesn't mean it's good. depression is bad for the individual period.
- NiftyG, on 11/03/2009, -0/+10Depression is more of a collection of symptoms than an actual disease. It's like pain, it's your body's way of telling you something is amiss. In that respect, it is a good thing, because your body is telling you that you need help - but that's about it.
Speaking from personal experience, the problem comes when people only treat the symptoms with anti-depressants, but don't dig further to deal with the underlying problems. Anti-depressants are wonderful drugs that have saved a lot of lives, but they only act as painkillers, they don't get to the root causes of the depression. That requires self-work, such as therapy, changes in lifestyle, and so on. - dark2025, on 11/03/2009, -1/+10Truly depressed people (as mentioned in the article) will seek social isolation, so they will probably avoid a situation like participating in a study. However, I think they're just trying to show that feeling depressed will lead to better problem solving. So while the participants may not actually be suffering from depression, their depressed moods may be helping them with the math problems. On the other hand, there might be a peak at which feeling blue will help with problem solving. Chronic depression may elicit learned helplessness when it comes to problem solving which would be detrimental to the results.
As for your other point, I agree, rumination and social isolation simply leads to more rumination and social isolation. It's a vicious circle: You feel alone, so you keep thinking about how terrible it is to be alone and the mistakes you had to make you like that. You start pushing people away from you because you want to reaffirm your loneliness (self-fulfilling prophesy), leading to more feelings of being alone. Even though you may know why you are feeling alone and thus depressed, say because you're afraid of rejection, it does not mean that the depression itself has any upside in helping you deal with the fear of rejection. If anything, it will condition you to be even more afraid of rejection due to the increased social isolation. - keving727, on 11/03/2009, -0/+8You seem to have strong resilience skills which is an excellent quality to possess. Unfortunately a lot of people with depression have never been able to develop such strong coping skills and as a result fall deeper in depression and may rely on pills or even drugs. Also, others get hit with depression and immediately look for a quick fix.
- Mujokan, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7The ruminating part is OK, at least if you have enough ability to really sort through the issues and work out what's going on. The problem is mostly that it gets very boring; and it takes a lot of time that you aren't using on stuff that is more beneficial to your actual circumstances (like making money, which isn't a bad way of increasing your happiness, so long as you aren't obsessed with it for the wrong reasons).
The problem is all the emotions that get triggered while you are doing the ruminating. Such as beating yourself up, feeling hopeless, regrets about the past, anger at others and yourself, and so on. You feel a massive cocktail of all kinds of different emotions all the time. This makes you feel like ***** for a good part of the day, and gives you all kinds of stress-related problems.
I think that both of these aspects (ruminating and the negative emotions) are some part of you trying to get yourself to act differently and change your circumstances. But often they just don't work very well. There are many ways in which you can develop "immunity" to these two processes. Especially if you have a resistance to being told what to do, if you are open-minded and good at looking at many aspects of a situation, if you are self-indulgent and good at finding rationalizations and excuses, and so on.
The emotional stuff is like some lower part of your brain whipping a dead horse a lot of the time. It doesn't actually change your behavior; it just makes you feel like crap all the time. So I think one has to find some way to just short circuit the emotional roundabout and stop whipping the dead horse. Often the battle between the attacking emotions and your defenses against the attacking emotions just leads to paralysis and makes things worse -- and wastes even more time.
As for actually changing your behavior, I suppose ruminating is good enough. At some point you have to take action, though. It's hard to give any general prescription for that which would work for everyone, because everyone's goals and situation are different. - Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6That isn't what this article is saying, and it's blatantly incorrect. Yes, there are some people who become depressed as a direct result of what's going on in their environment. Somebody might be depressed because they're refusing to deal with the reality of their life, or somebody might be depressed because they consistently violate their own sense of who they are. For these people, confronting their problems on their own (or seeking therapy if they're really in a tough place) is the best course of action.
On the other hand, a significant number of people who are clinically depressed simply have brains that make them more prone to depression than the rest of us. Just like some of us are more prone to developing Type I Diabetes or to going bald, some of us are more prone to developing depression. It angers me when people refer to antidepressant medication as "happy pills", because that couldn't be further from the truth. These medications aren't Dopamine agonists, they're not releasing "happy hormone" into your brain and covering up any feelings of depression somebody has (that's what Alcohol does). Instead, they work much more subtly and serve to correct a deficient neurotransmitter pathway, allowing the brain to function more normally. Even though you hear it a lot in the media and from Psychiatry bashers (and Scientologists), antidepressants don't make you "happy" and they don't make you numb to negative feelings, they simply ensure that your brain is working more normally and that you'll respond to your environment more like a normal person. - Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6I hope you're joking.
If not, it's no surprise that you think the theory of evolution is foolish because you haven't even begun to comprehend it. Evolution isn't some conscious entity that sits around thinking about how to improve us, instead, it's the result of a whole set of different forces converging over extremely long periods of time. There's really no excuse for not understanding evolution anymore now that it's all over the internet, do yourself some research and then come back here and argue with us once you actually know what we're even talking about. - Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Not quite. Even if it were a "side effect" of some other cognitive process (though that line of thinking isn't quite accurate, but that discussion is a long one and isn't necessary here), there's no reason that it wouldn't be selected out of the gene pool if it didn't have a positive effect on gene transmission. Furthermore, the ability to appreciate art and beauty would surely not be selected for at a greater rate than the negative effects of depression would be selected against.
- scuba7183, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Good thing I'm a math major...
- rearlgrant, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4Religion: stupidity through repetition.
'fixed that for you. - Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4"Speaking from personal experience, the problem comes when people only treat the symptoms with anti-depressants, but don't dig further to deal with the underlying problems. Anti-depressants are wonderful drugs that have saved a lot of lives, but they only act as painkillers, they don't get to the root causes of the depression. That requires self-work, such as therapy, changes in lifestyle, and so on."
This is not always the case. Sure, many people can successfully treat their depression through lifestyle changes and therapy, and those are of course the most preferred solutions since they don't have any side effects. For this reason, these things should always be tried first. However, not all cases of depression have root causes that are psychosocial in nature. With advances in the technology we use to look at the brain and with the help of longitudinal genetic studies, we're know acquiring a far better understanding of the biological basis for depression, and are now plainly seeing that some people are simply born with a brain that makes them prone to developing depression. For these people, entering therapy and striving to face their life troubles may not be enough. For these people, the root cause of their depression is a biological one, and psychopharmacological treatment is the best course of action in these cases. - ApokalypseNow, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4Evolution: objective, observable, repeatable fact that can be verified no matter what you believe.
- NiftyG, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4Same here. Anti-depressants would relieve the symptoms, but they always came back. Therapy helped as well, but again, only for a while. I ultimately realized that incessantly talking about your problems (even with a therapist) often only perpetuates them.
What finally got rid of the depression for me was learning to meditate (i.e. learning how to turn off thought) That allowed me to break the toxic thought patterns that triggered the depression. - Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4It's not just semantics, it's a drastic difference. "Happy pills" (drugs which release significant amounts of Dopamine into the brain and increase pleasure which overshadows negative feelings) are quite different than SSRI's, which simply correct deficient neural pathways so that normal functioning can be achieved. A good way of understanding this is the fact that "Happy pills" will make anybody happy, but only depressed people will receive relief from SSRI's.
As for the rest of your post, I think you and I agree. Like I said in my first comment, a significant number of depressed people would do best to either 1. identify the root psychosocial causes of their depression on their own and work on them or 2. get into therapy to achieve this same goal. Since these methods are sufficient for many people and have the least amount of side effects, they should always be the first course of action when somebody goes to a practitioner (whether it's a general practitioner, a psychiatrist, or a psychologist) to seek relief from depression. Still, some people do need more than this, and I think you and I both agree on that part. - Myztry, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4Applying a coat of paint that needs to be constantly re-applied doesn't fix anything. Having people feel blasé or even happy about things they should be worried about is not healthy in my opinion. It doesn't solve the problem - it just hides the symptoms while causing depression stimulating financial stress.
Doctors/psychologists/dealers aren't really there to solve your problem. They are there to turn your problems into a revenue stream. The whole medical system is highly geared towards those ends. There are obviously some benefits to be had but once people switch from being a patient to a client then they're past where most of those benefits lay.
The answer (if there is any - and sometimes there is not) is by using what resources a person has left and utilising them to changing their situation rather than just ***** with their perception of it. Facing hard cold facts, making hard clear headed decisions and REPLACING what is wrong in their life which includes a dependency on those who are dependant on yourself as a revenue stream. - Kruse, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4The upside of suicide.
- Myztry, on 11/03/2009, -2/+5Depression doesn't inherently mean anything is wrong with you. There are some bloody good reasons to be depressed and no amount of mind play will take them away. The situation itself needs to change.
On a related subject, I'm against Marijuana. Not as a plant as such but more so for it's anti-depressant/blasé effect. ***** happens in life and if you prevent yourself from dealing with it then you just creating a downward spiral of self neglect.
Don't care much for psychology either. Sometimes telling people things are going to be okay or drugging them into a frontal lobotomy is borderline criminal in my opinion. Yes, life can suck - you need to find something to supplant your issues rather than pissing in the wind trying to fix it. - Paranor01, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3actually you wasted your own time by not reading the headline properly, which got you reading the article, which you then decided to waste more time commenting about your waste of time.
- explodingzebras, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3becoming Flanders
- cartermills, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Straw man much? When did anyone *ever* argue that "stuff happens by itself because it feels like it"?
- lamiaconfitor, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4Yeah, you aren't understanding it... no one is here defending chronic, clinical depression as healthy.
- illinest, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4Depression has been a lifelong illness for two members of my family and there has never been, nor will there ever be an upside.
I forgive you for your rudeness by the way. - rmxz, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3I think a better darwinian-evolution based defense of depression and other self destructive behaviors is that they are a defense against overly oppressive and dysfunctional societies.
If a society/culture gets too messed up, many of its people become depressed and the dysfunctional society suffers the loss of productivity of those people; ideally causing its collapse and being replaced by a culture that's hopefully better than the failed society. - richlw, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Never gonna give you up
- KokomoNYC, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Listen to him guys; he's right. Depression doesn't come from evolution. It comes from an apple from a talking snake that eats sand.
- jimbo92107, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Johnathan Swift said, "Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived." Some would argue that these are the words of a pessimistic man. Historians, looking at Swift's era in England, would understand. Anyway, if we grant that this is true, then extended sadness (or depression) may be the inevitable result of seeing our world for what it really is: kinda *****. In itself this observation does no good, but if taken as a call to any kind of constructive action (even something indirect, such as ridiculing the corrupt powers that be), then there is at least an opportunity to make our world a little less *****.
Personally, I take my cat for walks on a reel and harness. She likes to pounce on leaves, chew on twigs and run up the sides of trees. Companion animals do not cure depression, but they can provide momentary diversions from the usual circular ruminations. It's nice to take a break sometimes. Maybe I'll chew on a twig. - ejhansen71, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3A great article and some great advice. I am going to stop taking my anti-depressant and instead endulge in the abyss of depression to hopefully change my life for the better. Hey Sharon, what address should my family send my funeral notice to? I want you to be there.
- smithg86, on 11/03/2009, -1/+3By that reasoning, fatal genetic diseases are beneficial to mankind, because we still have them. Just because it's in our genes doesn't mean it's optimal to our survival -- only that the trait hasn't been eliminated from the gene pool yet.
- rearlgrant, on 11/03/2009, -1/+3So many fallacies in this article...
Evolutionary Psychology has become a way to claim that a scientist's individual biases are natural law. Oddly, conservative values are the one's usually "proven". In this case: "use your negative mood to accept the work you can get. Accept that you work for the economy rather than the economy working for you, and do nothing that might change that." Blame the victim.
This author makes no distinction between brains that are mentally ill with chronic depression and transient episodic depression. So, to those brains that are structurally ill, ignore the illness, you are to blame for not using the benefits of your depression. Blame the victim.
The author of this “science” article reminds me of the George Carlin joke about the fact that someone, somewhere has an appointment tomorrow with the world’s worst doctor. Process of elimination, you know it's true.
Buried, not for being lame or inaccurate, but just buried. - Frostek, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2*sobs*
Just doing my part...
*sobs* - Enterres, on 11/04/2009, -0/+2I had a girlfriend who was on anti-depressants...she said she loved me but it didn't feel like it was true at all. Actually, i could barely register her through empathy at all. It was like she couldn't feel a thing. So in that respect i'd rather be depressed than on drugs. More than that i'm one of those people who anti-depressants don't work on; perhaps i'm allergic to them, because all they do is give me (and my mother) a nasty headache.
- stonebear, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2What is depression, but chronic, excessive psychic pain? Sure; the ability to feel pain is a necessary thing, but a little goes a long way. Perhaps the article errs by saying depression, when it really means a few blue notes now and then.
- KokomoNYC, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Couldn't the article be talking about depression in moderation? I'm not depressed everyday, but there are times when I certainly feel depressed, and I could see an argument that that has focused an analytical thought process. The dosage makes the poison, right?
- smemily, on 11/03/2009, -2/+4It doesn't necessarily serve a purpose. It could just be a side effect of something that does. It could be, for all we know, a side effect of the ability to appreciate art and beauty.
- smemily, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2I think you've hit on the key difference there: ability to maintain rationality. I can't agree with an argument that depression, in which one is irrational and has lost touch with reality, is constructive or beneficial.
- SloppyJoe, on 11/03/2009, -2/+4I think there is a lot of truth to this article. I've felt this way for a long time.. I'm not saying that depression isn't something that needs to be treated but I've held the view for a while now that just giving people pills to make them happy is not the right thing to do. They're depressed for a reason and that reason needs to be dealt with...
- Dimensio, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2As you are known to be irrational and dishonest, your statements are not credible.
- sodaseven, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true.
- KokomoNYC, on 11/03/2009, -1/+3Larry: She doesn't want to be happy.
Dan: Everybody wants to be happy.
Larry: Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm they're depressed. If they were happy they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live, which can be depressing. -
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