THE CASE FOR EVOLUTION
Evolutionary psychologists believe that depression may actually have an adaptive purpose. Yes, you heard that right! Depression may not be a disease, but a survival strategy that our ancestors developed over thousands of years.
It might sound paradoxical that something that makes you feel like crap, and leaves you unmotivated and possibly suicidal, provides an evolutionary advantage but hear me out. Different moods like happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety are signals that evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. These signals encourage behaviour that moves us towards fulfilling primary evolutionary purposes like reproduction and survival.
For instance:
- Anxiety made our caveman ancestors more vigilant to their surroundings so that they could ward off attacks from predators or neighbouring tribes.
- Anger instigated action to stamp out an existential threat.
- Happiness inspired a more curious and open-minded approach to new ideas and experiences, like trying new foods or exploring new territory.
But what about depression? How might a gloomy mindset have aided in survival?
Well, there are a few theories to that answer. A low mood may be nature's way of telling humans (and other mammals) to change a self-defeating behaviour, or to retreat from an effort that could ultimately be dangerous or wasteful. In some cases, it may have been advantageous for our caveman ancestors to give up, to go home to mope a bit, and to live to fight another day.
A melancholic mindset may also have spurred our caveman ancestors to lay low near the home-cave and analyse how to respond to a survival or reproductive problem.
Being all sad, mopey and low energy provided a survival advantage by keeping animals and our caveman ancestors close to home when the environment was becoming increasingly threatening. It could explain things like "seasonal affective disorder"; we might just get down during the winter because the cold, grey, sunless skies signal to our pre-historic brains that going out would be fruitless and possibly dangerous, and that staying close to home and preserving energy would be a better survival strategy.
Imagine Mr caveman was having a hard time finding enough food or getting the attention of potential mates. Feeling down or sad could have helped him take a step back and think about what he could do to improve his situation.
Depression might also make us better at analysing our environment. Researchers call this heightened ability "depressive realism." When we're feeling down, we might be better at realising when things are out of our control, while overly optimistic people might not notice. Depression causes us to think hard about our problems, leading to focused thinking that can break down complex problems into smaller components and make them more manageable.
It's important to remember that while depression may have some benefits if harnessed and directed, the environment of our modern world has hijacked this potentially advantageous response and turned it into something that takes away all of our power and makes us victims.
OLD BRAINS, NEW WORLD
Our bodies and minds are adapted to a lifestyle that we no longer live, which is why depression rates have skyrocketed in the past century. For example, in modern hunter-gatherer communities, where people live a lifestyle similar to our ancestors, depression is almost non-existent. The reasons for this are:
- They're not sitting around thinking about themselves all day, they're too busy trying to survive against the elements.
- They get lots of physical activity and sunlight.
- Their diet is healthy and rich in omega-3,
- Their level of social connection is ridiculous.
- They regularly have as much as 10 hours of sleep! imagine how great you'd feel if you slept that long on a regular basis.
All of these things are natural antidepressants.
However, in our modern world, people are often sedentary, sleep-deprived, and socially isolated. Our modern lifestyle is a mismatch with our evolved biology and psychology, and we often have to face life's challenges alone, without the support of close-knit communities like our ancestors. Today we exist as divided individuals. In our lonely echo chambers and with our primary focus on ourself rather than a collective, feelings of sadness become amplified many times over.
THE HAPPINESS POV
Our culture has become obsessed with happiness, putting unrealistic expectations on what it means to be truly happy. There are thousands of books and blog posts out there on how to hack your happiness, and the subtle message is often this: if you're not always upbeat — and living your best life, YOLO! — then something is wrong with you.
Maybe we really aren't suffering from it more, but that we simply think we are because we've set the bar so high as to what it means to be happy. So even when we do achieve moments of happiness, they're fleeting and often followed by disappointment and feelings of inadequacy. And in the past what would have been considered a passing bout of mild unhappiness, can then lead to full-blown one person pity parties.
Research has shown that you're less likely to be happy if you make happiness your goal. For starters, cultural expectations of what happiness looks like are typically unrealistic. Happiness is a short-lived feeling that comes and goes. Being happy all the time is impossible. There's no way someone can maintain their happiness if they've just stubbed their toe. Toe stubbings are brutal. So, when we set constant happiness as the goal, then fail because something bad happens like a toe stubbing or someone’s mean to us, it makes us feel like losers.
The other reason making happiness your goal backfires is that we're really bad at knowing what will make us happy in the long term. It's the time traveler's dilemma. When we set a goal that we think will make us happy in the future, we do it from the view of the current version of ourself. But the problem is we change over time and that goal might not make our future-self happy.
This happens to me all the time. I set a goal that normally requires me to improve to attain it. I spend months or years working towards this thing, only for the person I have to become to achieve the goal not appreciating the achievement when I get it.
A perfect example is when I got the keys for my first place. My mate who was helping me move in was more excited than I was about the milestone. I felt nothing. As we walked around this brand new empty apartment all I kept thinking was I should've got a bigger place. When I was sharing a mouldy flat with two of my mates, a 1 bedroom flat to myself was the dream. After getting the keys, now I want a 2 bed flat so I can put a gym in the spare bedroom. The time traveller’s dilemma is real.
THE COMFORT POV
But it's not just the emphasis on happiness that's making us feel depressed. We've also become obsessed with comfort and ease. We demand fast internet, comfortable beds, and painless customer service; anything less feels like a violation of our human rights. This demand for a frictionless life is setting us up for failure.
As comfort in a society increases, its tolerance for discomfort decreases. This is true not only in regards to inconveniences we encounter in the external world, but for the darker feelings that happen within us as well. As a result, we've become less tolerant of discomfort, both external and internal.
Sadness used to be a natural part of the ebb and flow of life. Having a gloomier mindset was just one of many temperaments people were born with. Fast forward to today, now we view feelings like sadness, anger, and anxiety as negative because they make us feel bad. And no one wants to feel bad when society says they SHOULD be happy, all the time.
Instead of learning how to live with all our natural emotions, we label them as negative and do what we can to not feel them. This has made us more fragile, and more vulnerable to the very emotions we try to avoid. We've set ourselves up for disappointment and depression by not being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
So, maybe it's time to revaluate our expectations of happiness and comfort. Maybe it's time to embrace the full range of human emotions and learn to live with discomfort. After all, life is a journey with ups and downs, and learning to navigate both makes us resilient and ultimately happy.
You can't make it through life without facing any adversity or pain. Everyone you know and love is going to die one day.
You're going to die one day.
Life is a tragedy. You won't win this tragic game through avoidant behaviour which only serves to make you fragile.
Life's winners embrace discomfort, whether emotional, physical or mental. They face adversity head on because they know on the other side of pain is strength. And the stronger you are, the easier life becomes.
Just like the more weights you life, the more weights you're able to life. The more pain you face, the easier it is to deal with pain.
So, understand that emotions are just emotions. They're not good or bad. There's nothing wrong with feeling depressed or anxious. It's normal, humans have felt these things since cavemen times.
Our emotional state is always changing, we just need to give it the chance to by feeling your feelings, embracing them and leaning into them. Don't allow them to stop you doing what you need to do.
For example, if you're feeling sad one day and you planned to go to the gym, go and be sad in the gym. I promise you, after your workout, once all the dopamine and endorphins are flowing, you won't be sad anymore. When you become comfortable with your emotions, they lose their power over you. And this is the cheat code to being a hero because doing things regardless of how you feel is the only thing that matters.
Alway's remember, you were born to be the hero of your story.
Free your outlaw.