Caveman
Reposting my latest contribution to the Stanford Alumni “Living Well” blog:
I’m typing up a blog posting. You’re reading it online. It’s unlikely that either of us is outside doing a physical activity at this moment. According to University of Kansas psychology professor Dr. Stephen Ilardi, we’re breaking the rules for beating depression—we are not living like cavemen.
My mom sent me a care package the other day. (Yes, I am 36 years old and my mother still sends me care packages. Aside from newspaper and magazine clippings, they are likely to contain random objects like Corn Nuts. It’s adorable.)
Anyway, this particular package included an article about Dr. Ilardi’s happiness research, which my mother had torn out of the AARP magazine. Dr. Ilardi ran a pilot program for combating depression that involved returning to our pre-modern roots. The rules were: get outside, be physically active, socialize a lot, take omega-3 supplements (due to generally poor nutrition), and sleep enough. The results were impressive: 76% of the participants demonstrated a reduction in depressive symptoms, as opposed to just 27% in the control group, which received medication and/or psychotherapy.
I buy this prescription for happiness. It makes sense intuitively that if we’re outdoors breathing fresh air and feeling the sun shine on our faces, we’re treating our bodies well, we’re interacting with others, and we’re spending less time thinking and more time doing, we’ll be less depressed. Taking these steps consistently gets my serotonin pumping, that I know.
In fact, I spent Friday night at my 15-year Stanford Reunion class party. I’d been feeling a bit down and was concerned that I might feel drained by the evening. But the opposite was true. Connecting to old friends whom I hadn’t seen since we were 22, and meeting other fascinating people for the first time, was a fantastic mood-booster. The room buzzed with energy and enthusaism–it was contagious. When the lights finally came on and the organizers asked us to leave, I floated off on a cloud of wellbeing.
What works for you?
Apr 11, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Присоединяюсь. Так бывает….
According to University of Kansas psychology professor Dr. Stephen Ilardi, we’re breaking the rules for beating depression—we are not living […….