Lowering depression
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I think there is no longer much doubt about the mind/body connection, but churchgoing, faith, positive (or even negative) community involvement and meaningful relationships often have one element in common: they lower depression. That’s because they increase a sense of purpose and meaning in life, and therefore stimulate motivation to act. The desire to act raises energy and lowers depression. The truth is strong love of almost anything or any activity lowers depression, I believe, if there is hope of continued gratification. Faith in self is often belief that it’s okay to care and to desire, because we feel we can rely on ourselves to succeed in gratifying our own needs and desires to maintain hope for some success and continuity of opportunity. Even love of golf can lift depression if you get to play enough. Our huge competitiveness sometimes keeps aggression down because competitiveness keeps hope of eventually winning alive in some way. But competing also involves a fear to care, because fear of losing can be too strong. The fear of losing can be strong enough to kill hope and cause depression.
What do you think of the idea that what makes us both too fat and much sicker that we need to be is depression? There are many ways to lower depression. Certainly religion, prayer, and churchgoing or community involvement can support hope and lower or even eliminate depression. In fact, belief in any cause can support hope and lower depression. Surely sustained love of any kind does it, if hope of a successful outcome is maintained and fear of loss is minimized. Love of and relationship with God is an internal experience that is possible for individuals to maintain.
Lowering Depression
As a health care practitioner and someone who has suffered with bouts of depression since puberty - I agree that finding meaning in ones' life that is hopefull - is certainly part of the picture for lessening depression. Many depressions can be situational. Ie: death of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce, etc.
Chinese medicine saw depression as anger turned inward affecting the wood or liver Qi. Wood energies in the 5 Element model (Fire, Earth, Metal Water & Wood) are linked to the emotion of anger and represented by the Liver and Gallbladder energies. Spring is a time of year the wood energies are at their peak. The season of renewal/rebirth - a creative time of year when flowers and trees surge forth in a burst of energy arising from the stillnes of winter (water element).
If we want to promote assertion instead of timidity we need to nurture our wood element. We do this thru diet and eating a balance of flavors - bitter, sweet, spicey, salty and sour and thru movement and breath work: Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Yoga, Dancing, Running, Singing, etc.
Indigenous cultures - danced - together.
Dancing was part of their soul's expression and an opportunity for positive human connection. For wood to mature in a healthy way it must be allowed to grow upright. It's expression must be honored. If the "wood" element within us is imbalanced we loose our ability to "see" clearly at all levels. Planning and decision making are difficult at the level of the body and mind. The liver channel opens to the eyes and allows for insight, foresight and hindsight. Lack of movement can lead to hopelessness. Yes, the physical body does need to move and often. So get up off your couch or favorite chair, turn off your TV, grab a friend or even a foe and dance or run or sing or breathe deeply TOGETHER. - and you will feel less depressed.
Some thoughts in response
Obviously depression relates to low energy levels and stalled energy production. In my experience it comes with and without very bad feelings. But thoughts like "what’s the use, there’s no hope" seem to be dominant in depression in both cases. I believe that the major activator for most people is wanting or desiring. The intensity with which we experience that desire and the effort we make to achieve gratification of it has a big effect on our energy production. Simply put, we raise energy to get what we want or to actualize what we want to have happen.
How we’re perceived by others often causes us to raise or lower energy production. We fear to want if we have no hope of gratification and expect to lose what we do have if we try and fail. For example, too many people don’t dare to love and to be loved, and seem willing to substitute love of things, or particular activities for the greater risk of loving people. The threat of loss is real and the fear of it is great. The suppression of the desire to love and attempts to replace it is often a bad bargain.
Another universal human need is confidence in one's own ability to gratify desire or to attract others to help. Most of us are unwilling either to want or to act without reasonable expectation that we can succeed in gratifying the desire that stimulated us to move in the first place. We also need to believe that we can cope with the possible undesirable consequences.
Anger generated by fear of failure, frustration and loss has only two ways to go. If action to gratify desire is not an option and sublimation becomes another action that can’t be sustained, the resulting anger can be directed at external causes and create large and small wars or it can be turned against the inadequate self and create depression, psychosomatic illness and a variety of very poor experiences. Enough loss of confidence in ones ability to succeed can cause literal paralysis.
Like you, I have personal experience with depression, I think most people do. I’ve experienced the death of loved ones, loss of projects of great importance to me, divorce, etc. All of them came with extremely bad feeling but they have not necessarily resulted in long-term depression. In my experience, only loss of confidence severe enough to prevent the next action can cause prolonged depression, and only if it results in too much loss of hope. At such times, success seems quite impossible and no action seems worth the threat of still another loss.
What's the solution?
I am interested in both of your points of view (Sara and Mintza), but I wonder what kind of public policy either of you might suggest. How can we better address depression in this country, as a public health issue?
The author seems to be on a somewhat different track than either of you -- he is trumpeting the connection between religiosity and better physical health. I'm not clear on what (if any) policy he is suggesting, either? Lower health insurance rates for religious people?