Don’t Let Depression Rule Your Life – Here Are Natural, Healty, and Cost-free Ways to Make Yourself Happy
Unfortunately, the World Health Organization just released a statement regarding mental health research results. It’s not good – but don’t worry, you can fight the tide by powerfully infusing your life with these depression-fighting techniques.
Depression on the Rise – But Why?
The World Health Organization released research findings that people globally suffering from depression rose by 18 percent since 2005. That means roughly one out of five more people are depressed on top of the original number of depression sufferers worldwide.
It sounds kind of gloomy when you think about these findings – did everyone just get sadder? Are we continuing to get more and more depressed as a whole? It may not be what you think – unlike most diseases, depression can have causes that span the universe (from politics to biochemistry!).
Between 2005 and today, lots of things happened in the world. There was the global financial crisis that started between 2007 and 2008 that made many people homeless. The economic crisis spurred revolts around the world, with a notable incident in Tunisia where a street vendor burned himself. Like a chain reaction, revolts fired up around the world for the next few years – Occupy Wall Street being one of them. To state the obvious – people weren’t happy, and their desperation was enough to start these revolts.
The U.S., and perhaps the rest of the world, still hasn’t fully recovered from the economic crisis. And going forward, many people are unhappy about the current political environment with our new radical president. All of these factors are significant enough to raise the general frequency of depression.
Why Depression Can Be Dangerous for Your Whole Body
Being sad isn’t just about your quality of life – it can affect you physically too. Researchers found that diabetes and depression are linked – with diabetes sufferers having double the risk of suffering from depression. They’re not sure if depression causes diabetes or vice versa, but being depressed could foreseeably lead to the development of diabetes. When you’re depressed, you’re less active, which is a risk factor for diabetes. You may also compensate for feeling sad by overeating, which can lead to cardiovascular problems and diabetes.
Researchers also found that sufferers of depression have lower performance IQs than non-depressed people. Performance IQ involves hands-on intelligence, like working with puzzles, planning building schematics, or making inventions.
Worst of all, depression increases your risk for suicide, which is the worst possible outcome for sufferers of depression.
Make Yourself Happy With These Natural Ways
You can’t always change the circumstances making you feel depressed. Poverty isn’t easy to leave, but there are impoverished people who are happier than the wealthy. It’s really all about how you cope with the world.
If you’re suffering from depression, here are some natural ways to perk yourself up:
Go outside and get some sun. Stepping outside and immersing yourself in nature is free and easy to do. The Japanese call it Shinrin-yoku (or forest bathing). It’s been found to lower your blood pressure, stress, and lots of other risk factors for cardiovascular disease and depression. Let nature soothe your mind. Forest bathe during the day and you’ll be raising your vitamin D levels, which have been found to boost your mood if your vitamin D levels are low. Exposure to sunlight also boosts cognition of depression sufferers.
Meditate. Meditation is another free, yet wonderful thing you can do for your whole body. It’s not just a spiritual act – researchers have been growing to love meditation as an enriching therapy. They found evidence that meditating regularly lowers depression. But that’s not all – long-term meditation gradually boosts your IQ and cognition – it makes you smarter! And if that’s not enough, there’s also evidence that meditation slows cellular aging by lengthening your telomeres.
These trying times make it hard to be happy, but don’t let your socioeconomic environment rule your mind. Fight back with these two free therapies that are holistically healthy for your whole body!
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