Thread by @paraschopra

1/ A thread on BUILDING MENTAL IMMUNITY against DEPRESSION and ANXIETY.

You take vitamins, follow a good diet and go to the gym for physical immunity. I urge you to do something to build mental immunity.

Here’s how you do it.

2/ Mental health issues were the primary cause of the recent deaths of celebrities such as Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Avicii and Chester Bennington. I wish peace to their families/friends

I hope that these deaths don’t go in vain but serve as a wake-up call for the rest of us

3/ Across one’s lifetime, there’s a very high likelihood of going through a mental health issue. Studies suggest that about 25% of all people suffer a mental disorder in any 12 month window. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalenc…

4/ This means that it's likely that ONE in FOUR people you know have recently gone through a depression or an anxiety episode

This figure is shockingly high and doesn’t match with our everyday experience. You surely would have noticed when people you know were mentally not well.

5/ But, would you really have?

Depression and anxiety are these weird invisible monsters that usually only the sufferer can see. Talking about these things in public is an unfortunate taboo that I wish goes away.

6/ People going through an episode usually come up with valid-sounding excuses to avoid social situations and when they're forced to attend, they'll put up a smile so you wouldn't notice.

In fact, research suggests that humor and depression may be related journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

7/ For those who don't know what depression feels like, I found Hyperbole and a Half comics that depicts it with haunting accuracy in this two part series.

- First part: hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/advent…
- Second part: hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depres…

8/ Anxiety is a different monster. While depression is complete lack of motivation to do anything, anxiety is that constant churning of worst case scenarios. What if you die? What if you lose money? What if your loved ones die? What if the plane crashes? And so on.

9/ Before I dive further, know that I'm NOT a practitioner. A lot of what I write in the post is my personal experience, and may or may not be corroborated by scientific research.

If you're going through a depressive or anxiety episode, please consult a medical professional now.

10/ To understand depression and anxiety better, it's important to know why they happen.

Let's take a quick tour of the brain.

11/ The decrease of neurotransmitter dopamine is linked to depression and dopamine is associated with brain’s prediction of a reward in the environment, which motivates the individual to take an action to get the reward. slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/12/tow…

12/ Our mood is really our assessment of how much influence we have over our environment (or, how much of what we do matters).

When we see a fruit, our brain generates dopamine that literally makes us salivates. That’s the brain’s way of saying to us: go, have that fruit.

13/ The recent breakthrough in psychology is the idea of predictive processing where our brains are constantly predicting what we’ll see in the environment. Only by predicting we can take advantage of the environment around us.

slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/04/god…

14/ Theory suggest that depression could be a strong belief that the external world is uncontrollable, so it’s better not to try

If brain convinces itself that no action can influence the world, it gets into the mode of taking less risk, conserving energy cambridge.org/core/services/…

15/ Mania could be a strong belief that the external world is extremely controllable, so better to keep taking actions

Anxiety could be a vague belief that the external world is uncontrollable, so brain keeps on churning questions trying to convince itself one way or another

16/ Think of depression this way: if I’m confident that my understanding of the world is correct, that makes me more prone to act to get (social) rewards through interaction with the external world.

17/ If I doubt my understanding of the world, it makes me retreat from the social interactions to avoid risk that comes with action.

I recommend reading this paper: The Depressed Brain: An Evolutionary Systems Theory researchgate.net/profile/Paul_B…

18/ This figure summarizes what happens in a depressed brain.

(From the paper linked above)

19/ Depression is on the rise, especially among teens in developed nations.

As compared to 1950s, today’s high school and college students are five to eight times more likely to be depressed or have an anxiety disorder.

psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedo…

20/ Over last several decades, the locus of control has shifted from internal (“I control what happens to me”) to external (“The world controls what happens to me”).

21/ Along with this, primary goals for young people have shifted from internal (“I want to do what I love“) to external (“I want to be rich, successful and famous“)

This loss of control is what’s cited as the primary reason for the rise of depression in recent decades.

22/ While there are many hypotheses to explain the rise of depression, my personal hypothesis is that it’s to do with INCREASED MEDIA CONSUMPTION.

23/ Our model of the world is generated through our interactions with the external world, and with the rise of media, the world has expanded to include extremes.

Today always know of people who are an order of magnitude better than us in all aspects that we care about.

24/ We consume info about the richest, sexiest, most famous on a daily basis and that inevitably forms the model of our world

Also, In our ancestral environments, we observed people upfront and we knew their flaws

Today, everyone we know is living the perfect life on Instagram

25/ It also doesn’t help that negative news travels much faster. The news of school shootings, scandals, and potential nuclear wars shape up a picture of the world where we feel that nothing we could do matters.

26/ So my guess is that the rise of mental disorders is a result of our conclusion that we won't be as adventurous as Elon Musk, or are helpless to prevent the next war, or won't achieve social status as all your friends are cooler than you.

27/ In this seemingly hopeless view of the world, why try to do anything?

28/ Except, of course, it’s erroneous. The world was always like this, it’s just that increase in media consumption has exposed us to a view that mostly contains extremes.

29/ These days, if something is good, it’s so good that we can’t hope to achieve it ourselves. If something is bad, it’s so bad that we can’t hope to influence it.

30/ NOW for the crux of the post. How to BUILD MENTAL IMMUNITY.

Yesterday, I had tweeted and people sent me fantastic suggestions on how they overcome depression or prevent it from escalaing.

Go through this thread first:

https://twitter.com/paraschopra/status/1005656550097055745

31/ EXCERCISE, even if you don't feel like it.

Excercise is proven to almost always improve the mood. Starting an exercise regimen when you’re depressed is usually difficult because at that point of time, you’re not motivated to do anything.

32/ So if you’re feeling fine and dandy now, start exercising.

Make it into a habit, so that you won’t have to force yourself to exercise when you need it most. I’ve written about how to start new habits in a post earlier invertedpassion.com/science-of-set…

33/ THROW YOURSELF INTO ACTION.

Depression and anxiety is a prediction problem where we predict things won’t turn out to be good so we avoid acting. An antidote to this is to force yourself to do things things that other people enjoy.

34/ Usually, it’s your theories of the world that prevent you from going to parties, watching movies, having sumptuous meals or playing games.

So if you adopt a habit of treating yourself every time you feel low, you’ll discover that your predictions were wrong.

35/ LIMIT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA AND NEWS CONSUMPTION, seriously.

If your Instagram feed is full of people like you who have a million followers, no wonder you’ll feel like shit.

36/ Success usually comes via situational factors that you cannot control. You probably know that but your emotional brain doesn’t. That’s why it retreats into a hopeless mode when it sees people doing more amazing things than yourself all the time. invertedpassion.com/how-to-critica…

37/ TRY COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY (CBT), even when you’re not depressed.

CBT’s main premise is that depression is a cognitive bias and it urges you to reason negative emotions through intellect. I’ve written earlier on how to avoid cognitive biases. invertedpassion.com/hacks-to-avoid…

38/ When you’re depressed, because brain predicts that nothing matters, it starts to filter out positive information and becomes attuned to negative information (that's confirmation bias)

I LOVE using triple column technique pro.psychcentral.com/psychoeducatio…

39/ If you want a book reco, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Feeling Good.

People read it when they’re feeling low, but you’ll do yourself a favour if you read it when you’re feeling just fine. It'll help you develop a habit of catching yourself getting caught in a negative mood spiral

40/ Lastly, MEDITATE EVERY DAY.

Meditation is known to give calm and peace, and if you exercise your physical body regularly, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do a favor to your mind and start meditating every day.

41/ A couple of weeks back, I had tweeted about how to go about meditation and the benefits I’ve felt so far. Here is the thread:

https://twitter.com/paraschopra/status/998773839340490752

42/ That's it. Mental health deserves as much attention as physical health gets.

To be in a good shape, we do many preventive interventions: take vitamins, change our diet, go to gym, and start running/walking. Consider doing the same for your mental health.

43/ I blog all my tweetstorms on Inverted Passion.

Here's the one for this tweet storm: invertedpassion.com/building-menta… <- SIGN UP HERE to get email updates

RT and share this thread with your friends!