Life must go on
Depression is the largest single contributor to the overall burden of mental illness. Globally, it is estimated that 300 million people are affected by it. A paper published this month in the Lancet, one of the top 5 medical journals in the world, reviewed the landscape of depression in young people in England and those statistics are equally staggering. Almost one quarter of 17-19 year old women have an emotional disorder, increasing to almost a third of 16-24 year olds for depression alone. This is a condition which starts in adolescence and many times recurs or persists into adulthood and across the lifespan. Clearly, understanding and being successful in dealing with it is a huge priority from all viewpoints, ranging from the individual concerned to population health.
Over time our views on causes, risk factors and evolution of depression have evolved, as well as the recognition that the key features are transcultural. It is now accepted that temperament, cognitive patterns and personality are very important individual-level risk factors. Genetics plays a significant though very non-specific role, with very many gene variations involved. Interestingly enough, the genetic risk factors seem to correlate with the environmental risk factors to amplify each other. Many aspects of prevention and treatment have also been clarified to a larger extent, though very large gaps remain. A lot of the widest-use medications were developed based on the model of low serotonin levels in key areas of the brain.
To further confound us, last month a very large analysis of all significant data concerning the linkage between depression and brain serotonin levels was published in Molecular Psychiatry. It made waves because it concluded there was no clear link between the two. Paradoxically enough, this does not mean that the medications that increase serotonin levels in certain areas of the brain cannot work. They do work and they tend to work quite well in a subgroup of people. It’s just that we haven’t found a way to know beforehand who those are…In fact most things that have been tried in depression work for certain people: different kinds of medications, behavioural therapy, behavioural activation, structured self help teaching and reflection, meditation and others.
The beauty of Sahaja Yoga meditation is that we become aware of all our sides: physical, emotional, cognitive, etc, etc. And because the subtler reality always rules the more superficial / grosser side, we can naturally improve it as the subtle side improves. Even in the standard material world things work the same. The fact that we can build a house with bricks comes down to what happens with the brick structure when exposed to the fire. And that comes down to the interaction between energy in fire and very subtle aspects of matter structure in the brick material, etc, etc.
In Sahaj Yoga we have access to an integrated, experimentally accessible model of every side of our being and through the energy of the subtlest nature that is the Kundalini everything can be worked on and improved. In what depression is concerned we can easily improve everything that pertains to temperament, cognitive patterns and personality, as well as resilience to stress. And from there and understanding ourselves better we can also eliminate other aggravating factors like poor habits, substance use, unhealthy company, etc. This will go a very long way towards dealing with one of the commonest ills of modern times.