Depression is becoming epidemic, particularly in the affluent Western world. It is afflicting young and old, rich and poor, educated and uneducated alike. To counter it special anti-depressant drugs are being prescribed in ever increasing record amounts, with new varieties regularly introduced into the market.
This problem naturally leads us to the fundamental question: What is the cause of depression? There are many explanations, some very informative or insightful. However, I would like to look beyond any complicated theories. To put it very simply, the cause of depression is stimulation. The more we depend upon external stimulation, the more depressed we will likely become over time. There are several reasons for this.
First, whenever any stimulation we become used to is reduced or withdrawn we are likely to become depressed, or feel some sort of withdrawal syndrome, as we become dependent on the stimulation to energize our nervous system.
Second, over time we are likely to become bored or depressed with any type of stimulation as repetition causes it to lose its novelty. The threshold for any stimulation to affect us goes higher as we regularly experience it.
The fact is that reliance on external factors to entertain, engage or motivate us causes us to lose our own power of motivation resulting in eventual depression.
The Modern Era of Media Stimulation and Drug-based Medicine
In the modern high tech world we are subject to much more stimulation and entertainment than any previous era. Many people are wired up the entire day with music, videos, social media, or the Internet – almost shutting themselves off from the rest of life or even from other people. We don’t know how to be alone, be silent, be in nature, or even have a direct relationship with anyone.
On top of our extensive sensory stimulations many of us are taking recreational or medicinal drugs that have addictive and depleting side effects. There are epidemics in the amount of opiates that people in America today are taking for pain relief, or simply opiate drug addictions, for which there are several powerful new artificial forms that are even more addictive. Depression can be connected to addictions of various types, from sensory addictions to every sort of substance addictions. Yet depression can also generally relate to our lives type of looking outwardly, even if we have specific addictions to go with it. Some of us may feel depressed at the unhappy state of the world today. That is another complication of too much attention to the external world covering over our internal spiritual practice.
The most recent medical science tells us that depression is a product of wrong chemistry in our brains, and such faulty brain chemistry can be best treated with drugs as it as a chemical problem. The result is that, instead of looking to our behavior or life-circumstances to address depression, we have a massive new array of anti-depression medications that did not exist even a few decades ago. Yet with all the anti-depressive drugs we are taking, we seem to be getting more depressed. Some anti-depression drugs have as side effects making us more depressed. This is to be expected. As depression results from dependence upon external stimulation, a category into which anti-depression drugs also fit, they are likely to create more depression in the long run, or at least reduce our level of creativity, contentment and motivation.Drug-based medicine tells us that we are not responsible for such brain chemistry imbalances. We are victims of our brain chemistry that depends upon various factors beyond our control, starting with genetics.
