Friday Book Report: Lost Connections

The goal of fitness is general wellbeing.  In that spirit, Johann Hari’s book Lost Connections:  Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions is a fitness book.  It’s also pretty mind-blowing.

It’s not a secret that I have had depression issues for a long time.  I took medications for a long time, too, and at one point they saved my life, but did not like their effects long term.  It turns out I am not alone in this.

In fact, “It turns out I am not alone in this” is not a bad summary of the entire book.  Hari digs into the reasons we, culturally, take so many antidepressants and why that doesn’t seem to be working (hint:  depression is big business).  More importantly, he explores the reasons why so many of us are depressed in the first place.  He conceptualizes it as a series of disconnections that arise in ourselves, but also in our society as a whole.  Essentially, he says that it is a normal reaction to become depressed when we are disconnected from meaningful work, other people, meaningful values, the results of childhood trauma, status and respect, the natural world, and a hopeful and secure future.  Genes and brain changes have a real effect, but almost all of those effects can be exacerbated or alleviated by our environments.

Take, for example, what he heard from Isabel Behncke, a researcher who examined what happens to animals removed from their natural habitats.  They get depressed and do weird things.  Hari writes, “It’s hard for a hungry animal moving through its natural habitat and with a decent status in its group to be depressed, she says—there are almost no records of such a thing.  The scientific evidence is clear that exercise significantly reduces depression and anxiety.  She thinks this is because it returns us to our more natural state—one where we are embodied, we are animal, we are moving, our endorphins are rushing.” (p. 128).  The effect is even more profound when we move outside; studies show that people who run in nature have a greater reduction in depression than those who run on a treadmill.

Hari offers a menu of techniques to deal with the depression and most of them are collective.  There are certainly things that depressed individuals can do for themselves, but all the doing by ourselves is some of what got us into this mess in the first place.  The goal is to reconnect, to improve the health of our society as a whole.

This book is definitely a paradigm-shifter.  I highly recommend it.