Because it's one thing to train yourself to not think in
terms of cognitive distortions.
It's one thing to work on your trauma.
But in and of itself, in many cases it's still not enough. Welcome
back to my series on depression. In our previous videos,
we looked at how depression wasn't the result of a chemical
imbalance in the brain and how that theory was moreso drummed
up by pharmaceutical companies to sell as antidepressants.
Now, we're exploring using the biopsychosocial model. What
some of the risk factors for depression are. In the last video,
we looked at the biological risk factors of depression,
and today we're going to look at the psychological risk factors
of depression.
But first, if you're new here, please consider subscribing
because I make videos like this at least once a week and
especially now that we're talking about a topic like this,
I am feeling so antsy to sort of get through the meat... to
get through the vegetables, this discussions that we can get
into more spiritual topics shortly after. The first psychological
risk factor for depression that I have identified
in my research is: negative patterns of thinking. This is a
cornerstone of cognitive behavioral therapy: the idea that
your thoughts affect your feelings, which affect your behaviors
in a multi-directional feedback loop. The technical term for
negative thought patterns is "cognitive distortions."
These are exaggerated and irrational thought patterns that
skew a person's sense of reality and lead to unnecessary emotional
distress. Some examples of cognitive distortions include catastrophizing
an incident (drawing it out to its worst logical
conclusion), thinking black-and-white, and "mind-reading" ie believing
that you know what another person is thinking when really
at best, you are speculating and making assumptions, which
are often the worst assumptions, and you know, you get the
drift. As you can imagine,
these patterns aren't helpful when it comes to emotional
self-regulation. If you are already experiencing distress
from a stressor, you don't need to be adding to that distress
by creating more suffering for yourself via faulty thought patterns.
This is the difference between being in pain and suffering.
Being in pain is understandable, being in pain is a natural
response to certain events in our lives.
But suffering, theoretically, is manmade. Suffering is the
pain that you create for yourself as a result of your interpretation
of your existing pain.
Does that make sense?
I made a video about cognitive distortions, which you can
watch if you haven't already. It's going to be in a link in
the description box below.
The second psychological risk factor for depression is: trauma.
Trauma can take on many forms, from childhood abuse, to sexual
assault, to being a witness to violence in your community
or in war. In psychological terms,
however, trauma is an emotional response to a deeply distressing
experience, one in which you believed you were in danger of
being seriously harmed or losing your life. Trauma carries long-
lasting physical and emotional consequences, as we know. Post-traumatic
stress disorder, for example, affects 5 to 10% of the general
population. People who have a history of trauma, particularly childhood
trauma, are at a higher risk of developing a whole host of
medical conditions, from cardiovascular issues, to cancer, to
you guessed it -
psychiatric conditions, like depression, anxiety. According
to Andrea Roberts, a research scientist at the Harvard T.H.
Chan School of Public Health,
"When you experience something anxiety-provoking, your stress
response to activates. Your body produces more adrenaline,
your heart races, and your body primes itself to react. Someone
who has experienced trauma may have stronger surges of adrenaline
and experience them more often than someone who has not
had the same history.
This causes wear and tear on the body - just as it would in
a car where the engine was constantly revving and racing."
In the same article,
Andrea also talks about the link between chronic stress and
inflammation. And if you will recall from the last video
we talked about the link between inflammation, chronic inflammation,
and symptoms of depression and its really, really intriguing.
And if you haven't watched the last video again, I would
encourage you to watch that.
It's going to make it all make sense. The third psychological
risk factor for depression is: chronic stress.
I'm going to go back to a quote from Andrea, "Chronic stress
can increase inflammation in the body, and inflammation has
been associated with a broad range of illnesses. Early trauma
disrupts the inflammatory system.
This can lead to long-term abrasions in this system and chronic
health problems
triggered by constant inflammation.
Typically, the more trauma you've experienced, the worse your
health is." So that's a really interesting piece here, something
that I've long believed that if you, your body constantly believes
that it is under attack.
You're going to be more hyper-vigilant, and then fewer resources
are going to be dedicated to you know, other bodily functions
such as staying calm. And yes, from the way that I described
it, it's very, you know much in layman's terms, but, if you
look at the research, it seems to be the case.
You know, there is your parasympathetic nervous system,
and then there is your sympathetic nervous system. And when
one gets activated, the other isn't it at play. To be honest,
guys, at the point of filming right now,
I do feel a little stressed and tired from making videos
like this. Not because I'm not interested in talking about
depression. I could talk about depression until the cows
come home.
But on a very personal anecdotal level, I do notice that when
I am constantly under stress, at some point, lo and behold, the symptoms
of depression come back. But, I don't want to make it seem
like, I mean, this is the reason why I wanted to break up
the series into biological factors, psychological factors,
and social factors, because it's one thing to train yourself
to not think in terms of cognitive distortions.
It's one thing to work on your trauma, but in and of itself
in many cases it's still not enough, because there's so much
more to preventing depression than just making sure
you are doing everything right for yourself, for your emotional
health, for your mental health etc.
You can get all of those things
right, but if you live in a society that doesn't promote
the values that encourage connectedness and community, that
also has something to do with how likely you are to become
depressed. And that's a little sneak peek.
Because in our next video we're going to talk about this
is social risk
factors for depression, and after that we're going to talk
about the spiritual risk factors for depression.
I hope you'll join me for those next two videos.
I believe that's where things are going to get a little bit
more spicy, as somebody who has a social sciences background.
I'm really excited about those next two videos. And lastly
super grateful to you guys for making it this far for being
with me, for eating the broccoli with me.
If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like, leave a
comment down below and I will see you very shortly in my
next video.