SOUL

SICKNESS
A massive global epidemic

ew Year, New Me! We’ve all heard this before,

N sometimes from our own mouths.

The New Year causes us to reflect on the past and
start thinking about how we can improve ourselves during
the next 12 months. More often than not, this turns into a
resolution to quit smoking, lose 10 pounds, etc.
Health is a popular resolution topic, and I love that so many
people have their sights set on improving theirs. All too often
though, we forget that our health is multifaceted. Good
physical health is a must, but what about our mental and
social well-being?
Actually it’s all about achieving balance, if you did, then you’ll
be able to experience an extraordinary life.
Mental and physical health
are two interconnected
factors that determine your
overall well-being and
the quality of life you lead. A
person who is not
mentally healthy will never
have good physical health
and vice versa.

Unfortunately, People care so

much about their physical
health that they forget about
their mental health and if we compared both of them we will
find out that mental illness is more harder to diagnose and
even harder to cure.

According to the World Health Organization,

‘‘Depression is now the world's most widespread
illness”.
The United Nations Also has said that ‘‘800,000 people a
year now are committing suicide across the globe, with
many of these people also suffering from symptoms of
anxiety and depression”.
That is a larger number than the amount of people
who’ve died from armed conflict and natural disasters
combined.

But what is depression?

Because it's a mental illness, it can be a lot harder to
understand than, say, high cholesterol.
One major source of confusion is the difference between
having depression and just feeling depressed. Almost
everyone feels down from time to time. Getting a bad grade,
losing a job, having an argument, even a rainy day can bring
on feelings of sadness. Sometimes there's no trigger at all. It
just pops up out of the blue. Then circumstances change,
and those sad feelings disappear.
Clinical depression is different. It's a medical disorder, and it
won't go away just because you want it to. It lingers for at
least two consecutive weeks, and significantly interferes with
one's ability to work, play, or love.
Depression can have a lot of different symptoms: a low
mood, loss of interest in things you'd normally enjoy,
changes in appetite, feeling worthless or excessively guilty,
sleeping either too much or too little, poor concentration,
restlessness or slowness, loss of energy, or recurrent
thoughts of suicide.
If you have at least five of those symptoms, according to
psychiatric guidelines, you qualify for a diagnosis of
depression.

And the question is why are we so sad?

Maybe half a century ago
people did not talk about
depression but now in our
modern society
even though collectively
we have more
than we’ve ever dreamed
possible we remain
perpetually dissatisfied.
Living in urban centers
drowning in consumption in an over capitalist bloated system
that can no longer satiate us, made us lose connection with
something greater than ourselves which is the universe.

Perhaps our cultural narratives, of who and what we are

have hit their limit; they’re no longer serving us.
Maybe we need some fundamental explanation of who we
are and what we are meant to do.
religion used to provide this narrative, provide this existential
blanket, Blanketing us from the void, But increasing
sophistication, increasing scientific awareness and
knowledge, and increasing intelligence, has actually made
us more anxious.

Lastly, Depression is a medical condition, just like asthma or

diabetes. It's not a weakness or a personality trait, Also open
conversations about mental illness help erode stigma and
make it easier for people to ask for help. And the more
patients seek treatment, the more scientists will learn about
depression and mental illnesses in general, and the better
the treatments will get.