The Happiness Cure

October 14, 2024
Recent spikes in depression, anxiety, and loneliness across the world have resulted from people forgetting that “we are biological beings,” contends psychiatrist Hansen (The Attention Fix) in this solid study. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans lived in hunter-gatherer tribes of a few dozen people, got four to five hours of physical activity a day, and spent most of their time avoiding disease and other threats. The brain evolved for survival in these circumstances, creating neural mechanisms that are incompatible with humans’ increasingly isolated, sedentary lifestyles and spurring epidemics of loneliness and depression. Unpacking the evolutionary underpinnings of these and other mental health issues, Hansen offers a few surprising insights, among them that depression may have evolved to ward off infection (long-term stress—which can weaken the body’s immune system—causes depressive feelings “that make us withdraw” from society and its possible infectious agents). Such theories are revealing and cogently explained, even if the suggestions the author provides for grappling with modern stressors are nothing new (recommendations include expressing difficult feelings and breathing exercises). Still, it’s a perceptive take on what’s ailing modern society.