Why anxiety and depression are an epidemic now

the depression and anxiety rates are the highest they've ever been probably even since the 1800s where doctors had started to notice that they were rapidly increasing along with industrialization I was having a conversation with a physician a few years ago and he said you know behind closed doors I'll tell you that by the time most of us had graduated for my medical program 70 to 80% were on psychiatric medication aka some kind of anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication and he said you know what scary it's even worse in the patient population it seems like it's just about everyone so what is going on here and what can we do about it that's what I want to talk about today in this video here hey guys I'm Dr Alex Hine board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master the day let's jump in now some researchers have talked about anxiety and depression rates being so high today because they're viewed as diseases or illnesses of modernity our modern civilization is actually producing them in extreme quantities and really just the statistical chances of having one or both have gone up to such an extreme degree that it is is now a crisis and it's an epidemic now one research paper here brought up something very interesting that I think is worth talking about so this paper is called depression as a disease of modernity explanations for increasing prevalence and in it the researchers talked about this one key point which was that homo sapiens are considered to be most adapted to the diverse array of hunter gatherer Lifestyles characteristic of our past evolutionary environments AKA are environment of evolutionary adaptedness but the discrepancy between the modern environment and the human basically conditions that we involved in serve as a theoretical foundation for understanding basically why there is so much chronic anxiety and depression today therefore they are commonly called diseases of modernity but it seems a bit weird right because for example depression and anxiety have always existed and in some ways you could argue it was worse externally I remember reading the biography of Benjamin Franklin and he talked about the majority of parents during that era the 1800s had 50% of their children sometimes more die from illness they would catch varying kinds of fevers and viral infection going around waterbor bacteria and 50% or more of their children would die during that era so you imagine you have eight kids you watch four of them die they die at home they're not dying in the hospital hooked up to painkilling medication and then your neighbor she has 10 kids five of them die before 12 how is it possible that modern people could have higher depression rates than people who liveed through that people who had life-threatening illnesses going around all the time who had a very high chance of not even making it to their teenage years how is it possible that we today could have higher rates of depression and anxiety that's what I've been thinking about I want to First give you this great quote by Albert Einstein in 1949 Einstein said that I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis in our time it concerns the relationship of the individual to society his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his makeup are constantly being accentuated while his social drives which are by Nature weaker progressively deteriorate unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism they feel insecure lonely and deprived of the naive simple and unsophisticated enjoyment of Life man can find meaning in life in short perilous as it is only through devoting himself to society the economic Anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is in my opinion the real source of evil Albert Einstein 1949 so when you look at depression and anxiety as these diseases of the modern world what are some of like the real scientific factors people bring up so researchers talk about number one obesity because a lot of the factors that lead to an increase in obesity also lead to got microbiome change inflammation changes hormone changes sleep changes all kinds of other issues and then secondarily diet right we've talked about how the link between the gut and the neurotransmitter functioning in the brain is very intertwined and how much serotonin is produced in the gut itself they also talk about factors like activity our ancient hunter gatherers walked and moved a lot all day long and physical exercise releases endorphins that make you feel good or even exposure to light and sleep all of these other factors are sort of like the qualitative aspects of our ancient life that we are divorced from as animals and those are factors inherent in protecting ourselves from anxiety and from depression not even including the biggest one probably for modern people which is our social environment the disconnection people have even though there's more humans than ever before and ironically more connectivity but people have fewer friends and feel lonier than ever but what does this have to do with traditional Chinese medicine you know one thing that I think is underrated is this idea of we talk about the heart as being the center of the Shen or the human spirit and I can only think of this in a very relatable circumstance that many of you have experienced have you ever gone through a breakup or divorce or something that just devastated you so severely that you basically lost all reason to live maybe you lost 20 lbs you gained 20 lb maybe you couldn't even work or you lost your job think about something that so devastated you from a lost perspective that it was such a deep heartbreak that it just stopped your life what is that internally because it may not be that there's anything to measure clinically your Labs will be fine there's nothing maybe your physician can see that is dictating your inner experience but it is real and that felt experience is real and also physiological so for so many of us that disconnection the lack of friendship the lack of meaning and purpose this comparison of social media what they affect is the heart and the nervous system and this disconnection we feel from other people manifests in disorders related to the nervous system and then therefore the physiology so when the heart the emperor is unhappy then the whole Kingdom cannot be happy because if the emperor is not doing well you better believe he's going to be taken it out in all those other parts of the Kingdom so I think for a lot of us we see this heart disease in this kind of sense in a psycho emotional or psychospiritual if I dare use that term sort of sense that so many of us lack today all the physical material needs are met but the Deep inner needs of our nature are those that are not being met ironically whereas our ancestors had it harder than ever physically but on an inner level they had other aspects of their community and culture and rituals ceremonies that kept them bonded and together so while depression and anxiety can have many different causes for people some are genetically more prone to them and then Medicine of some kind really helps them some are deeply lacking Community some if they fix their gut microbiome and diet they feel much better and others just need to work less and do more of what they love and find more friends but these are just some of the many factors that you can use to heal and I've also put together a free guide which has four other daily healing rituals that you can utilize from traditional Chinese medicine if you're struggling with anxiety or depression so it's the link below the video or you can just go to Dr alex.com free to download it well let's get into one final story because I think this is more telling than just about anything I was in Mexico recently and I was driving through the jungles going to a little retreat center and I passed through this tiny little village with these broken down homes and one little family really jumped out to me and it affected me in a certain way so this family clearly did not have very much material you but they were sitting watching TV the husband and wife were outside and the kids were running around playing kicking a soccer ball playing with the dog and I was just thinking you know people go back to their day-to-day lives after going on vacation to developing countries to their comfortable lives and their careers and their colge shirts and their respect and buying nice coffee and eating nice food but what they lack more than anything is the connection that so many people have in these undeveloped countries you know those little kids were smiling more than I smile in maybe weeks sometimes not because I'm unhappy but just because that is not my life day-to-day and the parents seemed at peace with their family and they seemed connected and they seemed like that heart connection as we call it was there and I just was reflecting that this is so often what we are sorely lacking and for so many of us that is the medicine that we need and not even necessarily an anti-depressant just observing that this kind of connection that exists sometimes in cultures that have nothing materially but they are filled up on that deep inner needs of our spirit realm is something worth remembering so just my two cents today guys again if you want to work with me privately one-onone I work with a limited number of new patients every single month in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine the link to reach out is in the bio below or Dr alex.com clinic and before you go I have another video on the concept of anxiety and depression right here