Introduction To Modern-Day Depression
Depression is everywhere, but a lot of people aren’t sure if they have depression at all. Maybe they feel like it’s an off-day or even just have the “blues” on a Monday.
The reality is is that depression has grown exponentially over the last two years during Covid. People (especially up here in Ontario) were to wear masks, stay inside, work from home, and be afraid of the outdoors and other people.
It’s policies like the above that ruined the mental health of seniors, adults, adolescents, and kids alike. Depression was the norm, and likely still is as people are still fearful of others and re-entering society.
I was listening to a podcast by Alexander Cortes, and he was talking about how depression can be engineered by the foods we eat, our environment, and even the way with think.
I give credit where credit is due, so this post is an inspiration from that podcast from Cortes with my expansion on the idea.
This article will be about how you engineer depression, and as a result, how to know if you have depression at all. If there’s one takeaway from this article it’s that if you are to do the opposite of everything below you will naturally get yourself out of depression.
9 Ways To Engineer Depression
#1 Sleep less than 6 hours a night.
Sleep is necessary for optimal performance; it helps us recharge, recall memories, absorb information, regulate our hormones, improve focus, repair cells inside our body, and help build muscle.
Restrict your sleep and your cortisol will spike, you’ll be short-tempered, you’ll rely on external sources to improve your mood, lose focus, your memory will be shit, and you’ll have no energy.
Sleep is one-third of our lives, and the quality of our energy goes down the less we sleep.
#2 Get Addicted To Coffee
Now that your sleep is gone to shit, you need something to feel “normal” again. That’s where coffee comes in.
You don’t just have one, but you’ll have 2-4 throughout the day just to feel awake and have some baseline of performance.
Over time this addiction will get worse as your caffeine tolerance increases, and what’ll happen when you don’t get your coffee fixed for the day?
You get cranky, your mood goes to shit, you’re short with people, and you can’t perform in your business.
#3 High Carb and Sugar, Low Protein Diet
Now that you’ve successfully ruined your sleep and are now addicted to coffee, you begin to have cravings.
Cravings for sugar, cravings for liquid calories, and cravings for fast food.
Why?
Because those things make you feel normal and temporarily feel good until they start digesting and you get a sugar crash, which only makes you want to drink more coffee and sugar to feel normal again.
As this goes on, your cravings worsen, and the fat tissue builds up. The 5lbs of fat turns to 10, then 20, 6 months later, you’ve gained 30lbs of fat and ruined your confidence.
Your gut health begins to go to shit; if you don’t have your daily fix, you have withdrawals, headaches, and night sweats.
You’ve become an addict.
#4 Restrict Movement To Accelerate Your Depression
On top of everything above, let’s put you in an office position where you’re not moving throughout the day.
Your blood flow slows down and your muscle mass starts decreasing because your body doesn’t feel like it needs to use it as much.
The depression only worsens because you’re barely moving and staring at a screen all day.
#5 Restrict Oxygen
Now that your sleep is shit, your diet is all out of whack, all you drink is coffee, and you’re not moving, let’s keep you in the same four-walled world where the oxygen barely cycles.
Believe it or not, the lack of rotating oxygen, and not being outdoors, increases the likelihood of cancer in your cells. Every cell in your body requires oxygen, and without it, your health begins to decline. It won’t happen overnight, but cancer cells will become more prevalent in your body over many years.
#6 Never Go Outside
I used to live in a basement apartment, so this one hits close to home.
Being in darkness all day without acquiring any natural light is the fast track to becoming depressed. We’ve evolved to be outside in the daylight and sleep when it’s dark out, and when we fight against Mother Nature’s forces, we constantly lose.
Attach all the above to living in a basement apartment and your depression will grow exponentially.
#7. Stare at a Blue Screen All Day
Whether it’s looking at your phone or staring at your computer screen, blue light fries your brain and makes it difficult to fall asleep and depressed.
The daily dopamine hits make you a junky and kill your confidence. If you’re doing everything above, your depression is already kicking in, and your confidence is dropping every day.
#8. Take SSRIs
At this point, the chemical imbalance, your gut health, and your mental health are so shit that you go to a doctor to start artificially getting that balance back again.
The SSRIs work for a bit, but you still haven’t fixed your sleep, diet, or daily sunlight intake. Your lifestyle is exactly the same as before, yet you expect a change because your doctor gave you some meds.
This is a losing battle.
#9. Play the Victim
So you’ve got the meds, your lifestyle hasn’t changed, and now you’ve decided to go to therapy. Or maybe you haven’t; I don’t know.
But I know your therapist is telling you that your chemical imbalance isn’t your fault; it’s hereditary and that there’s nothing you can do about it.
So then you follow this line of thinking with everything you do and that nothing is your fault and there’s always someone to blame.
You become jaded and nihilistic about life because the world doesn’t align with your world-view of deranged thinking.
This is very likely to happen when you entertain all of the above.
Conclusion To Modern-Day depression
Depression can be engineered by your lifestyle, the foods you eat, the liquids you drink, the amount of screen time you have, the lack of natural sunlight, and how it changes your mindset to play the victim.
Understand that modern-day depression, as listed above, is your fault, so if you want a better life than what you have now, then you need to do the opposite of everything above and take ownership of your life.
You only get one shot, so make it count.
P.S. If you want to make your life count, the best place is to start by having a workout plan that improves your posture. You’ll be more confident, have more energy, fit better in your clothes, and depression won’t even be a word in your vocabulary.
Want to learn how? Click here to learn more.
