> They do not make any sense, and do not help survival of the individual.
"Here's the real hell of it: depression and frustration and hatred are mechanisms to prevent activity in a different world than that in which we live now. It is best to sleep long hours and move little when the nights are long and the days are short and the food is scarce, during the dark European winter. But the adaptation is no longer relevant now when we are expected to move about, when we can shut ourselves inside and make an artificial night.
We must instead play a different trick on the wicked and limited body and brain. We must convince it that we are heir to the greatness of our ancestors, that we are still the mighty hunter on the plains of Africa. We must run - a block or two at first, and damn the opinions of the onlookers. We must gradually run further until our breath comes in ragged gasps and the sweat of our back runs down the crack of our ass, and we must learn to love the fire in our lungs and muscles." (taken from a reddit post)
The reasoning in this post resonates with me, although I understand that it is dodgy at best.
[1] Long note: I was depressed and passively suicidal for a while, a few years back, and I know what it feels (or rather doesn't feel) like when the fishes are dead.
I remember that I started running, but can't tell if I did so because I was better, or the opposite. (Probably the latter: reminiscing on the worst times, I cannot possibly imagine that I would have had the drive to do anything therapeutic, much less physical activity.
Depression came in waves, maybe I did so during the softest crests?)
Unlike the article, I do not think that running is cure for depression; Even if it does physiologically help, even if you are aware of that fact, you just lack the motivation to act. would a dead fish take the necessary steps to get back in the water, if you told its dead body water would bring him back to life?
But once it eases, running keeps it at bay (what works for me, etc) .
This is not so easy: we had candles and fun at nights for a long time, and while it's not clear how widespread it was, there were definitely periods in history when it was common to sleep in separate chunks. Social life is important, in fact most of the not-sleeping we're doing nowadays is due to social interaction and/or entertainment, not acquiring food. Furthermore, depression is has a very strong impact on survival and breeding chances[citation needed], so it shouldn't really need that much time to disappear unless there are reasons for it to stay there.
But, there are attempts to figure out why exactly wasn't depression weeded out by now (other than the rather sad "because it's somehow inherent to other aspects of our brain and really hard and/or costly to avoid): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_approaches_to_depr...
"Here's the real hell of it: depression and frustration and hatred are mechanisms to prevent activity in a different world than that in which we live now. It is best to sleep long hours and move little when the nights are long and the days are short and the food is scarce, during the dark European winter. But the adaptation is no longer relevant now when we are expected to move about, when we can shut ourselves inside and make an artificial night.
We must instead play a different trick on the wicked and limited body and brain. We must convince it that we are heir to the greatness of our ancestors, that we are still the mighty hunter on the plains of Africa. We must run - a block or two at first, and damn the opinions of the onlookers. We must gradually run further until our breath comes in ragged gasps and the sweat of our back runs down the crack of our ass, and we must learn to love the fire in our lungs and muscles." (taken from a reddit post)
The reasoning in this post resonates with me, although I understand that it is dodgy at best.
[1] Long note: I was depressed and passively suicidal for a while, a few years back, and I know what it feels (or rather doesn't feel) like when the fishes are dead.
I remember that I started running, but can't tell if I did so because I was better, or the opposite. (Probably the latter: reminiscing on the worst times, I cannot possibly imagine that I would have had the drive to do anything therapeutic, much less physical activity. Depression came in waves, maybe I did so during the softest crests?)
Unlike the article, I do not think that running is cure for depression; Even if it does physiologically help, even if you are aware of that fact, you just lack the motivation to act. would a dead fish take the necessary steps to get back in the water, if you told its dead body water would bring him back to life?
But once it eases, running keeps it at bay (what works for me, etc) .