“I was shocked. Frankly, I didn’t believe you,” a woman shared with me in a recent counseling session when discussing her husband’s first visit to a psychiatrist. She never thought that after an initial 45-minute session, her husband would leave with multiple prescriptions for antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. I can only imagine her shock if she were to discover that a visit to his personal general doctor would have generated the same outcome in less than 10 minutes.
Obviously, antidepressants make a crucial difference to some. But is that the reason there has been a 400% increase in antidepressant use in the last 20 years resulting in 11% of Americans over the age of 12 taking some form of depression medication? Unlikely, because a Johns Hopkins University study of over 5,000 people revealed that 60% of those diagnosed with depression did not meet the medical criteria of major depressive disorder, although many did have some form of minor depression. And 75% of those people were prescribed some form of antidepressant.
Whereas mental health medication can be effective, clearly we are getting something wrong. The real question is why thousands of people who do not meet the criteria for depression visit a doctor to consider medication in the first place. Clearly prescribers of such medication need to be extremely cautious as we’d expect from any physician. But it seems that people are judging themselves to be in need of medication when often they are not.
Here’s my general rule of thumb when considering whether you or someone you love might need medication. Ask yourself: Can I function properly in my present life? If you find that you are consistently unable to accomplish the primary tasks of your day, you can begin to consider whether medication might be a possible option. If you are basically managing your life, it’s unlikely medication is for you. But what does “managing” really mean?
Is it possible that today’s lifestyle can create a daily grind that causes the average person to feel sad, down and unable to manage? Imagine the pace of our society relative to previous ones. We are definitely doing more and our attention is split in many more ways than ever before. The average adult today gets one hour less sleep than the average adult in the 1950s. At a mere 6½ hours nightly, we are expected to do more than ever with less sleep.
If you find yourself struggling to manage and maintain a happy posture, the first question to ask yourself is whether your life is conducive to happiness in the first place. If you honestly believe that your friends would not be much happier if they were implanted into your day, you don’t need medication, you need a different daily routine. Start with the basics: sleep, nutrition, exercise. All three are commonly believed to help fight depression. But more importantly, they are key to creating a normal, healthy lifestyle where you are caring for your well-being, the first step in a manageable lifestyle.
Next ask yourself the big questions: Am I feeling meaning in my life? Do I have things to look forward to with some consistency? Am I doing something practical to diminish the challenges in my life? You’re not seeking perfection. You’re seeking a life that an average person can manage and feel good about. Don’t feel pressure to change everything at once. Perhaps create just one thing this week to look forward to. Instead of seeing exercise as some need for insane gyrations, just put one foot in front of the other and start walking for 40 minutes a few times a week. Perhaps add just 30 minutes of extra sleep each night to start. The point is that your life is probably jam-packed and it’s unlikely that you can simply rehaul it. But don’t let that stop you from taking smaller steps toward a lifestyle that offers you more satisfaction.