This is the fourth and final installment in my series on Stephen Ilardi’s book The Depression Cure.
Ilardi pinpoints six differences between the American lifestyle and the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and shows that peer-reviewed studies have shown each of these factors has been demonstrated to cause depression. Ilardi’s six factors are:
2. “Anti-rumination” strategies.
3-4 Exercise / Sunlight exposure.
5-6 Social connection and A good night’s sleep.
As far as social connection goes, lots of us can make strides in that area by making a conscious effort just to spend more time with other people. That said, sites like meetup.com offer us the opportunity to hang out with other people based on common interests. There are even a ton of atheist groups!
For a good night’s sleep Ilardi recommends that you limit physical activity thirty minutes before you go to sleep – do something like read a book – so that your body can prepare itself for eight hours of inactivity.
He also recommends that you do not stay in your bed except to sleep – in other words, don’t spend two hours in bed watching TV before you fall asleep. The reason behind this is that if you always fall asleep after getting into bed you condition yourself to fall asleep after getting in bed. Ivan Pavlov conducted experiments where he rang a bell before feeding dogs, and after a few weeks of this he would ring the bell without bringing out the food and still the dogs were salivating as if they expected food. The dogs’ brains had built an association between bell-ringing and feeding. So, if you want to fall asleep, build a mental association between getting in bed and falling asleep by continuously only getting into bed when you are ready to sleep.
I thought I’d end this post by sharing three things that I do to help fall asleep:
1. No computers before bed. Reason:
“Playing a video game or finishing up some work on computer before bed may keep you awake long after you turn the computer off. A new study shows that the bright light of a computer screen may alter the body’s biological clock and suppress the natural production of melatonin that’s critical to the normal sleep-wake cycle.” (WebMD)
2. Taking a tablet of melatonin.
3. Turn the AC down, or turn a fan on. It’s impossible not to fall asleep in a cold room.
