Why are we so depressed.?

When you think about it nothing could more maladaptive than depression. You are sad, sleep all the time and don't like leaving the house. In term of passing on your genes this probably a very bad thing.   If some behavior is so ubiquitous, evolutionary psychologists theorize there must be so adaptive value to it. Evolutionary Psychologists see depression a reaction to a loss of evolution currency. Loss of a job could cause depression by being unable to pay your bills and straining your relationships

Depression is evolutions way of telling you to stop what you are doing. Lay low and rethink how your behavior is not working. There are 3 things evolutionary psychologists feel you can do alleviate depression.

1. Do you have a dream that is out of your reach? Psychologists have seen that when people give up on an unrealistic dreams their depression lifted

2. Reduce the amount of mass media you use. Television and movies give us unrealistic images of what life should be like. Everyone is beautiful and rich. In our EEA there were rarely so many successful and beautiful people we were bombarded with.

3. In our EEA we were lived small bands of 100-150 people. Anyone in the group has skill provides value to the group. With a tribe of 7 billion, it hard to feel important in your group. Randolph Nesse author of Darwinian Medicine gives an excellent example of this.  Lets say your the best tennis player at your club. You probably aren't the best tennis player in your city, state, country etc. Make more realistic comparisons to people around you.

4. Make more friends or enhance your current relationships. If this isn't possible a support group can be helpful