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Jonathan Rottenberg Books

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“When anxious subjects are shown happy, neutral and angry faces on a computer screen, their attention is drawn to the angry faces signaling a potential threat Conversely, good moods broaden attention and make people inclined to seek out information and novelty. In one study, participants in good moods sought more variety when choosing among packaged foods, such as crackers, soup, and snacks. Moods have the power to influence behavior because they have such wide purchase on the body and mind. They affect what we notice, our levels of alertness and energy, and what goals we choose.”

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“Our current cultural ethos is that achieving happiness is like achieving other goals. If we simply work hard at it, we can master happiness, just as we can figure out how to use new computer software, play the piano or learn Spanish. However, if the goal of becoming happier is different from these other goals, efforts devoted to augmenting happiness may backfire, disappointing -and potentially depressing- us because we can't achieve our expected goal.”

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“Our species is diurnal, and the best chance of finding sustenance and other rewards was in the light phase (think about the challenge of identifying edible berries or stalking a mammoth). Consequently, we are configured to be more alert during the day than at night. Consistent with the link between light and mood, some clinically serious low mood is triggered by the seasonal change of shorter daylight hours. The onset of seasonal affective disorder, a subtype of mood disorder, is usually in winter.”

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“Fantasizing about a world without low mood is a vain exercise. Low moods have existed in some form across human cultures for many thousands of years. One way to appreciate why these states have enduring value is to ponder what would happen if we had no capacity for them. Just as animals with no capacity for anxiety were gobbled up by predators long ago, without the capacity for sadness, we and other animals would probably commit rash acts and repeat costly mistakes. Physical pain teaches a child to avoid hot burners; psychic pain teaches us to navigate life's rocky shoals with due caution.”

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“For example, for decades, in the official bible for mental disorder diagnosis, the DSM, depression within two months after a death was usually not termed “depression.” Instead, depression following a death was considered under another category, called “simple bereavement,” which was not indicative of a mental disorder or condition. In fact, of all the things that can befall a person, bereavement has historically been the only life event that could potentially negate a diagnosis of depression. Bereavement-related depressions last for about as long as regular depressions do. People who have a bereavement-related depression are about as likely as those who have a regular depression to have additional episodes of depression in the future. Bad life events come in great variety and have many themes: uncertainty, danger, humiliation, injustice, and so forth. However, when people’s reported life events are rated on different themes by objective coders, the theme that most consistently predicts depression is loss. You can lose your livelihood, reputation, or marriage. But the ultimate loss, bereavement, is the prototypical loss event, the one that most strongly predicts depression.”

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“Take a young adult’s depression that emerges after he starts working at an ordinary job after college; the depression might be related to the fact that taking a less-than-ideal job meant giving up on a childhood career dream, even if the loss of the dream was not discussed explicitly and the young adult is only dimly aware of the connection between the loss and the symptoms. : John Grace, a psychiatrist practicing in Florida, said, “I have had a number of patients I’ve done CBT [cognitive behavioral therapy] for months on and finally after spinning my head in circles I realize I have been missing a tremendous loss for them.”

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“I am willing to be vulnerable and embrace the natural flow of life rather than trying to direct it to my own course and yet it has given me new courage because there is no consequence that could come as close as wanting to die… The ver worst thing that can happen in a life is wanting to end it. So I live more bravely than ever with more respect for others and myself.”

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“Analysis of thousands of survey responses found that when people in different countries were asked to rate how desirable and appropriate it is to experience varying psychological states, positive states like joy and affection were rated more desirable and appropriate in Australia and the United States than in Taiwan and China. Cross-cultural research by Jeanne Tsai of Stanford University has also found that European Americans place the highest value on specific forms of happiness, idealizing states like enthusiasm or excitement, termed high arousal positive states. By contrast, Chinese and other Asian test subjects place the highest value on other forms of happiness, idealizing states such as calm and serenity, termed low arousal positive states. Mauss and colleagues found that some people put an especially high value on happiness, endorsing items like, “If I don’t feel happy, maybe there is something wrong with me”; and “To have a meaningful life, I need to feel happy most of the time.” Surprisingly, women who said that they valued happiness more were actually less happy than women who valued it less.”

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“When I noticed other people, I wondered what it was like to be alive. They did not know, could not know, how I felt inside. My shell still passed for normal. I felt like I should scream for help, someone should help, but I knew that the time for screaming had passed. Best to just keep on walking, walking dead, one of the few things I could still do. So I kept walking.”

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“Depressed people become unable to remember happy times, or times when they even had a normal mood. The very concept of a normal mood itself becomes alien. I’ve had more than one depressed participant offer me a pained smile during an interview when I asked, -When was the last time you felt like your usual self? – These are the disorientations of chronic depression.”

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“I have discussed how the goal of feeling happy is unusual; its not like other goals such as learning to bake a pizza, for which the desire to achieve is half the battle and steady application is the rest. Pressing harder on unfulfilled and unrealistic goals for happiness can paradoxically deepen depression.”

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“The tendency for depression to repeat reflects the normal default settings of a plastic mood system that is open to experience. The unfortunate consequence of plasticity is that a long duration of deep depression can reprogram the entire system so that it favors a return to low mood states- the good news is that there is a flip side to plasticity. As wee see with these psychologically based treatments, the mood system can be deprogrammed.”

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Book:The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic
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“The tendency for depression to repeat reflects the normal default settings of a plastic mood system that is open to experience. The unfortunate consequence of plasticity is that a long duration of deep depression can reprogram the entire system so that it favors a return to low mood states- the good news is that there is a flip side to plasticity. As we see with these psychologically based treatments, the mood system can be deprogrammed.”

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“Consistent with the idea that combinations of problems may be less manageable than individual problems, one study found that having three stressful life events was actually four times as bad for future depression as having two stressful life events. With each new problem, the mood system must face a longer and more complex equation with more unknown terms.”

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