Relationships

Depression is a state of the whole body,
not just a state of the brain.

Your whole body needs healthy relationships, touch, cuddles, conversations, and meaning.

Your brain simply signals when these relationships are disturbed. It’s important that we start to see the brain as something that makes fewer mistakes than we think.

You could argue the same for other psychiatric conditions as well:

• Anorexia is a disturbed relationship with emotions and the past. Food is more or less a byproduct.

• People with dementia often spend a lot of energy figuring out what their relationship to another person is and what is appropriate. That is far more likely the issue than memory loss alone.

• The relationship we have with technology—and how we treat each other lately—is relatively superficial. This contributes to some cases of ADD/ADHD.

• Suppressed excitement often feels like stress and anxiety (also a disturbed relationship).

• Schizophrenia also has to do with disturbed relationships—with family, sexuality, and other important things in life.

If I’m right, and these are whole-body states, then it makes a lot of sense that physical movement and simply going outside make such a huge difference. It’s simply the fastest way to change the state of the whole body. The brain will readjust. This is often a quicker path than treating the brain as if it is sick.