Global Health Asia-Pacific July 2020 July 2020 | Page 51

Exercise can also provide therapeutic benefits against depression
reasons associated with psychological distress.
“There are people who experience mental health
problems even if they have comfortable, secure
lives and haven’t been neglected or traumatised,”
said Dr Johnstone. “In that case, I think you need
to look at something more subtle: the pressure to
achieve, succeed, and look in a certain way. These are
pressures that all can feel, even at the luckier end of
the socio-economic spectrum.”
Regardless of where a person is on this spectrum,
other approaches therefore may be more beneficial
than drugs against depression.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a talking
technique where people learn strategies to cope with
their negative thoughts and behaviours, has shown to
be as effective as antidepressants.
Similarly, exercise can also provide therapeutic
benefits against depression, with one study
suggesting that it leads to lower relapse rates
compared with medication.
A new job could be a formidable remedy as well.
This is what happened to a Cambodian rice farmer
who had a leg blown off by a landmine and was in
despair even after being fitted with a new limb.
“The doctors sat with him, and talked through
his troubles,” Johann Hari recounted in her book
Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of
Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. “They
realised that even with his new artificial limb, his old
�ob�working in the rice paddies�was leaving him
constantly stressed and in physical pain, and that was
making him want to just stop living. So they had an
idea. They believed that if he became a dairy farmer,
he could live differently. �o they bought him a cow. In
the months, and years that followed, his life changed.
His depression � which had been profound � went
away.”
�To them, finding an antidepressant didn’t mean
finding a way to change your brain chemistry. It meant
finding a way to solve the problem that was causing
the depression in the first place,� she wrote.
What this means is that, when we frame
psychological distress as a pure mental illness
that requires drugs, it may actually be disastrously
counterproductive when those drugs don’t work, as
the story of �aura Delano exemplifies.
By mainstream measures, Laura had a pretty
full and rewarding existence. Raised in a wealthy
community in the northeastern part of the U.S., she
had a brilliant mind, a thriving social life, and was an
excellent squash player, according to The New Yorker.
And yet, she was angry, in despair, and a self-harmer.
Diagnosed with a lifelong mental illness when she
was 14, she initially refused to accept the diagnosis,
but by the time she was a freshwoman at Harvard she
ultimately convinced herself she was sick and in need
of drug treatment. This finally gave her some relief and
the hope of a treatment.
“It was like being told, It’s not your fault. You are
not lazy. You are not irresponsible,” she said in The
New Yorker.
Over the next decade, she was prescribed
a cocktail of 19 psychiatric drugs, including
antidepressants, antipsychotics, and sleeping pill. She
also saw several therapists and was hospitalised four
times.
Unsure whether Prozac lifted her spirit, after taking
it Laura started experiencing sexual problems and
drowsiness � two main side effects associated with
antidepressants.
After years of pain and dashed hopes of a
meaningful improvement, she reached a breaking
Similarly,
exercise can
also provide
therapeutic
benefits against
depression,
with one study
suggesting that
it leads to lower
relapse rates
compared with
medication
GlobalHealthAndTravel.com
JULY 2020
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