Researchers have identified seven healthy lifestyle habits that can potentially help in preventing depression. Among them, getting a good night’s sleep has a significant impact, as it can reduce the risk of depression by 22%.
Depression is a serious mood disorder that interrupts a person’s daily functioning, affecting their emotions and behaviors. Feeling sad, loss of interest in activities, fatigue, appetite changes, difficulty sleeping and thoughts of suicide are some of the signs of depression.
It is one of the most common mental disorders that affects around 21 million adults in the U.S. every year.
In the latest study, published in the journal Nature Mental Health, researchers from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University evaluated the impact of various lifestyle factors, genetics, brain structure and immune and metabolic systems on depression.
“Although our DNA – the genetic hand we’ve been dealt – can increase our risk of depression, we’ve shown that a healthy lifestyle is potentially more important,” Professor Barbara Sahakian, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said in a news release.
“Some of these lifestyle factors are things we have a degree of control over, so trying to find ways to improve them – making sure we have a good night’s sleep and getting out to see friends, for example – could make a real difference to people’s lives,” the study lead author added.
The research team analyzed data from around 290,000 people from the U.K. Biobank, a biomedical database for over nine years. Of them, 13,000 had depression.
Researchers then identified seven lifestyle habits that can reduce the risk of depression:
- Moderate alcohol consumption
- Healthy diet
- Regular physical activity
- Adequate sleep
- Never smoking
- Low-to-moderate sedentary behavior
- Having a frequent social connection
Having a healthy sleep for seven to nine hours can reduce the risk of depression by 22% and frequent social interaction reduces it by 18%. While sleep is…
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