Underlying Depression

If you are over forty and depressed, you are not alone. And it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, married or single, kids or not. A new study measured data on depression, anxiety levels and general mental health and well-being taken from some 2 million people in 80 countries. And it's perfectly clear:

For men and women the probability of depression slowly builds and then peaks when people are in their forties -- a similar pattern found in 72 countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe, the researchers said.

Of course they go on to speculate about why. They said middle-aged people come to realize that they may not fulfull a lot of their aspirations. I guess that is pretty depressing. I'm depressed just reading about it.

I got to thinking, perhaps cavemen and women never lived long enough to be depressed. Very few probably saw their 40th birthday. Not much time for depression anyway back then. It took too much effort just to live in the moment. You know. Stay out of harm's way, find and kill food, clean it, cook it, maintain fires and such. If you sat around on a rock all day depressed you wouldn't last long.