So maybe we've been wrong about depression. Maybe it's not just some mental-chemical problem requiring a Prozac prescription or soulbaring confessions to a Dr. Melfi-type therapist. Maybe, says Stephen Ilardi, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, what's darkening our lives is the way we actually live our lives....
Since World War II, as the United States has modernized and grown more urban, depression rates have risen tenfold. Nearly a quarter of to day's adult population will have experienced the disorder by age 75. So Ilardi wants us to look back, way back, to our Paleolithic past To our cave-dwelling, hunter-gatherer ancestors, who were somehow protected against depression, most likely by their highly social, active, outdoorsy lives, Ilardi theorizes.
Well, I have to ask, could part of the reason cavemen had less depression be because they lived only 30 years or less? No midlife crisis because well, you probably didn't have a midlife, just a short one. Anyway, aside from that comment, go read the article and see what you think.
Update: Ace says these cavemen don't seem happy.