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yes. Exercise and good diet and staying busy doing things that matter to you. 'depression' is mostly a western disease, most people in the world do not have the time to be depressed and do not live in such an isolated society and eat such unnatural food.
Because they're not as visible as other ailments. Even internal cancers can be imaged with an MRI, CT, or PET scan; mental illnesses rarely or never can be seen with the bare or aided eye (I say "rarely" rather than "never" because of the potential of "seeing" them with fMRI, but that's off most people's radars).
This leads to a lot of ostracism, a lot of neglect, and a whole lot of misunderstanding. I never really understood depression before I had firsthand experience with it. It's certainly not just "the blues" like many think it is.
I had a best friend from h.s. wither and eventually die from her mental illness They cannot be treated with just "diet and exercise"...
Although I do agree that largely the western diet and lack of exercise is definitely lacking.
And the epidemic of "can't sleep"... could be not enough body movement and fresh air during the day to make them truly tired out? Unfortunately our lifestyles aggravate this.
Speaking as a menopausal woman,I experienced debilitating anxiety once my hormones shifted. NO amount of "exercise,and proper diet"helped me. My brain was affected from hormone depletion. It was only helped by drugs. And yes,I tried hormone replacement,etc. Some cases are truly brought on by physical stuff.
Just had to throw that in.
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Originally Posted by 1208
Yes. Exercise and good diet and staying busy doing things that matter to you. 'Depression' is mostly a western disease, most people in the world do not have the time to be depressed and do not live in such an isolated society and eat such unnatural food.
This is a common fallacy - the belief that depression or the other major mental illnesses (schizophrenia and manic-depression) are more common in advanced industrial societies because of the unnatural lifestyles isn't accurate. However I have read that recovery from those illnesses tend to be faster in thirdworld countries (given medication) because of the stronger family structures - the family takes in the afflicted person, and there's always a little something to do for the extended family, so he or she is not just left alone to stare at the wall as in firstworld countries.
Here's an article on the epidemiology of major depression, there doesn't seem to be that much rhyme or reason to where it's highest (though I would argue that the US is #1 simply because there's a much bigger spotlight on the depression, while it is often pushed under the rug in other nations): Epidemiology of depression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scroll down a bit to find the ranking of nations by Age-Standardized Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY)
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They cannot be treated with just "diet and exercise"... 
