Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,
where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health,
physical health, and performance.
I'm Andrew Huberman,
and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
Today, we're discussing depression.
In particular, we're going to talk about major depression.
The phrase major depression is used to distinguish one form of depression from the other,
the other one being bipolar depression.
Major depression impacts 5% of the population.
That is an enormous number.
That means if you're in a class of 100 people,
five of them are dealing with major depression or have at some point.
Look around you in any environment and you can be sure that a good portion of the people that you're surrounded by is impacted by depression or will be at some point.
So this is something we really have to take seriously and that we want to understand.
It is the number four cause of disability.
A lot of people miss work, miss school,
and before then likely perform poorly in work or school due to major depression.
So let's talk about the things that are present in somebody that has major depression.
First of all, there tends to be a lot of grief.