The Connection Between Bad Habits and Depression: Is Your Lifestyle Triggering Your Depression?

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October is Depression Awareness Month. One of the goals of bringing awareness to depression is to help increase the general population’s knowledge and understanding of depression and other mental health conditions that co-occur with depression. During the month, different organizations host live and online events, use social media tags, and promote awareness. 

Our daily habits can shape our moods and emotions more than we realize. Depression might elicit and exacerbate unhealthy lifestyles and individuals with unhealthy lifestyles are more likely to develop depression. Depression is a mood disorder characterized by sadness, low energy, and changes in sleep and appetite. Although it is tightly linked to genetics, past trauma, and substance abuse, bad habits and poor life choices are known triggers for depression.

Looking at the research

According to an evidence-based study published in Global Health in 2017, individuals with depression are likelier to smoke, consume alcohol, and live a sedentary lifestyle. Researchers believe that one of the reasons is that these individuals use these unhealthy coping mechanisms to numb their symptoms of depression. These harmful factors are also known to lead to depression over time.  

“People with depression frequently smoke, have a higher prevalence of excessive alcohol use and are more physically inactive. The relationships between depression and unhealthy lifestyles are probably reciprocal. Firstly, depression might elicit and exacerbate unhealthy lifestyles. Depression is related to the onset of physical inactivity, the development of alcohol use disorders, and an increase in the risk of progression to daily smoking. Some authors argue that depression drives unhealthy lifestyles because people with depression use them as a “self-medication” to ameliorate depressive symptoms.”

Do you engage in any unhealthy habits such as?

1. Unhealthy sleep patterns: staying up late, sleeping or napping excessively, or chronically using medications to fall asleep.  
2. Unhealthy diet: skipping meals, binge eating, or eating junk food. This also includes not drinking or substituting water for sugary drinks like soda.  
3. Isolating from others: spending time alone, ignoring others, or refusing to leave your home. 
4. Physical inactivity: no regular exercise and not even going for a walk or walking your dog 
5. Avoiding structured activities: repeatedly calling into work sick and skipping out on school or important meetings.  
6. Engaging in mindless activities: continually scrolling on social media, binge-watching Netflix, or playing video games alone. 
7. Staying inside: Not spending time in nature to the point that you are staying in the house and going outside.  
8. Avoiding brain-healthy activities: not reading books/magazines, creating art, singing, or playing music.  
9. Ignoring basic tasks: not caring for hygiene, cleaning your home, opening mail, doing laundry, paying bills, or grocery shopping. 
10. Drinking/using drugs: daily drinking or binge drinking or using drugs (recreational and illicit).

How unhealthy habits can lead to depression?

Developing unhealthy habits daily can make your body feel sluggish and cause an imbalance of essential neurotransmitters that are important for mood regulation. For example, not soaking up enough sunshine can lead to an imbalance of serotonin. Not moving your body or seeking pleasure in enjoying activities can result in a depletion of dopamine. Dopamine and serotonin are two important neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) that are responsible for your mood. A deficit in serotonin and dopamine is known to result in feelings of depression.  

When we fill our bodies with processed foods that contain sugars and carbs, we are depleting our bodies and brains of necessary nutrients and creating an “inflamed brain” Inflammation in our nervous systems can have a drastic effect on our mood, as our gut health and brain health are tightly connected. Once we get into a cycle of poor habits and lack of self-care, creating an imbalance of neurotransmitters, it can be hard to break this cycle as we start to feel unmotivated and sad. These feelings of low mood can further potentiate the process of poor daily habits. We may even begin to engage in unhealthy patterns of alcohol and drug use to help cope with the beginning symptoms of depression.

How depression can foster unhealthy habits

On the flip side, individuals with depression may engage in unhealthy habits because they lack the motivation to engage in healthy habits and activities. Maybe they are in denial, avoiding their feelings, or fear, or loathe the thought of engaging in healthy activities. Maybe these individuals desire to feel better but cannot find the tools.

Below are other reasons why some people with depression are unable to engage in healthy daily habits:

1. Lacking energy or motivation (waiting for energy to show up before taking action) 
2. Experiencing anxiety over change  
3. Experiencing fear of failure  
4. Not taking antidepressant medication correctly (skipping a day or two)  
5. Seeing variability in improvement (good days fluctuating with bad days) 
6. Sleeping away the good days and fueling bad days with depressive activities such as drinking alcohol 
7. Believing that the future looks impossibly difficult

Changing unhealthy habits into healthy habits

You hold the power to change your unhealthy daily habits that are contributing to your depression. Depression is best treated with a combination of medication and therapy, but changing your mood and emotions also requires self-work. Your therapist may teach you some daily coping tools, such as behavioral activation or self-activation, but you must be the owner of these skills, meaning you must practice them daily.  

Behavioral activation consists of adopting a daily schedule, keeping busy, and changing activities throughout the day. This does not mean doing fun activities all day long but rather doing activities that align with your core values, some of which are fun and others deemed necessary. This could mean cleaning the house and then going for a run (assuming you enjoy running).  

Sometimes we need a “boost” to get out of our negative slump. Whether it is changing jobs, going on vacation, beginning a new exercise program, starting an antidepressant, or connecting with a positive therapist; a “spark” can help motivate us to engage in healthier habits.

Once we start the progression of feeling better and adopting healthier daily habits, it is essential to do the following:

1. Keep things simple 
2. Set realistic goals 
3. Reward yourself 
4. Practice self-compassion 
5. Have a plan for setbacks 
6. Change environments if you start to feel frustrated 
7. Check in with your support network to help hold you accountable and problem-solve