Research Shows 7 Lifestyle Factors That Reduce Your Risk Of Depression

Make no mistake – the employee mental health crisis is far from over – particularly for young people.

According to the 2020–2022 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), an estimated 43 per cent of the population has experienced mental illness.

Over the past decade, the number of 18 to 24-year-olds accessing mental health services has increased rapidly, going up by 44.6 per cent for males and 69.5 per cent for females.

A comprehensive review (published in Nature Mental Health) of 290,000 British adults by the University of Cambridge - shows that depression is often used as an umbrella term - for a range of disorders with different genetic, biological, psychological and environmental causes.

?This also means that it requires different treatments. For instance, only about a third of people prescribed anti-depressants benefit from them.

This means helping those with depression is an imperfect art but, regardless of the cause, our lifestyle can play a role in preventing and treating it.

These 7 lifestyle factors were associated with a reduced risk of depression:

1.???????? Getting between seven and nine hours of sleep (22 per cent)

2.???????? Not smoking (20 per cent)

3.???????? Frequent social contact (18 per cent)

4.???????? Regular physical activity (14 per cent)

5.???????? Not being too sedentary (13 per cent)

6.???????? Consuming no more than small to moderate levels of alcohol (11 per cent)

7.???????? Consuming a healthy diet, as per the dietary guidelines (6 per cent).

What we choose to do each day has a big impact on our mood.

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