Dr. Alan Rozanski

Under chronic depression, the body essentially goes haywire.

You develop the same kind of stress response

You see with chronic stress, the amygdala enlarges, the prefrontal cortex shortens, shrinks.

You will develop a visceral obesity.

You will develop inflammation.

You'll develop insulin resistance.

The body seems to go haywire.

It does not tolerate depression for any long period of time.

On the other hand, people who are happy tend to live longer.

That data is also quite clear now.

So you have this domain now of the emotional domain.

So you have physical, cognitive, and you have emotional.

What about the social domain?

Well, we've known since the late 1970s, classic work began back then, that people who have a stronger social network, even in terms of size, or people who have more stable or happy social relationships also live longer.

and they have better physiology.

And the opposite is true.

Loneliness is a toxic factor in terms of our health.

More recently studied has been the issue of sense of life purpose.

And that's only about 15 years old in terms of hard data.

I mean, there's data that goes back to biblical times in terms of theorists saying about the importance of living a purposeful life.