Joe Rogan - Why Are So Many People Depressed?

I mean, how much of what would people experience when it comes to the word depression? How much of it is their life going bad, tragedy, poor health, bad job choices? How much of it is some sort of a weird genetic thing? How much? I mean, there's so many variables as to what causes depression, but such a giant number of people suffer from depression. Well, I think it's, I think it only, if I'm being honest, I think it's going to get worse. You know, like you look at the way we live and the closer and closer you've spoken about that, we're just talking about fucking New York. We're not meant to be that confined. We're not meant to sit out like we're withheld from the fucking sun right now. So many of these things communicate with our bodies. I'm working with a genetic specialist, Ryan Fristinger. He was on Chris Ryan's show. That influences 500 on off switches on our epigenetic level for the good, unless you fucking overdo it, right? 500 plus on off switches in our DNA are affected by sunlight positively. Right? I mean, there's that's what they look at vitamin D3 takes that, for example, they're calling that a hormone now, not a fucking vitamin. Really? It's a messenger. That's how much it influences in the body. Incredibly important. So when you think about all these things like being barefoot, being connected to the earth, going in the fucking ocean, science will catch up in certain ways, but we get fixated on the thing. We get fixated on our phones, on whatever TV is going on. We're closed off from other people. We think communicating through Facebook is the same as being fucking face to face. It's not. The more we head that direction and we're putting, as you put it, putting fucking shit food in our body for mouth pleasure, that influences the brain, right? 80 to 90% of all of our neurotransmitters are made by the bacteria in our gut. So you think the shit meal is just going to put on five pounds. It's not. It might put on five pounds, but it's going to fuck your brain up for a while. You make you a little bit more emotional. Fuck with your sharpness, your memory recall. All that's impacted. Sleep's impacted. I wish Michael Walker talked a bit more about that. I don't think it's in his wheelhouse. I don't think it is. He's just a guy who studies sleep and the effects on it, but fuck was that illuminating? Yeah. Eye opening. That podcast was so important to me. It was fucking fantastic. I think his book is really good, but as far as dialing in sleep, it's more of this is what happens when you don't sleep. The book Sleep by Nick Littlehales is probably my favorite because that gives you all... It's a fucking how-to guide on how to maximize sleep. When you were younger, lack of sleep didn't affect you the way it affects you now, right? Correct. Yeah. Everything he talks about, like with that shift that happens in adolescence where you become a night owl, no doubt. I probably still could stay out a little bit later until having a kid, and then that's your immediate reset to a bitch you're getting up when the sun comes up. Yeah. Be prepared, sir. Get ready. Yeah. There's so many different factors that lead to a healthy body, but how much of a healthy body leads to a happy mind? That's where it gets... You can't blame some of these people that are suffering from a disease. Some of these people that have something wrong with the way their brain is producing these happy hormones. Yeah. I don't think you can say it's just this one thing like, well, if you just ate clean or if you just went keto or you just ate paleo, then you wouldn't have depression. I don't think that's it at all, but certainly that's a factor. It certainly could be a factor for sure. Being in nature is a factor. And unpacking trauma, Gabramates says at the heart of all fucking addiction is some form of trauma. Yeah. I'm sure. Completely makes sense. His theories on that are fascinating. I never thought about it that way. That some form of trauma during your developmental stage has led you to seek out this weird, crazy feeling and experience. Have you known many people that have had serious addictions like meth or...? Oh yeah. Yeah. Without name and names, people very close to me, family members, have been addicted to meth. Just a cousin to pills. I've been going to AA, not for me, for a family member since I was three years old. So I've seen that. What if... No, no. Is that trauma based? Is everything? Because pills, don't pills just kind of get everybody? Yeah, pills can get everybody. There's no doubt about that. Unless you wean yourself off. Yeah, there was some trauma there. In all of those circumstances. And I'm not saying pills can fucking grab you. There's no doubt. But certainly with the meth and the alcohol, which was other things, no doubt there was trauma there. Yeah, I've known quite a few people that got fucked up on pills after operations or injuries or stuff like that. But I know quite a few of them that kicked it. That just realized it was happening. When whoa, like Shabs talked about it quite a bit. When he fought Crocop, his nose was destroyed. So he had to rebuild his nose and he started taking pain pills. And he said after a while he's just taking them every day just because he just wanted to take them. And then his friends came over and cleaned out his medicine cabinet and went cut the shit dude. Four months later you're still taking these things all day long. You can't do that anymore. And he's like whoa. He said he almost didn't even realize he was doing it. Just kind of caught a hold of him. Yeah, shit becomes habit. Especially when it's that euphoric.