Study Finds Less Screen Time And More Sleep Essential for Preventing Depression

A research team from Western Sydney University reports an analysis of 85,000 people with depression found that having adequate sleep, physical activity, less screen time to strongly impact depression and “associated with less frequency of depressed mood”

The study published in BMC Medicine details the following highlights:

• screen time and also tobacco smoking were associated with higher frequency of depressed mood

• lifestyle factors which were protective of depressed mood were optimal sleep duration and lower screen time

• a better-quality diet was indicated to be protective of depressed mood

• a higher frequency of alcohol consumption was surprisingly associated with reduced frequency of depressed mood. Attention is drawn here to the use of alcohol to self-medicate and could therefore reduce the subjective experience of depressed mood being replaced by effects of alcohol, and noting also consideration of the detrimental effects of alcohol

For further reading click below for the full study published on BMC Medicine:

Multiple lifestyle factors and depressed mood: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the UK Biobank ( N  = 84,860)

There is now evolving data exploring the relationship between depression and various individual lifestyle factors such as diet, physical activity, sleep, alcohol intake, and tobacco smoking. While this data is compelling, there is a paucity of longitudinal research examining how multiple lifestyle factors relate to depressed mood, and how these relations may differ in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and those without a depressive disorder, as 'healthy controls' (HC).