{"id":11957,"date":"2022-08-28T08:31:46","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T08:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/deppehjernen-by-anders-hansen-reviews-and-recommendations\/"},"modified":"2022-08-28T08:31:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T08:31:47","slug":"deppehjernen-by-anders-hansen-reviews-and-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/deppehjernen-by-anders-hansen-reviews-and-recommendations\/","title":{"rendered":"“Deppehjernen” by Anders Hansen – Reviews and recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anders Hansen has built a career on delivering what sounds like a fairly simple message: Exercise is good for you. Not only for the body, but also for the soul, for your mental health and well-being. Hansen works as a senior physician in psychiatry and can be described as a Swedish Peder Kj\u00f8s, with his own TV series and books that have been sold to twenty countries. This year’s book is called “Deppehjernen”, and deals with the interesting phenomenon that there is still sin against people. We can still feel depressed, despite the fact that materially we have never been better off. As Anders Hansen puts it: To explain this, Hansen goes to evolution and biology. He draws on much of what modern brain research has taught us about the way the brain and body work. The central message is: The reason you don’t always feel good is that you’re simply not meant to. If this is any consolation, it is of the rough kind. The popular psychological meme Hansen places itself within an international movement within psychology and psychiatry where biology and evolution have once again become acceptable explanatory models. Here, it is serotonin, dopamine and cortisol rather than traumatic childhood experiences and Oedipal complexes that are talked about. So why aren’t we permanently happy? Among other things, because there is no automaticity in the fact that it is the harmonious and happy who pass on their genes: To illustrate this, Hansen refers to what has almost become a meme within evolutionary psychology: the threatening lion in the grass on the savannah. An example of how it was not always the most calm, harmonious and relaxed of our ancestors who were given the opportunity to pass on their genes. A certain restlessness was useful for survival. Depression against infection He then modifies the image with the lion in the grass by pointing out that the biggest threat to our ancestors was not predators after all – but microbes and parasites. This is where depression comes in, which in this mindset can be seen as a natural biological defense against stress and infections. When the body is exposed to an infection, it is necessary to withdraw, go mentally into a cave. This can be a rational strategy, if it is only temporary. In this sense, depression and anxiety and other mental disorders are not “faults” or dysfunctions with us, it is the body that functions as it should, only in the most active layer. Hansen compares this to a fire alarm system that is too sensitive and warns even when there is no fire. Which is obviously troublesome, but much better than not having a fire alarm at all. I would not recommend dosing from “Deppehjernen” or other of Hansen’s books for a person in severe depression, let alone in the middle of a panic attack (“It’s a real shame you haven’t jogged more”!). Nevertheless, there is much to be gained here for anyone who wants to understand more of the wanderings of the mind, both their own and those of others. Emphasizing the importance of biology can actually relieve people with mental health problems of much of the guilt that can come with it, as this is not a ‘fault’ on your part – it’s just the body’s and brain’s natural reactions running amok. Use your head, use your body A widespread misunderstanding about genes and mental health is that we are determined by our DNA, a view Hansen warns against. Genes are not destiny! Even if you have genes that predispose to depression or other psychological problems, you can create the right conditions to prevent the problems from developing. At the same time, it is obviously pointless to make people responsible for their own mental health problems. Exercise is also not a panacea that can fix everything, medication and talk therapy are still necessary when a serious mental illness has first developed. Hansen refers to extensive studies and modern research on genetics and brain morphology. But the advice he gives is not far from folk wisdom and common sense. The idea that prevention is better than cure is convincing. And nothing is better than if the best protection against both mental and physical ailments is the same, namely regular sessions of physical activity. Anders Hansen hits the mental nail right on the head. news reviews Photo: Bonnier Title: “Deppehjernen” Author: Anders Hansen Original title: “Depphj\u00e4rnan” Genre: Nonfiction Translator: Kristin Valla Publisher: Bonnier Number of pages: 214 Hi! My name is Ola Hegdal, and I read and review books for news. Preferably crime and suspense literature, or non-fiction. Feel free to read my review of “The Anomaly” by Herv\u00e9 Le Tellier, “You are a farmer” by Kristin Auestad Danielsen or “The Night Runner” by Karin Fossum.
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Anders Hansen has built a career on delivering what sounds like a fairly simple message: Exercise is good for you. Not only for the body, but also for the soul, for your mental health and well-being. Hansen works as a senior physician in psychiatry and can be described as a Swedish Peder Kj\u00f8s, with his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3361,6640,6241,225,224],"class_list":["post-11957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-anders","tag-deppehjernen","tag-hansen","tag-recommendations","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}