The Evolutionary Psychology Of Anxiety & Depression - Ed Hagen - #632

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Ed Hagen. He's an evolutionary anthropologist, professor at Washington State University, a researcher and an author. Low mood, depression and anxiety are states we will all become familiar with at some point in our lives. But why did evolution create a creature that is able to contemplate so much complexity that sometimes it suffers psychologically? Why are we wired to feel this way? And how are we able to pull ourselves out? Expect to learn the evolutionary reason why humans get depressed, how postpartum depression is adaptive, why being strong can lower your chances of low mood, how evolutionary theory can improve all of medicine, why women are so much more depressed on average than men, why humans are even capable of suicide and much more. For the people who enjoyed the Randy Nessie episode about evolutionary psychiatry a couple of months ago, this is a great primer as well. It's really lovely to look at mental states that we are all very familiar with through an evolutionary lens. Why are they here? Why do we feel the things that we do? How are they useful? How were they adaptive? And how are they mismatched with our modern world? I really find this stuff fascinating and I hope that you take tons away from today. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Whoop. Whoop helps individuals to unlock their inner potential by providing personalized feedback around your lifestyle, training, sleep and recovery. You can only manage what you measure. Whoop helps you to understand the decisions that you have to make today so that you can be the best version of yourself tomorrow. It is more than just a tracker. It is a digital coach that helps you to understand not just what you've done, but what you need to do. It's the only, like my barrier for new things in my life is incredibly high. It takes an awful lot. And I've stuck with this for four and a half, probably five years now. I'm a massive, massive fan. Also, you can join for free, pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 4 strap, plus you get your first month for free and there's a 30 day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for free, try it for free. And if you do not like it after 29 days, they will give you your money back. Head to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom.
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