Depression is a trending tag

[dipole]

That's somewhat depressing...

 

[Evo]

LOL. It seems a bot was created that found any thread going back years that contained the word was tagged "depression". Most of the threads are scientific. Like measuring a depression in a substance. Not mental depression.

 

[dipole]

Well that's reassuring. However, I would not be surprised of there was a statistically significant higher occurrence of depression among people who study the Sciences. I think that it's fair to say having the intellectual abilities to do science at a high level (graduate degree and beyond) puts you in a fairly small group of people compared with the rest of society. Perhaps there's a certain kind of loneliness that comes with that.

I know of some great Physicists who at times in (or throughout) their life suffered serious depression.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well that's reassuring. However, I would not be surprised of there was a statistically significant higher occurrence of depression among people who study the Sciences.

It's not easy to get data for this but in the US data suggests that sciences have the lowest rates of depression whilst personal care (i.e. nurses) have the highest:

Depression among adults employed full-time, by occupational category
http://www.samhsa.gov/data/2k7/depression/occupation.htm

 

[JorisL]

It's not easy to get data for this but in the US data suggests that sciences have the lowest rates of depression whilst personal care (i.e. nurses) have the highest:

For scientists active in (full-time) research I would expect the rate to be low.
Even though at times a scientist might lose interest, I'd guess they find a new interesting idea/approach to something and be 'rejuvenated'.
I believe it is a passion rather than a job for most if not all scientists. (maybe a tad optimistic)
At least that's what happens for me (not professionally active, a mere student).

In personal care you get a lot of bad/tough situations, I suppose this would impact them. Mostly since (some) empathy is an essential part of the job even though they should leave that stuff at work, in a perfect world.

That's just a quick breakdown of how I would motivate such statistics.

 

[phinds]

Purely anecdotally, I have noticed from keeping up with current events over a period of 50+ years that depression seems MUCH more common in artists (painters, musicians, etc) than in scientists.

 

[Medicol]

My life would never be the same if I was working one job.
All the jobs I would want to do were like special ecstasies that got me excited all the time. I never felt depressed.
But the downside was I had to lose a great deal of my grey matter. I hope I would be remembered by some people, I don't need many.

 

[dipole]

I personally don't see the passion side to science much. Most of the professors I've worked with are driven by competition, pressure to get funding and the desire to maximize their publication/citation count. I guess that's a passion in its self, but not the kind I think some of you refer to. Although they seem to be happy people.

 

[Medicol]

I don't know if it is best to stay passionless to be happy, but I feel happy myself. I don't have big goals to do big businesses, which as people might say is why I may get lost. And I don't have patience, which they also claim as the main factor to measure one's endurance to success. I think twice about what I really want to do in life and realize I actually have no fixed plans in mind and how awkward I feel about myself after I have to lie to people about my imaginary goals every time they ask me for my future intention. You know, I am kind of sincere. At least I think so about myself.
I don't know how sad I will become if I will not be able to make any success during the rest of my life from now on but I can be pretty sure I don't want to get depressed by losses of anyone or anything I love.