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Depression, or major depressive disorder, is a mental health condition marked by an extended sense of sadness and despair that affects how a person thinks, feels and functions. The conventional premise behind depression is that it is caused by a depletion of the neurochemical serotonin in the brain. Not everyone experiences depression in the same way, with about five percent of the population expressing only a couple of symptoms for a few weeks or months, while another four percent will have chronic, full-blown major depressive episodes that can come and go for years.

Regardless of the direction of cause and effect, standard treatment for depression typically involves boosting serotonin levels in the brain, preventing your neurons from taking the chemical back up into the cell after its release, meaning that there is more of it floating around in your synapses for longer. Most likely, depression is caused by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. We have learned that all of these treatments are at least as effective as antidepressants in the short term, and some are more effective in the long-term.