Most of us know that healthy habits like a nutritious diet and regular exercise can improve physical health and reduce the risk of chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. A study published September 11 in Nature Mental Health finds these habits have a powerful effect on our minds as well.
Analyzing data from 290,000 participants, researchers discovered that a healthy lifestyle reduced depression risk by 57 percent. “As a society, we often focus on our physical health, but we should spend more time focusing on our mental health and well-being,” says a coauthor of the new study, Barbara Sahakian, DSc, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge in England.
7 Habits for Reducing Depression Risk
Over a nine-year period the researchers followed a total of 287,282 participants from UK Biobank (a large-scale biomedical database and research resource), of whom 12,916 had depression.
During this period, researchers identified seven healthy-lifestyle factors linked with a lower risk of depression:
- Good sleep
- Frequent social connection
- Never smoking
- Regular physical activity
- Not being sedentary
- Limiting alcohol consumption
- A healthy diet
Good sleep, defined as between seven and nine hours a night, made the biggest difference, reducing the risk of depression, including single depressive episodes and treatment-resistant depression, by 22 percent.
Frequent social connection cut the risk of depression by 18 percent and was the most protective factor against recurrent depressive disorder. “I think the importance of social connection comes up over and over again: It’s critically important,” says Srijan Sen, MD, PhD, a professor of depression and neurosciences and the director of the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center at Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor. Dr. Sen was not involved in the new research.
“The early days of the pandemic really highlighted that — we saw a lot of the effects of not having enough social connection or the right kind of social connection,” says Sen.
Never smoking reduced the likelihood of depression by 20 percent. In studies on smoking and depression, it can be difficult for researchers to prove if smoking causes depression or if people with depression are more likely to smoke. The authors of a cross-sectional study published in January 2023 in Frontiers in Public Health concluded that smoking is a behavior that increases the risk of depression, and the higher the smoking frequency and volume, the higher the risk of depression, whereas quitting smoking reduced the risk.
Regular physical activity reduced depression risk by 14 percent. The current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend 150 minutes of physical activity each week.
Not being sedentary (not sitting for prolonged periods of time through the day) reduced the risk of depression by 13 percent.
Limiting alcohol consumption decreased the risk of depression by 11 percent. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting intake to two drinks or less in a day for men and one drink or less for women.
A healthy diet cut depression risk by 6 percent. There’s growing evidence that nutrition can play a role in mental health and that eating more whole foods (like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds) may reduce the risk of depression, according to the American Psychological Association.
Researchers Looked Study Participants’ Lifestyle and Genetic Risk
On the basis of the number of healthy lifestyle habits a person followed, the researchers assigned study participants to one of three groups: unfavorable (0 to 1), intermediate (2 to 4), and favorable (5 or more) lifestyle.
Individuals in the intermediate group were around 41 percent less likely to develop depression than those with 0 or 1 healthy habits, while those in the favorable lifestyle group were 57 percent less likely.
The team then examined the DNA of the participants, assigning each a genetic risk score that was based on the number of genetic variants an individual carried that have a known link to risk of depression. Those with the lowest genetic risk score were 25 percent less likely to develop depression than those with the highest score — a much smaller impact than lifestyle.
Additionally, investigators found that a healthy lifestyle cut the likelihood of depression in everyone, regardless of their genetic risk of depression.
Lifestyle Choices More Powerful Than Genetics in Reducing Depression Risk
Although our DNA — the genetic hand we’ve been dealt — can increase our risk of depression, these findings suggest that healthy behaviors are potentially more important, says Dr. Sahakian. “The key message is that having a healthy lifestyle can have enormous benefits for your mental health and well-being by reducing the risk of depression,” she adds.
Understandably, the field of mental health often focuses on interventions once a person is sick, says Sen. “These findings emphasize the importance of thinking from a public health perspective about the ways we can change our society, how we live, our workplaces, and our schools to reduce the risk of depression. This could be more effective than waiting for people to get sick and then treating them,” he says.
It’s important to note that these lifestyle factors are not a replacement for professional mental health care, says Sen. “But more focus on these factors can reduce the number of people who need to see psychiatrists and therapists and help those who do have depression episodes stay well and avoid relapses,” he says.
These findings also emphasize the importance of promoting healthy habits in children and adolescents both at home and at school, says Sahakian. “As the brain is still in development into late adolescence, a healthy lifestyle is especially important for children and adolescents. We can encourage them to develop good habits in terms of diet, sleep, exercise, social connectedness, and friendships,” she says.
Depression Rates Are Rising Fast
The percentage of U.S. adults who report a depression diagnosis at some point in their lifetime reached 29 percent, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015, according to a 2023 Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. Women and young adults have experienced the greatest increases, with the rate of depression in Black and Hispanic adults rising at about twice the rate of white adults, the poll found.
“There are structural and societal factors that affect people’s ability to access a healthy diet, physical activity, social connectedness, and adequate sleep, many of which are also related to socioeconomic and class status and many of which in some societies (including our own) are related to geography,” says Jane Gagliardi, MD, a psychiatrist who is also board certified in internal medicine at Duke Health in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the study.
The strong influence of lifestyle factors on depression risk suggests that societal interventions to improve access to nutritious food, safe options for physical activity, adequate housing, and enough opportunity to sleep could be powerful in decreasing the incidence of depression, says Dr. Gagliardi.
People Should Focus on the Strategies and Behaviors They Can Control
Gagliardi strives to understand where her patients are coming from, recognizing that not all patients are able to access all the interventions.
“For example, if they have a strong support system but have been isolating themselves because of depression and the social withdrawal that accompanies it, I encourage them to ‘go through the motions’ of previously enjoyable social activities so they can derive that connection and feel less alone,” she says.
Similarly, she recommends eating healthy food and being physically active if a person has access or the ability to do so. “I encourage them to do the best they can and to work on the strategies and behaviors they can control,” she says.