In addition to finding that depression does not spread through friends, healthy moods do spread and were shown to cut the probability of developing depression in half and double the probability of recovering from depression in a 6- to 12-month period.
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New research suggests that having joyful friends could combat depression, HealthDay reported.
A new study, which was led by the researchers from the University of Warwick has found that if you have a friend that is depressed, it does not affect your mental health. In the context of depression, this is a very large impact.
A happy healthy mood has been found to be contagious in social circles and can even help cure depression according to new research carried out by the University of Warwick and Manchester.
Griffiths, who is the head of social science and systems in health at Warwick’s Medical School, used data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to look at more than 2,000 adolescents going to various high schools in the United States. “In particular they suggest the hypothesis that encouraging friendship networks between adolescents could reduce both the incidence and prevalence of depression among teenagers”. And adolescents with 10 healthy friends have more than double the probability of recovering from depressive symptoms.
“Our study is slightly different as it looks at the effect of being friends with people on whether you are likely to develop or recover from being depressed”. They found that a positive mood seems to spread through groups of teens, but having depressed friends doesn’t increase a teen’s risk of depression. We also know that social support is important for recovery from depression, for example having people to talk to.
Depressed people can’t “pass on” their depression to others, but happy people can ‘pass on’ their happiness to others – including those that are depressed.
The results suggest that in head-to-head comparison, friendship would “massively outperform” treatments for depression, such as counselling and drugs, the Royal Society journal Proceedings B reports.
Importantly, depressed friends didn’t counter the effect. Understanding the social processes that drive depression, the researchers write, is key to figuring out how to treat and prevent it. “It might be that we could significantly reduce the burden of depression through cheap, low-risk social interventions”.
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House further said that as a society, if people enable friendships to develop among adolescents, each adolescent was more likely to have enough friends with healthy mood to have a protective effect.
