The old saying nice guys finish last could also be applied to mental heatlh as well. As Reader’s Digest and Nature Human Behavior report, people that are nicer may show signs of depression more than people who are not nice. (Or as Reader’s Digest defines them, “people who tend to be selfish and egotistical.”)
*A man named Dr. Masahiko Haruno ran personality tests on about 350 people to see if they were “pro social” or more “individualist,” meaning people that are more self-centered. MRIs were run on both groups of people to see how their brains would react to different things, and with both groups of people, the brain patterns were indeed much different.
*As Reader’s Digest reports, researchers have learned that nicer people can suffer more from depression because they “are more likely to experience extreme empathy, guilt, and stress. And this emotional sensitivity is wired into the deepest and most automatic regions of the brain – places that are easy triggers for depression.”
*Nobody’s saying you shouldn’t be nice to people or not try to be a nicer person, your brain can be prone to depression no matter what, but it indeed makes sense that nicer people can be more prone to it. There are of course a number of ways to combat depression, especially through therapy and the right medication, and thankfully you don’t have to give up being nice to overcome it either.
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