Learned Helplessness
According to Oxford Languages, learned helplessness in psychiatry “is a condition in which a person has a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression.”
In layman’s terms, according to Psychology Today as well as the National Library of Medicine, it is when people stop trying because they don’t see a point in it. They lose a sense of agency or ability to affect positive change.
Perhaps, if you are teacher, you have encountered this dilemma. Teachers are not counselors, psychologists, diagnosticians, or psychiatrists. What does one do when encountering this phenomenon known as learned helplessness? One or two teachers I have heard about went so far as to go to students’ homes and found a place in students’ families and was able to create some kind of positive change that way. There are a lot of obvious potential problems with going that route, but what it speaks to is the generational depth and outside influences students are contending with. (I’ll try to remember to find some of these amazing stories for later.. was probably on This American Life or some other PBS podcast or website.)
Of course, there is good news. There are many ways a person can regain their sense of agency including diet. When I was listening to the Huberman Lab podcast while walking the dogs today around minute 56.55 (on Spotify), he talks about a double blind and placebo controlled study they found a model in an animal study where if they adjusted the Omega-3 and Omega-6 dosages by increasing the Omega-3’s the rats swam longer in an effort to save their lives and this was tested on humans also in a different sort of simulation (mind you, my understanding is the rats were pulled out before drawing, but after giving up).
If you read my literature review, one real connection you may have seen is that the brain is primarily made of what is essentially Omegas 3 and 6. So it may be no wonder that EPA, fish oils, and plant-based sources of Omegas 3 and 6 can cause a sense of depression and hopelessness or perhaps a general lack of ambition or drive and when those essential fatty acids are increased, our feeling of well being and drive are also increased. (See here for more on the therapeutic effects of these fatty acids on major depression as referenced in the podcast.)
