"It's literal. Depressed people see more grey." The sentence isn't a metaphor and it isn't poetic licence - it comes from a neurologist, the head of Spain's Brain Council. And if it sounds exaggerated, that's precisely the point: depression isn't just sadness, it's a change in the very way the brain perceives reality.

Mara Dierssen is describing something many people feel but few can name. "Our mental processes depend on the architecture and connectivity of the brain," she says. The brain's language is electrical and chemical - and when those circuits are disrupted, perception, motivation, emotions, even the experience of colour all shift. The world really does look duller.

The numbers behind this aren't small. Depression fails to respond adequately to existing treatment in about 30 percent of patients. In Spain alone, nearly 4,000 suicides are recorded each year. And the rate among adolescents is rising - partly, experts say, tied to the pressure of social media, which amplifies every insecurity instead of soothing it.

This is where the mechanism that makes depression so insidious lives: it creates cognitive distortions in which negative events get disproportionate attention. The bad is remembered, the good is skipped over. The brain, instead of an ally, becomes a filter that lets through only the dark tones.

But the same science that describes the problem also points to the protection. Quality connections with people, regular physical movement, enough sleep, constant learning, a sense of meaning. None of this is magic, nor a substitute for professional help - but it's no accident that these are exactly the things the Balkan tradition of community, in its better days, offered on its own. The question is how much of it we've let disappear in the name of being in a hurry.