Sometimes
your day is extraordinarily stressful for no apparent reason.
Sometimes you just want to cry.
Even having dinner with friends can be hard.
If you have a dinner out during a particularly stressful time, try to eat healthy and not have a sugary dessert. Wait – Yoda would say there is no try. So definitely have a healthy dinner and skip dessert!
(Or have dessert – just don't feel guilty!)
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
THIS is one of the best articles you'll read on depression.
7 Big, Stupid, Destructive Lies Depression Tells You. It begins with “Depression is a beast. It's an illness so insidious that sometimes you don't realize the scope of its life-threatening power until you're drowning under its waves.”
You will recognize some of these lies. Such as “You're not trying hard enough.” You may tell yourself these lies all the time, and not even realize it's the depression talking!
Nature calms anxiety.
HERE is a live webcam of a nesting hummingbird. Take a break and watch for a while!
Scroll down the webcam page for links to other webcams – Hawaii, Alaska and more.
“Severe mental illnesses (SMI), including major depressive
disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, are associated with
increased inflammation. Given diet’s role in modulating
inflammatory processes, excessive calorie-dense, nutrient-deficient
processed food intake may contribute toward the heightened
inflammation observed in SMI.” (Frontiers
in Psychiatry,
May
15, 2019)
Anti-inflammatory foods include:
Do you have hundreds of unread emails haunting you but can't delete them because “what if one of them is important?”
Delete them. If you miss something important, you'll find out sooner or later. And you are much more likely to miss important things if your inbox is perpetually full.
After that liberating act, check your email and clean up your inbox(es) daily. Don't read everything. If it's not important, delete it.
If you've signed up for way too many email lists, unsubscribe as they pop up.
You'll feel so much lighter, so much more together and on top of things. You are so virtuous and organized!
Do you get depressed because you think your life will never get better and there is no way to make changes and you will always be underemployed and in debt and broke and unlovable and pathetic?
PLEASE NOTE:
You think these things because you're depressed.
They are not true.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
"King realized that to solve the problems of human life, especially the deepest problems - like racism, poverty, and war - we have to become, in a sense, abnormal. We have to stop going along; we have to stop accepting what everyone else believes. We have to become maladjusted if we are at all to become creative...
"King knew what it meant to be maladjusted, psychologically, because he was not normal, psychiatrically. He had multiple periods of severe depression, and twice made suicide attempts as a child. Near the end of his life, some of his staff tried to get him into psychiatric treatment, but he refused."
Read the whole article from Psychology Today HERE.
Depression is not a weakness.
CLICK HERE to watch this a short, surprising and inspirational video featuring Dwayne Johnson opening up about one serious bout of depression in his life.
There is so much going on in the world – wars, major earthquakes, political unrest... For years now things have been vibrating at an extraordinarily high frequency and keeping many of us agitated.
It's crucial to regularly still your mind, even for short intervals. But it's difficult when you're on the computer at work and in your “down” time. So much information and stimulation constantly. Just breathing is wonderful!
Simple breathing exercises will do. Breathe deeply. Hold that for a few seconds. Release.
Calm your thoughts.
Repeat for a few minutes.
For over 25 years PsychCentral has been a trove of information. It's a great website!
Here's a short article from 2016: 12 Ways to Shut Off Your Brain Before Bedtime.
Simple but proven tips like to turn off all of your screens 2 hours before bedtime. If only...
“‘What do you think about self-hatred?’ I asked when it was my turn to bring up an issue for discussion. I was eager to get directly to the suffering I had seen so often in my students, a suffering I was familiar with myself. The room went quiet as all of us awaited the answer of the Dalai Lama, revered leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Looking startled, he turned to his translator and asked pointedly in Tibetan again and again for an explanation. Finally, turning back to me, the Dalai Lama tilted his head, his eyes narrowed in confusion. ‘Self-hatred?’ he repeated in English. ‘What is that?’”
- Sharon Salzberg
CLICK HERE for full a list of Sharon Salzberg's philosophical influences.
What is depression?
“Almost everyone feels down from time to time... Clinical depression is different.”
CLICK HERE to watch a short TED Talk video breaking down what depression is.
Get help.
If you just can't shake your depression and it's impacting your life, like causing you to miss work or avoid time with your family, get help!
But you've tried that before and it didn't work? Or you don't need help. Or you're afraid people will judge you. Or…
Drop the excuses and do this for you. Just for you. Get help.
I'm not sure that's the case, but money -- the need for money and the lack of it, the money game -- can get into your head and mess with your self esteem.
If that is an issue for you, just for January, make a budget and stick to it.
For 30 days. You can do anything for 30 days.
On January 1, 2021 I posted "So Long, Farewell... And Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out!"
And then came January 6th. Talk about depressing.
IMHO starting a new year is now rife with trepidation. Yet, I also know we can find joy and hope and love in any situation, and when something truly awful happens I know it will get better.
So let's raise a glass to 2024! I won't say it can't be any worse, because I know better than to tempt fate. But it CAN be spectacular for us personally -- with a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work we can keep depression at bay. Most of the time, anyway.
Love yourself through your struggles, and know that there is always hope. Oh, and one more perhaps pointless platitude:
Happy New Year!