My Top Three Strategies for Kicking Depression’s Butt
I’ve dealt with depression for most of my life, which is odd because I also have a happy-go-lucky personality. I’m not sure how that all fits together in my little body/mind, but that’s how it works with me. So it’s pretty apparent when I’m dipping down into melancholy doldrums.
My No. 1 strategy for managing my depression came from a movie I saw in December 2004. I had been very low for a long time, what I refer to as my mid-life crisis: six months of almost complete sadness.
It started in the summer of 2004 … I decided to leave the church I was attending—our lead pastor was leaving, and the guy replacing him was legalistic instead of inspirational. I had been fairly involved in the church’s music and had many friends there, so leaving was hard. And I never did find another church to attend, so it definitely left a big hole in my life.
That summer, my boss, whom I liked a lot, left the company to start his own business — another loss. Then my boyfriend broke up with me — devastating! And my parents were becoming senile — when I called to talk with them at Thanksgiving, they didn’t even remember that I had visited them in September. After absorbing several emotional blows over the summer and fall, my parents’ amnesia made me feel almost invisible.
On top of all that, I was about to turn 50 in January, a milestone I was decidedly not looking forward to. I was really getting old, and I hadn’t accomplished anything “big” in my life.
I cried almost every day for those six months. I just couldn’t shake off the sadness, and it seemed to grow heavier every day.
One day, right after Christmas, I went to a movie called “What the Bleep Do We Know?” I’m not here to promote that movie. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it. But there was one part in it that got my attention regarding neuropeptides and receptors on our cells, and chemicals that are linked to, or created by, our emotions.
As I walked out of the movie that evening, I came away understanding that the sad thoughts I was feeling all day every day were a matter of chemicals and receptors in my brain. And those chemical processes could be changed by intentionally interrupting them.
Once I understood that new patterns, new receptors, could be formed in my brain, I knew there was hope for me. I could put in some effort to intentionally think better thoughts, and in so doing, chemicals related to happier emotions would follow, leading to a chain of reactions and processes that would naturally lead to more thoughts and emotions of a similar nature. I knew there would be a snowball effect if I just started the process.
So that’s what I did. I walked around saying things like, “The sky looks nice today.” “My coffee tastes good this morning.” “I feel OK right now.”
I guess you could basically call it mindfulness training. I did it whenever I thought of it. Over time, I knew that I would begin to feel better and that it would be easier and easier to tap into those happier emotions if I stuck with it for a little while.
It worked! I did start to feel better, and it happened fairly quickly.
My second strategy involves a bit of long-term trust: There’s evidence that shows that being positive is helpful in virtually every aspect of life.
A paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science found that a positive attitude can protect against poor health later in life and can help with stress, pain and illness. Another study, published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, found that happy people tend to live longer and experience better health than their unhappy peers. And a review published in the December 2005 issue of Psychological Bulletin examined studies of more than 275,000 people and found that the happiest people said they owed their success, at least in part, to their optimism and positive outlook.
So the efforts you put into noticing what’s OK in this moment are definitely worthwhile.
Also, of course, being positive adds more joy to your life.
It makes you a more pleasant person to be with, so you might make friends more easily.
You find you actually have more energy, enthusiasm and curiosity, making life more enjoyable.
Having a positive attitude increases your confidence in what you can accomplish and brings an expectation of a brighter future.
It helps with motivation when doing tasks, which may also motivate others. When you have a positive attitude, you’re likely to see past obstacles and focus on solutions rather than just complain about the hurdles.
And the third strategy is this: Give yourself a break. It’s OK if you’re having a hard time. It’s OK if you’re not rich and famous by now. It’s OK if you’re not a huge success. It’s enough that you make a contribution to the world.
Those are my top three strategies for kicking depression’s butt. I have many more — having to do with diet and exercise, alone time, plenty of sleep, and lots of other things. But these three strategies can really help you start pulling yourself up out of the gloom and gain a steady outlook.
This is not a cure for depression. You will likely still have down days. But these tools can help lift you up again and help you have a more hopeful perspective even while you’re down.
Here they are once more, in brief:
- Moments: Notice what’s OK, maybe even pleasant, in this moment.
- Trust in positivity: Realize that being positive is helpful in virtually every aspect of life, so your efforts here are truly worthwhile.
- Relax. Give yourself a break. Get off your back. You’re OK.