Mental Health and Addiction

Here’s How Sarah Eliminated Depressive Thoughts.

We shouldn’t underestimate the role of fun in our mental health.

Sarah, a senior statistician, dealt with complex numbers and text, constantly observing trends and informing the executives of a private company in the medical field.

She reviewed news, papers, and various written and verbal pieces to make sense of the content for around eight hours daily. She performed both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Most of what she read was disturbing and subconsciously affected her thoughts and emotions.

When Sarah arrived home after work, she got exhausted. Many unwanted thoughts flooded her mind. Nevertheless, she kept watching the news and immersed herself in the recent stories on television, on her iPad, and even in newspapers. Besides subscribing to modern media, she also subscribed to two popular national newsletters and several local ones.

When bedtime arrived, she found herself daydreaming as if participating in the virtual situations she read, listened to, and watched all day long. Information overload has been a problem for her. Her brain was exposed to many mental activities while her body lacked movement.

Understandably, Sarah needed to follow the news as part of her profession. However, many people do it for curiosity. For example, I know some friends and relatives who are addicted to news and world events consuming disturbing content for hours overloading their brains.

One of my family members watches the news at least six times a day. She starts every conversation with opening lines like, “I heard this today”, “This news worried me”, “I am shocked by what I heard today”, “Did you know we are in trouble?” etc.

The classical technology saying informs, “garbage in, garbage out.” Our thoughts are affected by what we ingest into our brains daily. For example, reading, listening to, and watching lousy news daily can trigger anxiety-producing thoughts affecting our emotions. This is because the primitive part of the brain cannot distinguish between perceived and actual threats.

Since Sarah loved dramatic news stories, especially those well narrated by her favorite journalists, she wanted to do a degree in journalism. She enrolled in the program and enjoyed the classes in the first year. Some subjects encouraged her to watch and immerse in current affairs more. Not surprisingly, her depressive thoughts and feelings increased.

This was a blind spot for her until she met her first therapist, who picked up the situation in the first consultation session. The critical issue was overloading her brain, especially with current affairs. The therapist asked Sarah what she did for fun.

Sarah never thought about fun. After a brief pause, she said she watched the news on TV, listened to the reports on the Australian ABC radio, read newspapers and magazines, and watched current affairs daily on YouTube with her iPad. She even regularly checked tweets and posts on Facebook.

The therapist asked, “how about weekends.” Sarah repeated the same things. Her hobbies revolved around consuming information from media in various forms, using her profession as an excuse. The pattern was clear to the therapist. Rather than telling her what to do, the therapist asked Sarah what would give her joy if she did not have to deal with content at work.

After some pause, Sarah said if I were not a statistician and did not have to work full time, I wouldn’t mind listening to music, going to movies, walking around the beach, playing golf, having a dog, and performing ballroom dancing.

When the therapist asked whether she tried any of these activities, her answer was no, except for occasional walks around the beach in the summertime with her friends and listening to Classic FM a few times while driving her car. The last time she played golf was three years ago.

The therapist asked how she felt when she was doing those activities. Sarah’s brief answer was, “great”.

The therapist understood that Sarah did not know her addiction to news and current affairs as her profession hid it. So the therapist created a plan for Sarah, suggesting she schedule at least one of her fun activities, starting with the most enjoyable one.

Sarah chose to listen to classical music. The therapist recommended she schedule at least one hour of listening to her favorite pieces of music, especially when she got back home after work.

This simple act had a significant positive effect on her thoughts and feelings. On the days she listened to the music, she slept better and felt fresh the next day.

Then the therapist asked her to add another fun activity and schedule it. Sarah picked walking around the beach. The sandy beach was only 300 meters away from her home.

Interestingly her favorite neighbor was doing it every evening just before sunset. She joined her neighbor for an hour’s walk after each day. Within a few weeks, she felt terrific. Her depressive thoughts and feelings significantly diminished. The walk around the beach improved her sleep and boosted her mood.

With inspiration and guidance from the therapist, Sarah scheduled several more activities. She joined a golf club close to her home adjacent to the beach.

Gratefully, there was also a ballroom dance center in her suburb. Her neighbor’s dog had six babies and gave one of them to Sarah as a birthday gift. Sarah adored the cute baby dog. She was unaware of her blessings until the therapist prompted her to schedule fun.

Since these activities helped her well-being so much and she did not want to be a journalist, she decided to quit the journalism course and replace it with more fun activities after a year.

She scheduled at least two hours of joyful activities after work and several hours at the weekend. Reducing screen time and reading news did not affect her profession adversely. On the contrary, paradoxically, she became more creative and productive at work.

According to her therapist, interestingly, Sarah did not have clinical depression. She only had depressive thoughts and feelings. Sarah wanted to learn more about depression from her therapist.

She realized that depression was a complex mental health condition affecting millions of people. She understood that having depressive thoughts did not necessarily mean a person had clinical depression. However, constantly having depressive thoughts could be one of the symptoms of depression.

Her therapist mentioned varying hypotheses, theories, perspectives, and anecdotes on depression. Diagnosing depression requires rigorous assessment by qualified healthcare professionals such as psychiatrists.

Treating depression is also complex and varies from person to person and the severity of depression. Some therapists use medication, behavioral therapies, lifestyle changes, or a combination of them.

Sarah did not realize the importance of having fun for our mental health. Fun is a fundamental human need. The human brain is very complex. Even though it is an integrated system, some parts might also conflict.

For example, while some brain parts create neurochemicals to initiate joy, other parts generate anxious thoughts for survival. In my experience, when the body and brain create homeostasis, having joyful thoughts and emotions seems more feasible.

Apart from ingesting fun in Sarah’s life, the therapist also taught her to observe thoughts and emotions to gain valuable clues to what happened in the subconscious mind.

The body and brain create a myriad of chemical and electrical signals to maintain the balance for our survival. Therefore, observing thoughts consciously and mindfully can allow us to live in the moment.

The final part of her therapy was expressing healthier thoughts and emotions rather than suppressing them. Having fun activities allowed her to express her thoughts and feelings in creative and productive ways.

By using behavioral therapy, Sarah managed to reduce the side effects of her thoughts and turn her unpleasant feelings into pleasant ones. Consequently, her self-love and self-compassion reduced her anxiety and increased her confidence.

Sarah improved her mental and physical health by addressing her media addiction with awareness and investing time in fun activities by scheduling them. As a result, her creativity and productivity at work significantly increased.

After a decade, she became the chief statistician in her organization. Since scheduling fun activities made a radical shift in her life, she passed along her knowledge and experience to many other statisticians reporting to her.

Having fun is as important as eating, sleeping, and exercising. However, some of us do not realize the criticality of fun for our well-being.

Various lifestyle factors prevent us from having fun. In Sarah’s case, it was excess information overload using media. Understanding those causes is critical. Like Sarah, I also used fun activities to resolve my mild depression in my younger years.

The takeaway from this story is the importance of scheduling fun for our mental health and well-being. Unless we plan fun activities and deliberately have them at allocated times, we cannot turn having fun into a habit. Our success and happiness depend on healthy habits.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life. If you enjoyed this story, you might check another relevant story titled Stopping Rumination Made Olivia a Triple Champion. It is about the transformation of a friend who dramatically improved her physical and mental health and developed better relationships.

I also documented the experience of a friend with clinical depression.

Here’s How Georgia Defeated Clinical Depression in 10 Steps

Here’s Why Depression Has More to Do with Addictions and Less with Economic Conditions.

Reversing chronic conditions always inspires me. Here are two examples.

Here’s How a Mature-Age Couple Reversed Diabetes and Trimmed Their Bodies with Lifestyle Habits.

After Defeating Arthritis Pain, Shane Lost Visceral Fat and Gained Lean Muscles in Five Steps

If you are a new reader and find this article valuable, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting on my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.

Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers

I write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.

One of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.

To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.

Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorder, and Major Diseases.

I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:

Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, Cod Liver Oil, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.

Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.

I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.

If you enjoy writing and storytelling, you can join Medium, NewsBreak, and Vocal as a creator to find your voice, reach out to a broad audience, and monetize your content.

You may also check my blog posts about my articles and articles of other writers contributing to my publications on Medium. I share them on my website digitalmehmet.com. Here is my professional bio. You can contact me via weblink.

As a writer, blogger, content developer, and reader, you might join Medium, Vocal Media, NewsBreak, Medium Writing Superstars, Writing Paychecks, WordPress, and Thinkers360 with my referral links. These affiliate links will not cost you extra to join the services.

You might join my six publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. 19K+ writers contribute to my publications. You might find more information about my professional background.

If you enjoy reading, you may join Medium with my referral link for limitless access to my stories and other writers.