The Mental Emotional Health Blog

Depression, depending on how severe it affects a person, can make just about everything tough. Simple or routine activities may seem huge or impossible. That’s one way depression nails a person’s motivation. Fatigue is often at play too.

Depressive symptoms rarely go away quickly; it is almost always gradual. During the low times, it is tough to want to get outside, go for walks, or be active physically. Some obviously still work at their jobs, but I am talking about healthy activities outside of work. Since depression typically involves a gradual recovery, the benefits of being active are delayed. That means if you go for a 20 minute walk every day for a week, you may not feel any increased motivation or benefit to your moods for maybe another week or two.

This delayed benefit is one of the main reasons why it is so important to actively maintain your health when you don’t feel like it. Depressive thoughts will tell you things like, “Even though I walked yesterday, it didn’t help“, or even “Nothing is helping, so there’s no use trying“. Try to remember that your thought-patterns themselves are infected by depression as much as the rest of you.

Keep these points in mind:

• You will feel tired and unmotivated, and you will think it will continue that way. Remember your brain is affected by depressive symptoms too.
• Regular, healthy nutrition is like medicine that can give your body and mind the strength needed to fight the depression directly, and allow you to have enough energy to stay somewhat active.
• Drink an appropriate amount of water daily. Dehydration is never good, but during a depressive time it’ll rob you of even more energy.
• Avoid alcohol. Alcoholic beverages will probably affect your mood for a short time, maybe even positively. But they will also keep you in a depressive state for days afterward, or make your depression more severe. While you are under the influence of alcohol and other substances your judgment is affected, and if you have had any suicidal thoughts or urges you are risking your life.
• Talk to a health provider, whether it’s a doctor, therapist, psychiatrist, nurse, physician’s assistant, chiropractor, school counselor, psychologist, or social worker. These people can remind you that you can get through depressive states, and help you to monitor yourself. They may also prescribe a medication that might help your system fight depression (anti-depressant).
• Maintain your hygiene daily; it helps.
• Limit your caffeine intake, since caffeine can negatively affect your ability to sleep and your quality of sleep.
• Your depression is not you. Depression is a condition that is affecting you on a deep personal level.

 Don’t give up hope. Even if you feel unmotivated, do something healthy every day. 

Who are you? That’s a simple enough answer, because you can just say your name. But if you are asked to define yourself, that can be difficult.

Some answers to the self-definition answer could be:

1. One or a few of your roles in life (”I’m a parent”, “I’m a teacher”, “I’m a golfer”, etc.)
2. A unique quality or accomplishment (”I am the world record holder for eating a family-sized box of Frosted Flakes in  35.5 seconds.”)
3. Character descriptions (”I’m easy-going, sincere, and have a silly sense of humor.”)
4. “I’m not sure”, or “I don’t know who I am.”

By the way, I don’t even know if someone can eat Frosted Flakes that quickly, and I hope no one ever gets inspired to try. No one would want to be around a person with the resulting sugar rush anyway.

I tend to prefer defining myself with roles and descriptions, which are numbers 1 and 3 from above. But there’s one other way I didn’t mention that is my favorite.

Metaphors, or word-pictures, are powerful and can help define someone in a deeper and sometimes more accurate way. If a person says, “I’m a teacher”, that can give some clues about the person and his/her qualities. But if a person says, “I’m a teacher who is like a drill instructor”, that will provide not only clues but probably some sort of emotion.

If you have never defined yourself with metaphor, analogy, or some sort of word-picture, I invite you to try. Some word-pictures you try won’t seem to fit exactly right, but with practice you can both define yourself and empower yourself. Many of my readers get an idea of who I am from my other posts. But to provide an example as I end today’s entry, I’ll describe myself this way:

I am like a river. I can babble on the surface while I am quiet underneath. I may be quiet on the surface, but flow with constant strength underneath. I can wear down any obstacle, or can move around it if needed. I can blend in with others, but I keep my own current. My Source is not of my making. I merely run the course where the Source placed me. 

Feeling overwhelmed is rough. Your emotions cloud your rational thinking, decision-making and problem-solving skills. Your energy tends to drop and fatigue can set in, or energy remains but is more restless and unfocused. You can be exhausted but have trouble sleeping. On a deeper level you may doubt yourself, which affects everything.

There are times that one part of your life that is overwhelming, whether it’s a valued relationship, parenting, school, a full daily schedule, work, dealing with a co-worker or boss, finances, grieving a loss, being a caregiver, or coping with memories. But many times, several or all of the above may happen at once or within a short amount of time.

There is always hope, and there are some phrases that are cliche but still provide comfort and direction:

• “One day at a time” - You can adjust this to one hour or even one minute at a time if you need to.
• “No one is an island.” - The cliche uses “man”, but the point is that you don’t have to do everything by yourself. Allow or ask someone to help you when you need it.
• “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” - Projects and responsibilities take time, and they don’t always fit into neat, exact time-frames. Don’t blindly expect them to.
• “Just do it.” - Thank you, Nike.

Other ideas for what to do when you’re overwhelmed:

• Take care of yourself. If you do, you will have more energy, more focus, and more patience to get through difficult times.
• Connect with your spirituality. There is strength in faith when you feel like you have little or none yourself. And it’s interesting how that spiritual strength, even if it comes from outside of you, often seems to become your own strength.
• Prioritize what you need to do. Make a list of essential things to do that day, no more than 7. These are 7 things you absolutely need to finish, start, or at least work on. If you can check all those items off the list then #8 is to make another list, taking into account your frame of mind, energy level, and time left in the day before getting decent rest for tomorrow. Another great thing about lists is you don’t have to use your overwhelmed mind to remember details, which often wears you out even more.
• Break things up into pieces, which is easier than tackling something big all at once.
• Change your perspective whether it’s reading a book, listening to music, watching something humorous, talking to someone, seeing your therapist, physician, or health-care provider, attending a martial arts or exercise class, going for a walk or jog, or meditating.
• Pick a direction. People frequently lose their personal sense of direction when they are overwhelmed. If there are things you need to accomplish, get started somewhere.
• Remember to eat and stay hydrated. Your mind and body need fuel for energy, and if you aren’t eating, are eating poorly, or are dehydrated, you are allowing the overwhelming feelings a good opportunity to stay around.

I’ll go back to one of the cliches above in closing: “No one is an island”. Ask for help. Everyone is busy, but overwhelmed is not a place you want to be, so allow someone to support you.

  

Distractions are bad when they prevent you from concentrating on or doing what you need to.

Distractions are good when they help you manage or decrease anger, worry, or feeling down.

Accepting compliments is essential to healthy self-esteem. Believing compliments is also important, but that won’t happen anyway if you’re not even accepting them. Here are some simple things to remember:

1. Say “Thank you”, or “thanks”, or “I appreciate that”.
2. If you know your self-esteem is low, you don’t have to worry about an overabundance of pride, so don’t minimize or argue with the person giving the compliment. Avoid saying things like, “Not really”, “No big deal”, “I don’t see it that way”, or “You’re just saying that”.
3. Do not tell yourself things like, “They just don’t know me.” Compliments are often behavior-based or fact-based, such as “Nice job on the project”, or “I like your shoes”. So again, don’t argue with the compliment internally.

If you want to start believing compliments, after you say “thank you”, ask yourself, “What if you are right?” Honestly consider it being at least possible.