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. 

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.

When you feel like you have to prove yourself to someone, or in general, do the opposite of what isn’t working.

• If you are more upset with the feeling itself but then you don’t actually work to prove yourself, go ahead and try to prove yourself. Give yourself credit for trying.
• If you spend most of your time actively trying to prove yourself, stop trying so hard. Tell yourself you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone.
• If you don’t know why you feel the need to prove yourself, apply some thought and identify some factors that lead to this feeling.

Have you ever noticed times when someone tells you something dramatic or even outrageous, and then pauses . . . as if you’re supposed to respond a certain way? Have you ever caught yourself saying something and waiting for the big reaction (after they have read your mind)?

Problem is, unless you know someone really well including the mood the person is in at the time, you are assuming the person will react only one way. That’s what I call a poor use of speaking for effect.

Some ways you can tell another person is speaking poorly for effect are when you notice yourself thinking, “Where is this going?”, or “And the point is what?”, or there’s just an unpleasant silence where you look blankly at each other.

If you want a certain reaction, prepare the other person by saying something like, “I want to know if you feel the same way I do on this one . . .” and then say what you’re going to say. That will at least let them know you’re looking for them to share their thoughts/feelings, instead of wondering what your point is.

The popular saying is that “curiosity killed the cat”. But in humans curiosity can serve us well. When a person feels paranoia that others are watching or out to get him/her, that feeling tends to build on it’s own fear/anxiety. In order to counteract paranoia, I suggest finding a way to be curious about other people.

A person who is curious is not trapped. Mentally, there is an emphasis is on observing and learning, and that takes the place of paranoia. In other words, it is difficult to feel genuinely curious and paranoid at the same time.

So if I feel paranoid at the grocery store that everyone is looking at me, I could observe other people and ask myself such questions as, “Does their clothing match?”, “How old are that person’s shoes?”, or whether or not I think that person owns a pet, and what kind of pet I could picture them owning.  If successful, my thought processes start to function with some logic based on observable reality.

If the curiosity angle isn’t working you can always try telling yourself, “They’re looking at me. So what? Some people are just nosy.”