|
The enemies of depression
Wednesday, 15 February 2006
For many of us, being depressed is our default mood - just as being hungry is the default state of our appetite. Just as we have to feed ourselves to satisfy our appetite, there are things we have to do to keep our emotions upbeat. These things are the enemies of depression. Here are some of the main ones.
Doing a lot of varied activity
Depression hates activity. It's mostly when we have time to sit around and think about it that we feel really bad about things. Because of this, we have to distract ourselves from this mood by undertaking a range of activities. Doing exercise, working, studying, being entertained and socializing are all great ways of fighting off gloominess. Of course, relying on only one of these will soon have us feeling miserable again. Keep your goings-on varied to keep depression out of your life.
Looking after our health
How healthy our bodies are has a big effect on how healthy our minds are. If we feel lethargic, in pain, and ill it's difficult to feel upbeat. Eat well and exercise regularly. Avoid drugs, cigarettes and too much alcohol. Try to keep yourself out of overly stressful situations. Look after your health and your outlook on life will almost certainly improve.
Making sure our situation is improving
Feeling as if things are improving gives us optimism. Going backwards leads to depression. Take action to make sure things are getting better for you as much as possible. Do things that will help improve your finances, relationships and health. It's difficult to feel bad when things are getting better.
Spending time with people who have a healthy outlook
Who we spend time with has a big effect on how we look on the world. If your social contacts are interested in death, drugs and melancholy, then it's unlikely you'll feel very good about your own life. Look for friends who are successful and healthy and you too will likely start to develop those traits.
So there they are, my four simple rules for beating depression. Like feeding yourself, it requires effort to maintain an upbeat view of the world. If you stop eating, you'll go hungry and eventually get sick and die. If you stop acting to prevent yourself falling into depression, you'll get morose, get sick and think about ending it all.
Food and positive activity are simple needs that we all have. Trying to "outsmart" or ignore these needs is to fight against nature itself. You will almost certainly lose.
Of course, if you are caught in the depths of depression, the last thing you will feel like doing is taking active steps to free yourself. Like a person weak with hunger, you will find it difficult to do that which will solve your problem.
It will take time, but act to end your gloomy mood, and the rewards will almost certainly be there.
 | Take the initiative in establishing new relationships | | The world is filled with people who are dissatisfied with the state of their relationships. They think they haven't got enough others in their lives, or else they believe the others they have aren't up to scratch. Whether it's friendships that are missing or something more, a lack of satisfactory relationships is a common complaint. |  | Improvement usually requires suffering | | We all want to be better people. We want to be smarter, wiser, stronger and more beautiful. Look at any magazine rack in any supermarket, and you'll see that self-improvement is on a lot of people's minds. |  | My favourite investment books | | I've been getting a few emails recently asking which investment books I would recommend. Obviously there's a vast array of good books out there on this topic and I haven't read them all. |  | Understanding the basis of your emotions | | We are emotional creatures whether we like it or not. There is a popular idea that emotions are irrational and the intellect rational. We are supposed to aim to use our intellect and ignore our emotions, like Mr Spock, or so some would have us believe. |  | A lot of success and failure is compounding | | Why is it that some people get so successful that they just seem to grow in strength every year, while others sink their lives deeper and deeper into the abyss? I think the answer is that much of success and failure is compounding. The good things you did yesterday can be built upon, while the bad things you did have to be dealt with. | | If you work and take risks, it's possible to build a good life for yourself | | When I consider my life at the moment, it's really pretty good. I'm happily married, make plenty of money, and live in my favorite place in the world. For years now, I've been in a position where I can do pretty much whatever I want. It wasn't always that way though. | | How to start a conversation with someone | | Breaking the ice and starting to talk to someone can be very difficult. Someone you've never spoken to before can seem big and scary. Here are some ways of getting people talking that I've figured out. | | Ideas are easy, implementing them is hard | | I've know a lot of intelligent people in my time - some of them highly intelligent. Yet many of them aren't much more successful than average. How come? |  | A neat trick for dealing with anxiety | | When I was younger, I used to get anxious a lot. I think this is partly to do with the fact that being a teenager is just a stressful time, but also because I hadn't learned to deal with anxiety. | | Success is like fishing | | When most people look back on their lives and particularly which parts of them were successful, they’re often surprised at how these successes came about. More often than not, the opportunities we expect to be fantastic turn out to be not worth the time we invest in them; while those we expect to amount to nothing can turn into the greatest of our lives. |
New articles are being added all the time, so make sure you bookmark Paul's Tips and come back.
|
|