jamesjmessina.com

What do the Depression Blues look like?

Depression comes out in various faces such as:

·        A loss of enthusiasm for your life.

·        A lack of energy for self-growth

·        Confusion as to what is the meaning of life for you

·        A blue funk which is hard to shake off

·        A lack of excitement or appreciation for your accomplishments in life

·        Lethargy, tiredness, and exhaustion

·        An inordinate desire to sleep

·        A flat emotional affect

·        Boredom with your life, family, friends

·        The absence of spontaneity or joie de vivre

·        A lack of desire to keep on keeping on

·        The feeling that the world would be better off if you no longer existed

·        The desire to run away or end it all

·        The feeling that you are only an observer of life and not involved in it

·        A sense of living in slow motion

·        A feeling of energy and drive in the midst of a crises, deadline, or tragedy

·        Tearfulness and weeping for no apparent reason

·        Loneliness, isolation, a lack of being connected to the others in your life

·        Apathy, discontent, and a hollow feeling regarding your day to day existence (Messina, 1999-2008)

When you feel depressed you:

·       Find others unwilling to get involved with you, actually avoiding you

·       Have self-destructive or suicidal thoughts

·       Escape into unhealthy behavior patterns

·       Withdraw from life and facing your problems passively as if you are a victim with no control to change things

·       Escape into watching TV, reading, daydreaming or other obsessive but passive behavior

·       Ignore your creativity, imagination, and ingenuity in facing your problems

·       Procrastinate, feeling overwhelmed by your responsibilities, duties, and tasks

·       Turn off your positive emotional response to life

·       Ignore your personal health with poor personal hygiene, no weight control, and lack of proper exercise

·       Get hooked on the need for the adrenalin rush that comes with drama, crisis, deadlines, or other pressures, even tragedies to get you through life

·       Are anxious, nervous, tense, and uptight for no apparent reason

·       Feel like a loser  (Messina, 1999-2008)

1. Get a good night’s sleep: It is important that you get a good 8 hours of sound sleep each night and this might mean avoid taking naps during the day and staying active so that by the time night comes you are tired enough to sleep all 8 hours.
2. Eat 3 healthy meals a day: Make sure you eat a balanced diet and avoid over use of caffeinated drinks (coffee, coke, pepsi, tea etc), avoid over use of sugary and refined carbohydrate foods to keep from having “sugar blues” and eat fresh vegetables and fruits to keep your digestive system healthy and fully functional.
3. Get away from the TV: Limit the amount of time to sit in front of the TV especially if you spend more than two to three hours a day in front of the TV. Americans watch between four and seven hours of television per day. This has insidious effects on our culture, such as reducing our tolerance for frustration. Watching major problems occur and get resolved in 30 minutes, with two commercial breaks really does lead us to underestimate the complexity of things (Yapko, 1997).
4. Get physically active: Begin to exercise at least 30 minutes a day, even if it is just taking a walk every day. If you are not able to use your legs then use chair based exercises fro at least 30 minutes a day
5. Get involved with others: reach out and develop a social network of positive minded friends and acquaintances with whom you can share your thinking, feelings, and life experiences with. Solid social support filled with people who are positive thinkers is a way to insure that you will have the appropriate people to provide you feedback when you are slipping into a “blues state” and “call you on it” so that you can redirect your depressing ways which you have fallen into with your thinking, feelings and actions.
6. Get control of the way you think:
1. Avoid “Catastrophizing” which makes everything which does not go your way the “worst thing that ever happened to me.”
2. Get rid of “black or white” thinking which is driven on the belief that if things do not go your way then it is “all bad” but if things go your way it is “all good.” But life lies more in the “gray” and you need to accept this reality and not be so dependent on the outcomes to go just the way you want them to go, but rather to accept life the way it is rather than how you want it to be.
3. Stop taking everything that happens as if it is directed “just at me.” You set yourself up by over personalizing everything that happens around you. You cannot control other people, places, things, or conditions and it is best to accept life the way it is rather than the way you want it to be and not take it as a personal affront if things do not go the way you really wanted them to go.
4. Utilize relaxation training, meditation, or visualizations to picture positive ways of thinking about your life so as to make that positive reality become realized in your actual life (Visualizations, Messina, 1999-2008, Relaxation Training, Messina, 1999-2000)
7. Get involved with social activities: Stay active in the social functions which are available in your community. Get out and become a volunteer, join clubs, attend classes or programs, go to a movie, concert, show, or sports event, join in recreational activities etc. The sure fire way to let the “Blues” win is to isolate yourself and not allow yourself to have outlets in which you can get involved in to get our mind off of the “depressing” stuff which could drag you down
8. Get out of yourself and do things which bring you pleasure and enjoyment:
1. Reading uplifting books
2. Journal writing
3. Taking care of a pet
4. Get a massage
5. Listen to your favorite music
6. Doing legacy recording work
7. Being spontaneous and breaking your daily habit or schedule – take risks to have fun
8. Engaging others to jointly “do something new” together which is new for all of you
9. Go sightseeing and share the excitement of what you have seen and experienced when you get back
10. Develop a new hobby which you can engage in at little or no expense
11. Learn a new skill which you have never had learned in the past: e.g.: use of the computer, exploring the internet, text messaging, digital camera, scrap booking, journal writing etc.
9. Get control of your drinking and smoking: People resort to drinking away the blues or smoking away the blues but actually the alcohol is a depressant and contributes to increased depressive feelings. Nicotine just like caffeine will give you only a temporary life and then you will bring you down deeper than you were when you were smoking your way out of it!
10. Get your holiday season expectations under control to avoid “Holiday Blue:” The Holiday Season is measured from mid-October (preparation for Halloween), through November (Thanksgiving and preparation for Christmas, through December (Christmas and New Years), through January (post Christmas clean up or bill paying) and through February until February 14 (Valentine’s Day when everyone is supposed to be in love with you). Get your expectations about the Holidays under control so that you are not disappointed in the outcome of the specific season because you did not “get the happy feelings, personal recognition or appreciation from others for your efforts during the holidays, or family support like the song says: “There is no place like home for the holidays.”