Clinical depression is all-consuming. It affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally, causing body aches and pains, racing thoughts, feelings of being extremely overwhelmed and makes us want to lash out in anger or respond with tears. Depression can cause us to become completely disinterested in the things we once loved to do. We can disassociate from others, even those we love and care about the most. We may stop performing necessary daily functions like caring for our kids, paying the bills, or even eating.
Depression affects such a large number of people that it is, in fact, often stereotyped as something that is commonplace and easy to kick. We often believe we can exercise, change our diet, start making motivational to-do lists or get more sleep to “fix” it. And, while these things are all wonderful and can certainly help us live healthier, more productive lives, in and of themselves, they may not be enough.
So, why are we depressed and what can we do about it?
There are many reasons for this unwelcomed visitor to creep up on us one day and refuse to leave. Depression can be a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, and thus, a result of trauma. It can also be a factor tied to an unhealthy lifestyle, especially if we’re abusing substances, engaging in wrongful or criminal activities, and doing other things that our subconscious is constantly trying to tell us is wrong. Sometimes our internal moral and values keep us depressed so long as we are doing the things that fundamentally go against them.
If depression is a result of an unhealthy lifestyle, yes, the changes above can help. Kicking active addictions will help. However, if we just stop there and don’t do the internal work necessary to fill the void within with “the good stuff” – peace, contentment, love – these changes will only be temporarily helpful. We will inevitably revert back to what we knew best, and the cycle will continue.
We need to work on ourselves from the inside out while eliminating any external factors that are contributing to our depression. This means while we cut out the bad stuff – change our living situation, our job, our custody schedule, our toxic partnership, or whatever else is tangibly flaring up internal negativity – we must also dig deep and work on who we are inside.
One of the best ways to do this is to practice mindfulness – focusing on the present first. While mindfulness stems from Buddhist principles, it can also be found in a twelve-step program’s “one day at a time” which is also echoed in various Christian Biblical passages, most notably Matthew 6:34. In other words, mindfulness is a widespread way of thinking that has proven to help us kick depression, as well as addiction, anxiety, post-traumatic stress order, generalized stress order, and many other negative states of being that we may be experiencing.
There are a variety of techniques that we can practice to easily pull our minds back to the present. One of the most effective is simply choosing to focus our attention on an intricate object in the room we’re in right now – analyzing this for five minutes, every aspect of it. By focusing only on this object, or on a focal point in the room, for this length of time, refusing to allow our minds to wander, we become more intimately aware of how we’re feeling in that very moment – physically, mentally, and emotionally.
We can couple this exercise with a simple breathing technique designed to help us stay focused, inhaling deeply through our nose, holding for a moment, then releasing slowly through our mouths. We can also close our eyes and focus on our present thoughts, but we must focus only on the present and refuse to allow our minds to wander.
If this technique pulls us back to the present, we can then employ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (abbreviated ACT) to move forward more healthily. We would allow ourselves to feel any negative aspects of our present being fully, compartmentalize and separate this self from the rest of us, then allow the rest of us, the true self, to engage our morals and values to determine what we need to do to eliminate our “other” (self-as-context).
Healing naturally is not a one and done practice. As mindfulness suggests, whenever we feel down, we need to bring ourselves back to the present. The present is continual, and we heal one day at a time. However, making a conscious effort to allow for space in our daily lives to employ these principles will eventually bring internal peace, or as Buddhists believe, “heal us from eternal suffering.”