I’ve been diagnosed with major depression disorder since 2015. Before I sought care, I used to allow myself to perform my mindless, default behaviors, especially avoidant behaviors – things like staying in bed for days at a time, canceling social plans last minute. I lost many of my social connections: people gave up on me, stopped asking me to participating in things. Avoidance is a killing blow to one’s friendships, to work life, to one’s value system.
Eventually, things got so bad, I was on the verge of suicide; I sought out care at the VA, and was matched up with a therapist who specializes in depression and anxiety care. Through therapy, I learned several coping strategies to help manage my depression and anxiety:
Body Scan
In this exercise, you sit with your hands resting on your lap or wherever is comfortable and close your eyes. Take a few breaths, then as you keep breathing, put your awareness in your feet. Notice how your feet feel, tension, discomfort, or pain? Don’t try to change or “fix” how you feel, just notice and acknowledge what you feel. Move your awareness up into your calves, and notice. Continue noticing and acknowledging the feelings and sensations in your body. The point of this exercise is to bring you into the present moment, to connect your mind and body.
Change Your Language
It’s commonplace for people to use being verbs to describe their emotions: I’m depressed, I’m angry, i am hungry, etc. instead of using “I am” language, instead say “I have” or “I am feeling” hungry, angry, lonely, tired, whatever you are feeling. The purpose of this exercise is twofold: to recognize that you are not your emotions, you have emotions and thoughts, and they come and go like the water flowing down a river. Secondly, that separation of you from your emotions gives you a little room to manage your decision-making process. Which brings me to the next behavior
Define your values
This takes time and is an ongoing process. Determine what is important to you, what kind of person you want to be. Commit yourself to acting in accordance to your values.
Notice, acknowledge, test, take action
.This behavior builds on the first two. You’re taking the awareness of your body’s sensations and descriptive language and using this framework to decide how to respond..
Notice
Pay attention to your body; it signals to you often before your brain has registered the emotion. Your solar plexus gets tight or constricted or breathing increases pace, or other signals which can indicate a feeling to process.
Acknowledge
Accept that you are feeling depressed or anxious instead of being on autopilot. This is important to
Test Truth
Ask ‘ yourself what is the emotion signaling? Is this an issue in the present moment, or a past remembrance of earlier trauma. This helps you to
Take Action
Now that you know what the feeling is signaling, you decide how to respond. We have a couple of possible r,esponses we could make: .
- We can decide to listen to the emotion and take an action –
- call a friend,
- take a walk,
- go to the gym,
- whatever you need to do to satisfy the emotional need;
- Perform an avoidance behavior, sometimes we need to be alone, and this is a valid response;
- or, and probably most important, we can do nothing with that feeling, just let it move through your body and make space for your next thought and feeling.
Most feelings do not need to be acted upon. But when we do act, we do so based upon our values
Healthy Diet
Proper nutrition is crucial to maintaining brain health and function. If you need nutrition advice, a registered dietitian is a subject matter expert using evidence-based information to provide the most current recommendations for you.
Enough Rest
our brain needs sleep to assimilate the activities of the day, reindex, and reset. Sleep is like doing CTRL-ALT-DELETE on your brain. Read more about sleep hygiene here.
- Daily Routine
- Exercise
- Take your meds
- Cultivate a Sense of Awe – the feeling of awe: moments when we are confronted with the vastness of the world, and our smallness in it, brings many healthy responses: increases social connections, reduces depression and anxiety, calms the body and mind, brings more peacefulness. Examples of seeking awe include
- Looking at the sky – this is one of the best means of cultivating awe. Looking up instead of down has beneficial emotional effects.
- Look at the routine things you normally ignore – your neighbor’s beautiful garden; bees gathering pollen; a father and child playing catch. All of these things demonstrate the beauty and complexity and therefore largeness of the world.
- Stay in the present moment – this is the most powerful thing you can do to overcome your feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness. Being present will engender the kinds of habits
These are some of the things I do. It’s a lifelong effort and practice, and I don’t always succeed, but the more I try, the better get at them.
You can do it, thou art enough.
