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How Do You Deal with Depression Around Christmas?
SleepyHappyDoc asks: "Lots of people around the world seem to experience more sadness and depression around the holiday season, than in other times of the year. There could be any number of reasons why this is, but my question is: how do you deal with it? Have you managed to find any coping strategies or activities that make things feel less bleak?"
If you only have mild/seasonal depression, my personal opinion is that chemicals would probably do you more harm than good.
Yes. I should have mentioned that, but I was trying to be brief -- and, to be honest, as a human, it is easier for me to talk about what I had and what I had to deal with in patients when I worked in treatment. In those cases, SAD was never an issue, so, to be honest, sometimes I overlook it.
Studies have shown that living a healthy lifestyle decreases your likeliness of getting depressed even if you are naturally prone to depression.
In general I agree, but there are often uncontrollable factors. If you're trying to be healthy, but have an extreme work situation, that can overwhelm all the other points -- and once that "overwhelming" starts, it can be a very rough downward spiral, leading to not caring to exercise or keep a healthy focus.
One point I've heard, but haven't seen tested, is that it can help to get sunlight around either sunrise or sunset so the body's clock will be reset to the current cycle. I know this works for travellers dealing with jet lag, and I've heard it can help depressed people refocus their cycle, but I have yet to see any proof or talk to someone who tried it with depression in mind.
Sleep patterns are important, but can be disrupted easily and if there is any stress or any other trigger, for someone prone to depression, that can create the downward spiral I mentioned.
Personally, for me, the one big thing that made a difference was when I finally got control of my life, which included getting rid of bitchy girlfriends (or even ones that just treated me poorly), and getting out of jobs where I had little input and starting a business where I actually had control over what happened and there was a direct link to my decisions and work and their effects on my life improving. Now I don't even get sick (unless I work to exhaustion) and don't take any medication other than 2-3 aspirins a year.
But it is still easy for me to remember what depression was like -- the lack of energy, the inability to care about anything, the struggle to get out of bed each day, the emotional and physical pain, the sleeping for up to 16 hours a day, and, especially, and worst of all, the idiots who wanted to blame me and thought all I had to do was "just snap out of it."
BTW, thanks for an insightful post -- especially your last 3 words! It is frustrting to see, in a forum where most people are supposedly well educated, so many post by people that want to "blame the victim" and say things like, "Just stop feeling sorry for yourself."
This will probably get modded way down
I hope it doesn't, but there are a lot of judgemental people here who mod something as troll simply because it's not what they want to hear. I don't consider myself a Christian, but I am a Quaker. I was an athiest and even, at one point, a fundamentalist. Faith can be a very important factor in life. There is also a gulf between faith and science, and both sides often have a poor understanding of the other (just listen to comments in the recent Intelligent Design debate to see how the ID people have no clue about the scientific method). Science describes what can be explained through nature and faith is a way of understand what science cannnot explain. The two should not be entangled or confused, but a focus on one should not, out of ignorance, preclude a focus on the other.
As someone who was deeply depressed, I'm glad that you foudn a way out and added something valuable to your life. It is not the same faith as mine, but that does not make one right and the other wrong. If it works for you, that is great.
But I wouldn't be surprised if many here indicate they don't understand the point of faith.
When your mind is in the algorithm, you will have no time to feel depress. Thats why whenever I feel the blues, I start coding like a mad man.
Actually there is scientific support for this idea. In his book The Pursuit of Happiness, David Myers* cites a correlation between faith and happiness. The bullet-point version from his web site: "For many people, faith provides a support community, a reason to focus beyond self, and a sense of purpose and hope. Study after study finds that actively religious people are happier and that they cope better with crises." He has several articles about happiness online, which make for some interesting reading.
*If you've taken an introductory college Psych class, there's a good chance you used his textbook.
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OK , I do hang out with people , I go out most days outside of work have a game of cards , go bowling , watch a movie etc . I work out (weights and exercise) I am a very social person .. however only when I have my medication . I admit I am not just depressed and suffer from Bipolar Affective disorder (believed to be genetic) so my personal example may not be a good one .
,Depression being one of those things .
Though I have done volunteer counselling to help many many people with a wide array of conditions , sure a few peoples depressions are caused by their lifestyle and a few others are not helped by it . To say that this will help all depression is frankly wrong.
Many people I know who suffer from long term chronic depression do live an active lifestyle and socialise but this is facilitated due to medication and other forms of therapy , the getting out and enjoying yourself is part of being cured not the cure .
The last thing you want to do when horribly depressed is to get out and socialise .
Depression in its many forms are recognised medical conditions , do not confused being depressed with having depression.
Everyone gets depressed it is only natural and for a lot people just getting out and getting on with things will help , however for those with clinical depression or one of the other forms of the illness this is simply not an answer .
Being depressed is not an illness , it is a symptom , it can be a symptom of many many things
The problem is when you can not get rid of the depression and it impairs your life , even if you know what is causing the depression and have resolved the issue the best you can , it is then time to seek medical advice .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The "depression is a chemical imbalance" theory is not as rooted in research as the drug peddlers would like you to beleive.
My own experience: years ago I asked my doctor about SAD. I wasn't even asking her about treatment, just "do you think this is real, or just another trendy diagnosis-of-the-moment?" The first sentance out her mouth was something about Prozac. Thanks, no. (YYMV; I'm not criticizing anyone else's choice here. My own winter blahs weren't that severe that I felt the side-effects worth it.)
A year or so so later, I decided to give St. Johns Wort a try. Took it over the winter, did seem to feel better - even avoided putting on the extra few pounds of weight I usually added over the winter. Weaning off it in the spring was a little trickier than I anticipated, but I'd still rate it a positive. Did it again the next winter. Obviously my own experience is not a controlled study, though there is clinical evidence for its effectiveness in mild cases of depression.
About three years ago this summer, I started receiving acupuncture. When winter rolled around, I asked my acupuncturist about seasonal depression. She gave me a "duh!" look and pointed out that animals are supposed to be less active in the winter. It is not a disease to feel less energetic this time of year! Of course there's "feeling less energetic", and there's "debilitating, crushing, want-to-slit-my-wrists depression". The later is certainly a serious problem requring less subtle intervention, though I'm skeptical of applying the term "disease".
Slowing down and feeling different in the winter means that you haven't become disconnected from the natural world. Chinese medicine teaches that we should live more in harmony with these natural rhythms; indeed, it's much more about these lifestyle elements than about acupuncture, herbs, or bodywork. I've been trying to do that the past few years, and it's working for me.
Again, YMMV; I'm not advising anyone to stop taking their meds or anything like that.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood