I used to suffer depression all the time. Now, it only hits me rarely, but it does hit hard. Depression is a beast that can’t be tamed with a smile and happy attitude, but it can be minimized sometimes–especially if you catch yourself before it goes too deep.
Here are 10 things I do to help minimize or forestall depression:
- Have lots of light. I open windows, turn on all the lights, whatever it takes to get surrounded by light–especially sunlight.
- Go outside. There’s just something about being outdoors–as close to nature as possible, even if it’s just your backyard or balcony–that helps.
- Exercise. Moving around is probably the last thing I want to do when I’m depressed, but it does help control, and sometimes even prevent, it.
- Eat healthy. Cliche, I know! But when I eat something healthy, like an orange, it lifts me a little.
- Pray. First, last, and always. Start depending on the Lord in prayer. He knows exactly how you feel. No one else, no matter how empathetic, can know how you feel the way the Lord does.
- Alter the balance in your life. I often tend toward depression when my life is a little off balance. Being committted to far too much is sometimes enough to just push me into depression.
- Minimize the bad news. A tablespoon of bad news is sometimes enough to send me into the abyss. So I don’t watch the news. I don’t follow blogs. I don’t watch TV or read depressing books. I hide Facebook friends who do nothing but complain. I’m still an informed, intelligent person.
- Serve others. Corny advice, and I know it. But it WORKS. I feel so good after helping others, especially when I’ve been kind to someone who doesn’t expect it or when I’ve helped someone get a meal who would otherwise go hungry. Scouting for Food, which I’ve helped the cub scout pack participate in for years now, is always a cathartic experience.
- Do stuff. Sitting around doing nothing will only feed the depression. Even though you feel like crap, even though you don’t want to get up and go somewhere or go through that mountain of effort to get a small thing done, DO IT. It will help, even though you don’t feel like it.
- Read awesome books. I love books that snatch me away from reality for a few moments, to plunk me down in another life, another world. Two of my favorites are: Ender’s Game and The Queen of Attolia. More of my favorites are listed at goodreads. Don’t read sad books or drama or boring books. Read captivating adventures. I personally find a lot of young adult and fantasy novels good for this. Run-of-the-mill fiction, on the other hand, is too depressing.
None of these things will fix depression. Most of them do very little on their own. But when combined, they truly help. The fact that I wrote this article today is proof. It’s a hard day, I won’t lie; depression is looming on the horizon, waiting for me. But I’m surrounded by sunlight, I just had a healthy smoothie, I’ve been praying, I’m about to go running, and I’m working on a whole host of other things that are keeping the depression at bay.
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