First of all, I don’t have major depression, maybe I used to, but not any more. So if you do have a major one, please go to see doctor. Here I want to share some small tips in terms of dealing with depression in daily basis.
Seasonal
I found my state is quite seasonal, just like my allergy. You kinda of know it’s going to happen, but you don’t know the right timing. And it definitely has a trigger, but hard to quantify how.
Over the many years of dealing with it myself, I start to understand most of time this is a me issue, it’s hard to complain to others, but at the same time, I need to find some ways to deal with it before I make my life unnecessarily miserable. Because life is indeed good, you just have to realize it.
Cutoff
My blue mood or minor depression is mostly in my head. But it’s not that something you can just not thinking about it, especially I make a living by using my brain, so very difficult to ask my brain to stop working.
Just like a recursion (inception, matrix, whatever you call them), if you don’t have a stop criteria, it won’t stop. Actually literally it won’t stop. It could be just like a crime scene that repeats itself over and over again, and unfortunately you are the one that gets trapped there.
Btw, I’m writing a book about recursion, stay tuned. It’s called “Think in recursion for programmers” due July.
What I learned from a recursion algorithm is that it’s set to solve a problem, therefore it needs to have a limit. The limit could be a problem specific boundary where once you hit, you should return. This is how a recursion can be useful for programming.
Practically the limit should have a resource restriction, because your brain isn’t a computer, even a computer has a call stack to help set the limit. Our brain is much weaker in case of dealing with a recursion attack.
As my son like to tell me, “you shouldn’t think of tomorrow, or things too far ahead”. That’s right. But I have to prepare and plan things, so I have to think ahead. In that case, you need to setup a resource limit for your brain. It can be number of times a day, or number of minutes per incidence, or just how deep you want to go. If the problem or the matter is too complicated to handle, you should just drop it.
Dropping it, even temporarily, is going to help you a ton! Dealing with any negative thoughts, the key is to drop it. However you can accomplish it is matter of your personal preference. But I can assure you even you create a drama, it’s not unheard of. As long as it’s legal, you should try to make it happen, because in the end it’s making yourself happy again. You can’t stuck in an endless loop forever without getting out. It’s not going to help you or anyone you care in any way for the long run.
So let me break it down for you, design your way out. The wise person told me you should start with the way-out plan. Of course I’m not wise enough, so if you are not prepared yet, just start to design your way out. A way out is fundamentally important, both in computer algorithm as well as in a real life.
In a sense, a piece without a way out isn’t a valid piece.
Moving forward
If you can accept the current you, the current situations around you, if you can accept them peacefully, then you are all set. You can be still blue, but that is just your preference, because as long as you want to move on, you know the way, because you have already accepted the yesterday.
Now it’s time for today.
What do you want to do?
Putting this question as your top priority than letting your thoughts dwelling on other time frames. What do I want to do?
If you don’t like to plan, do nothing, just have fun. If you like me, like to plan a bit, grab a piece of paper, write down things that you want to learn, maybe write down a bit your progress, maybe try something new already. For instance, I just think of that I suck in dance, maybe go to Youtube and take a look if there’s any dance newbie lessons. Great!
Your new life has to start somewhere, why not do it now and pretend you don’t have a history on anything. Or you want to be college student again, just imagine you are. New life can start at any age as long as you allow.
Exercise
If you really have no way to help yourself out, there’s another shortcut or medicine that I found pretty effective and immediate.
Do whatever exercise you like to do, running, swimming, climbing, biking, as long as you sweat while doing it, it’s good. Because when your body is worn out, your brain is also having time to catch up the computation, so it actually tunes out. Therefore it can give you a moment of peace, especially after the exercise. I like to write blogs like this after the exercise. Peaceful that I pretend I’m a writer.
However, I also found exercise is not a cure. Its effectiveness is short lived as well. And moreover you shouldn’t abuse of doing it, because I’ve seen real examples that people use it to avoid living their lives. So you should be aware of the downside. You still have a life to live, whatever things you can’t get over with, you eventually have to find a way to get over with. Avoiding can be temp solution, but it won’t help you in the long way.
I really take it as an allergy medicine. None of them actually works for me in the end.
Conclusion
As an adult, it’s hard to be happy all the time. There’s always dream that you want to fulfill but there’s always more things that prevent you doing them. So naturally you should have a bit blue and minor depression at some point of your life. So I shared some tips that I collected along the way, hopefully that could help you as well. The main thing is that, you need to stay active, strong, healthy and build yourself a mental picture that it’s your life you are living.
