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Top 5 Traps That People With Depression Fall Into

A trap for those suffering from depression and anxiety is that many of people’s natural coping reactions make the problem worse rather than better. Here are a few examples of that, and some practical solutions.

Note: Please be compassionate with yourself if you can relate to any of these patterns. They’re common pitfalls, not an indictment on you as a person.

Number 1: You don’t fix problems that frustrate you.

Feeling irritable is one of the main symptoms of depression for many people. Some problems that trigger repeated irritation and frustration are easily fixable. However, people with depression often go into a passive “survival” mode and don’t address these issues, even though they could.

For example, you don’t have enough power outlets in the spot where everyone in your household likes to charge their devices. You’re constantly annoyed about people unplugging your device in favor of their own. This is the type of tension that can be solved by getting a multi-plug or another similar practical solution.

People with depression often just put up with this type of issue (and complain about it), rather than deploying a solution. It’s understandable to do this, but not very helpful.

Number 2: You’re waiting for your sleep to improve before you take other actions.

Difficulty sleeping is one of the most horrible symptoms of depression. Unfortunately, it’s often the last symptom to resolve when people’s mood starts to improve. Therefore, even though it’s hard, it is important that you start other strategies even though you’re feeling tired and grumpy. For example, exercise. If you over-focus on getting your sleep right before you start other strategies, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

Number 3: Wanting a pill as a cure-all.

Medication is helpful for many people with depression but it certainly doesn’t address all of the thinking and behavioral patterns that are associated with depression. For example, you’ll likely still need psychological strategies to deal with tendencies towards rumination (overthinking) and avoidance/procrastination.

Solution: Try drawing a pie chart and estimating what role you think medication has in your depression recovery. Include whatever is relevant to you in your pie chart, such as thinking changes, exercise, meditation, laughter, problem-solving etc. Your personal pie chart won’t be the same as someone else’s since everyone’s preferred mix of strategies for depression recovery is a little bit different. When you start adding all these other components to your pie chart, you’ll see that medication is only a part of the picture.

Number 4: Asking for help too often.

People with depression frequently struggle along on their own for far too long before seeking effective help, and may not realize they’re depressed. However, sometimes people can become over-reliant on others when their mood is low. Examples include too frequently asking for help with: making decisions, using technology, or reaching out socially (such as making phone calls).

The same person can be too resistant to seeking help in some respects and too reliant on others in other respects!

When someone who is depressed constantly leans on others it can create anger, resentment, and other problems in relationships. This is especially the case when the depressed person repeatedly asks the same people for help or asks for help with the same task that they could learn to do themselves.

This point relates to the next one, so keep reading to learn more.

Number 5: Putting life, learning, and projects completely on hold.

People often feel like their brain is foggy and their concentration is impaired when they’re depressed. Therefore, it’s natural that people withdraw and think they’ll put off working on projects or learning anything new until they’re feeling better.

When you’re depressed, it’s a great idea to go easy on yourself and resist taking on too much. This does not mean putting off anything and everything challenging or unfamiliar. If you do this, you’ll, unfortunately, dig yourself into a very big hole, where you withdraw from life and avoid, and your confidence and energy erode further.

Don’t push yourself too hard, but understand that experiences of both pleasure and mastery are incredibly important for mood hygiene and depression recovery.

Solution: For this tip, I like to think of each day in three chunks – morning, afternoon, and evening. Aim to have one experience of pleasure and one experience of mastery in each of these chunks. These can be tiny, like canceling a subscription you’ve been paying for but not using.

You can actually fold other advice for alleviating depression into this strategy. For example, exercise could be either a pleasure or mastery experience for you or both. Something like taking the stairs rather than the elevator could be counted.

If you include mastery experiences in your day, you’re not likely to fall into the traps of asking for help too much or failing to solve easily fixable problems that trigger your irritability.

Wrapping Up

Which of these problems seems most relevant to you or your loved one? Which of the solutions presented seems most important for you to try? How can you implement that in the easiest way possible? How can you bypass the most likely obstacle to your succeeding with your strategy?

By Alice Boyes, Ph.D. Alice has had her research about couples published in leading international journals, including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.Her work focuses on how people can use tips from social, clinical and positive psychology research in their everyday lives and romantic relationships. She is regularly interviewed for magazines and radio about a wide range of social, clinical, positive, and relationships psychology topics. She can be contacted for media interviews by emailing admin@aliceboyes.com

10 Tips for Dealing with Depression During the Holidays

While most of us are so busy with doing that, we have little time for being, the days surrounding major holidays can feel especially overwhelming. Most of us seem to lose touch with our connection to the natural world until we experience a life-changing event that locks that moment down into the month or the season. “The Holiday Season,” with capital letters, is one of those markers that is meant to provide a space for reflection, wonder, and deep joy. Advertisers capitalize on our sentiment through advertisers using images of families or neighbors coming together to cheer up individuals who are portrayed as alone and lonely, if not downright abandoned.

Unfortunately, many lonely people do not have a cheering group of neighbors, friends, or families eager to surprise them with holiday lights, tins of cookies, or invitations to join them for a holiday meal. Loneliness and hopelessness can increase while images of altruistic concern and heartwarming moments seem to be the bar against which all holiday experiences should be measured.

Once the first day of winter arrives, the shortened days and decreased exposure to sunlight generate unexpected feelings of depression for many along with lethargy that comes from the resultant vitamin D production in the body. If you have experienced loss, heartache, or depression, the change in season can send you spiraling deep into a very dark place. Putting on a brave face for others can be especially difficult when the world is blasting us with images of group hugs and the memory of your final hug with someone you love is all that you can think about.

No matter what the cause of your holiday lows might be, here are ten tips that might help you cope during this season:

Don’t completely isolate yourself from other people. Social connection has great healing power – attend a faith-based service, even if you are not committed to a particular religion, just to experience the positive feelings of being surrounded by others.

Allow yourself space to acknowledge any losses, despair, or hurt you are feeling, but do not let yourself use the loss as an excuse to escape through alcohol or other addictive substances.

If a particular ritual is just too painful to try and continue this year, accept that there are limits to what you are capable of doing and forgive yourself for that.

Don’t allow yourself to use any holiday-related time off from work as an excuse to hide from the world – stick to as regular a schedule as you can.

Don’t binge eat or binge drink – while these may offer a sense of temporary escape, they are not healthy coping methods.

If you’re recovering from a broken relationship, it’s especially important not to dwell on the past, an imagined future, or thoughts of revenge. Make sure that your ex’s contact information is wiped from your phone to help you avoid any temptation to make any desperate attempts at reaching out.

If you’re recovering from grief at the loss of a loved one, create a special new ritual that honors the person who is no longer there. Light a special candle and offer a silent or spoken tribute to this person. Add a special decoration to your collection and display it in this person’s honor. Choose a special recipe that was always a favorite and prepare it each year – saying a special prayer in their honor before consuming it.

Reflect on what has brought the most joy to you during this season in past, happier years. Force yourself to engage in this aspect of the holiday with as much energy and commitment that you can muster. If it was the lights of the season, throw your heart into decorating your home with the lights that always brought a smile! If it was the cookies, bake your heart out – even if you aren’t the most talented chef, enjoy doing something that your loved one would have enjoyed seeing happen. If it was the carols and songs of the season, let the CDs, Sirius, or Pandora serenade the silence with the songs this person loved.

Remind yourself that at this time of year, the shortest day falls on the last day of autumn. Winter may bring the coldest weather, the deepest hibernation of animal life, the barren trees may stand out starkly against the winter sky, but remind yourself that once the first day of winter has arrived, the days are once again growing in length and the nights are beginning to shorten. This is a magic time when we can feel the change in the natural world on a very deep level. The feelings of depression or deep grief you feel may ebb and flow like a tide, but remind yourself that there is a natural rhythm in life and it truly is always darkest before the dawn.

Honor your feelings, but don’t allow yourself to get so wrapped up in despair or hopelessness that you retreat fully from the world around you. When we let ourselves get sucked into a place of abject despair and darkness, we are sacrificing the potential for joy that others might bring you – or that you, yourself, could bring others.

If your holiday season is a time of depression, grief, or hurt, know that you are not alone. Others also are suffering as the world blares entreaties to be “merry and bright,” but sadness and heartache are filling your heart. Keep active over this period, show up in life, and remind yourself that each day that you do, it’s one less day you’ve given depression the power to take from your life.

By Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D., LPC, LMHC, NCC. Susan is professor and chair of the Counseling, Adult and Higher Education department at Northern Illinois University. She is a licensed counselor whose focus includes working with individuals and families facing transitions. Her academic research explores development over the lifespan with a strong focus on women’s relationships and women’s developmental transitions. She is currently president of the Association for Adult Development and Aging, a division of the American Counseling Association.

Emotion Rules When There is Depression

Stuck in a negative network, changing thoughts or actions is just plain hard.

“I cannot do what you suggest – I know it won’t work.”

That was Jon’s mantra as he sat in my office and said that he can never be happy. The one thing he wants – a wife and family – will never happen because fate has determined he is not going to achieve that goal. Yet most opportunities he gets to meet someone new, he believes will not work.

Why is he resisting meeting new people when someday one might be interested in him? His inability to move from one idea to another to create a change in thinking or in attitude is typical for depression. And, as in Jon’s case, it seems like it’s intentional. Or at least that’s what family and friends see when they tell their depressed loved ones to “Just do it!” It is easy to judge from the outside, but it is hard to see on the inside of a person with depression.

That stuckness is a feature of underlying neurobiology. All of us think in networks: when we start to think about a topic, we enter a network of related concepts that allows thinking to be efficient and helpful. Ideas are linked and things we need to know are easier to access when we enter a network of similar ideas, experiences, or emotions. That is why when people are trying to develop a creative solution to a problem, they brainstorm. That is, they utter or write every idea that pops into their minds about solving a problem – no matter how ridiculous it sounds on the surface – and do not assess the idea until they have a long list of options. Brainstorming is valuable because it helps us remove ourselves from the already framed network and helps create a new one.

That same efficient brain that networks and categorizes also causes a problem when depression hits. Entering a negative network that connects similar thoughts, experiences and emotions result in a depressed person linking negative networks. It promotes the discouraged outlook that is typical of depression. And, unfortunately, in depression, the ability to move to another more positive network is impaired. The weakened activity of the neurotransmitters causes “stuckness” in the pathway in the brain that allows shifting of thought and emotion.

That pathway includes a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that should allow for rapid shifting between emotion and thinking and should aid in developing creative problem-solving. But when people suffer depression, this pathway of the brain is impaired. It may be overactive – spinning in place without creating movement. Or it may be sluggish and unable pass along cognitive decisions like, “I will try something new,” to the emotional part of the brain that generates the discouraged, “I never have good results.”

Emotion rules when there is depression. The negative “It won’t work for me,” style of thinking seems to have more power than the optimistic, “Just give it a try,” method of thinking.

Sitting with Jon, I want to say, “Just do what I am suggesting!” I want him to borrow my ability to generate a new idea, but some things have to change before he can try something new. He cannot respond to “just do it” while his negative networking is making him believe that his case is different. His notions about how to act are the ones in the network of what he has typically done, which is a very negative network.

How can he get out of this?

He needs a MAP.

When you use a map – even your navigator – you have to know where you are starting and where you are going. Jon needs to know he is currently stuck and that another way just might be possible. But where is he going? He needs to believe in a reasonable solution. In our conversations, Jon is beginning to believe that his depressed thinking is a problem.

Medication might help him be less negative – it can correct the neurotransmitter problems that cause the sluggish or overactive pathway to prevent new ideas. (Supplements and nutrition and sunlight can also help!) Next, he needs to redefine his goal. If marriage to exactly the right person is the only thing that will make him happy, then I cannot help him. He needs a matchmaker and a lot of money for that. If he wants to redefine what a happy life looks like to him, therapy can guide him. But once he can see the need for help to navigate his goal of a happy life, he needs to find a map. This map will need to take him toward feeling better and developing a more flexible, creative way of thinking. If he can get out of the negative network he will be more able to generate new actions and take charge of his discouraged mood.

MAP – Move, Ask, Play

M – (You may want to consider medication as the first M and then go to this one)

Jon needs to move. Literally, move his body. The stuck brain finds it easier to shift gears when the physical body is moving. Walking, swimming, bike riding can all be good. Try movement without earbuds pumping music. The creative brain will take over and just might jump the tracks of negativity while you move. And vigorous exercise has a way of pumping up energy that lightens depression.

A – Ask for input. When we brainstorm it works better if we have more than one person adding ideas. We spur each other into different networks. Jon might benefit if he shares his challenge of being stuck with a friend or three. And it will be good for him to ask people what gives them happiness or satisfaction. He might hear that there are many ways to be content.

P – Play around with different options. Jon does not have to commit to an idea of what is fun or pleasurable or satisfying. He would benefit from playing with the children in his life whose joy is infectious. Play sports or games. Playing stimulates different networks and may result in some changes in his mood or thoughts that may help him be less depressed.

There is a saying that life is a journey, not a destination. I do not know Jon’s ultimate destination, nor does he. The outcome of this MAP will help him find a better, more creative, and less depressed way of living his life.

By Margaret Wehrenberg, Psy.D. Margaret is the author of 5 books published by W.W. Norton, includingThe 10 Best Ever Anxiety ManagementTechniques, The 10 Best Ever Depression Management Techniques and her most recent 10 Best Anxiety Busters, an ideal book for the general public. She earned her M.A. studying psychodrama and bioenergetics, and had years of experience as a certified drug and alcoholism counselor, before earning her Psy.D. She now specializes in treating anxiety and depression and has a private practice in Naperville, IL. She is a frequent contributor of articles to The Psychotherapy Networker magazine, has contributed a chapter to Clinical Pearls of Wisdom (Ed. M. Kerman), and has produced CD for breathing, muscle relaxation and imagery for anxiety management.

This article originally appeared in Psychology Today magazine.

Don’t Let Burnout Get the Best of You

Burnout often results from extended periods enduring the emotional stress precipitated by unaccomplished expectations or failure to fulfill unreasonable demands. The symptoms can include intensified emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, lowered self-worth, changes in eating and exercising habits, social withdrawal, sleep disorders, anxiety, and depression.

Prolonged stress correlates with structural increases in the density and speed of the neuron-to-neuron connections in the emotion-driven reactive networks of the lower brain and corresponding decreases connections in prefrontal cortex conscious and reflective control centers.

The explanation of these changes is attributed to the brain’s neuroplasticity defined by the phrase: “neurons that fire together, wire together.” The brain literally rewires to be more efficient in conducting information through the circuits that are most frequently activated.

When stress is frequent, the more frequent activation of the neural pathways to the lower, stress-reactive brain results in their strengthening from enhanced wiring (dendrites, synapses, myelinated axons). These pathways can become so strong that they become your brain’s fast route to its lower, reactive control centers. The stressful, burned out state when the lower, reactive brain is in charge overcomes the calm, reflective, and productive higher neural processing in the (PFC) – the preferred brain locale for control of behavior and emotional self-management.

As your efforts to achieve unreasonable goals are thwarted or increasing demands recur, and the lower brain dominates more frequently, you lose touch with your reflective brain. With less management coming from your reflective PFC, it becomes harder and harder to logically see these challenges in realistic perspective or to solve problems creatively.

Disappointments take on more emotional power and without your higher brain’s perspective, they are interpreted as personal failures. Your self-doubt and stress further activate and strengthen your brain’s involuntary, reactive neural networks. The spiral down to burnout accelerates as these circuits become the automatic go-to networks. Your brain achieves less success in problem-solving and emotional control and ultimately reacts by withholding efforts to escape the burnout state.

Reset Your Brain’s Default Neural Network from Retreat to IGNITE!

The good news is you can apply what we’ve learned from neuroscience about your brain’s survival mode to take actions to retrieve voluntary control of your choices and emotional wellbeing.

You can activate the same neuroplasticity, that gave dominance to the lower brain networks in the burnout state, to construct a new, stronger positive default response. With increasing successful experiences in achieving goals, you can reset the circuits to redirect your brain to access its highest cognitive resources. You can build up newly improved circuitry switching your responses from retreat to IGNITE for mindful awareness and creative problem-solving!

Since an effort-failure pattern sets up the brain’s survival response to withhold effort, you’ll need to strengthen your brain’s recognition that effort toward your goals can result in success. Your weapon of mass reconstruction can come from your brain’s very powerful drive for its own intrinsic neurochemical reward— dopamine and the deeply satisfying and motivating pleasure it brings. When the brain releases dopamine in rewarding bursts, you experience a deep intrinsic satisfaction along with increased motivation, curiosity, perseverance, and memory. Dopamine is particularly released when your brain recognizes that you’ve achieved a challenge (from the “I get it” of figuring out a joke to the satisfaction of completing a marathon).

To get the dopamine-pleasure response from challenges achieved, you’ll need to plan for your brain to experience frequent recognition (feedback awareness) of incremental progress. The choices of what you set as a goal should be guided by their desirability and the goal’s suitability to be broken down into clear segments. You want to set goals, the progress of which, you can chart or easily recognize with each stepwise challenge and success. The pleasure burst of dopamine’s intrinsic motivation accompanying your brain’s recognition of each progressive increment achieved in the goal pathway will keep you motivated to persevere.

Goal Buy-In for Your Brain’s Neural REWIRING

Buy-in and relevance are important in choosing your rewiring goal. Since your goal is to rewire your brain’s expectations that your goal efforts do yield progress, despite increasing challenge, you need to really want the goal. This is not the time to challenge yourself with something you feel you should do, but won’t really look forward to, such as dieting, climbing stadium stairs, or flossing after every meal.

The idea of planning and achieving goals as a burnout intervention is probably not new to you. These are likely to be activities you’ve considered but didn’t do for the obvious reason. They take time. when it comes to adding another activity to your schedule, past experiences have left you with the expectation that there is not enough time.

These first goals that can provide ongoing awareness of your progress are often tangible (visible, such as planting a garden or making pottery on a wheel, or auditory such as playing an instrument, or physical such as learning tai chi), but your goal can also be spending more time on something you already do, but want to do more frequently or successfully, such as journaling, practicing yoga, or sketching.

You’ll Find Your Own Goal for Buy-In, but Here are Some Examples of Planning

Physical goals: Notice I didn’t say exercise. That’s not as motivating as “training” for a physical goal you want to achieve, even though they often overlap. If you want to run a 10K, and you enjoy running, the goal for an achievable challenge could first be building up to the distance starting with your baseline distance you comfortably run now. Then, plot out the increments that you’ll consider progressive successes, such as adding 100M each day or a week (with increments based on what you consider both challenging and achievable). Once you reach 10K goal, speed can become the next goal again plotted out in segments of incremental progress before you start.

Hobbies: From woodworking to shooting wooden arrows, hobbies really are opportunities for brain rewiring. Again, plan your stepwise achievable challenge increments. If you select darts, start with a home dartboard—low initial investment and throw from a close, but challenging distance at first. As you get better in accuracy move back further. Record your results with the notations of the distance of each improvement you set as an achievable challenge. If you get so good that you are no longer challenged by the dartboard, try that archery!

Mindfulness and meditation are certainly positive interventions for burnout and will be topics of a subsequent blog.

Your Rewired Brain’s Default Changes from Defeat to Ignite

With your understanding of what happened in your brain to create the hopeless frustration of burnout, you’ll hopefully have more positive expectations to help you put in the effort to try (or retry) suggested interventions. Your own natural dopamine-reward system will then be at work deconstructing the resistance network built by your burnout as you reset your circuits of motivation.

The repeated experiences of dopamine-reward you’ll experience as you monitor your goal progress will literally change your brain’s circuitry. Repeated effort-reward experiences promote the neuroplasticity creating neural networks that expect positive outcomes in your new default network. This is because your brain will build stronger connections into the memory pattern. The expectation in achieving this challenge will bring pleasure. As with other less used networks, the previous lower brain stress-activated go-to response network you developed in burn-out, that caused you to react negatively to stressors, will be pruned away from disuse.

You’ll be rewired with optimism and renew positive expectations about your self-efficacy. With your higher, reflective brain back in control, as you access your perseverance, innovation, and creative problem-solving when you need them.

Just be sure to take the time to break down big challenges into opportunities to recognize incremental progress as you achieve each small step en route to your goals. With that positive recharge, your well-deserved dopamine reward will sustain your brain’s motivated perseverance on to the next step of the path to your goals.

By Judy Willis, M.D., M.E

Dr. Willis is a board-certified neurologist and middle school teacher, specializing in brain research regarding learning and the brain. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa as the first woman graduate from Williams College, Willis attended UCLA School of Medicine where she was awarded her medical degree. She remained at UCLA and completed a medical residency and neurology residency, including chief residency. She practiced neurology for 15 years before returning to university to obtain her teaching credential and master’s of education from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She then taught in elementary and middle school for 10 years and currently is on the adjunct faculty of the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara.

This article first appeared in Psychology Today magazine

Seasonal Affective Disorder: What You Need to Know

We set our clocks back an hour in early November, resulting in shorter days, and darker skies before most of us leave work each afternoon.

It is important to understand the effect that light has on us. If you find yourself falling into the doldrums at this time of year as the number of daylight hours dwindle, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), sometimes called seasonal depression, may be to blame. Most SAD sufferers experience symptoms during the winter months, causing researchers to conclude that inadequate sunlight may play a role. But you don’t have to spend the winter months feeling depressed and unmotivated. Here’s what you need to know about SAD and how to alleviate it.

What Causes Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Most researchers believe decreased access to sunlight plays a role in seasonal affective disorder. Light affects our circadian rhythms, and UV rays can also change how the body processes vital minerals and other nutrients. For example, inadequate sunlight exposure is linked to low Vitamin D, which, in turn, has been linked to depression and other physical and mental health woes. So, the effects of darkness on the body—not just darkness itself—might be partially to blame.

A recent study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, bolstered the connection between SAD and inadequate sunlight. It found that weather and climate—including rain and pollution levels—don’t appear to alter mood. But access to sunlight is a major predictor of mental health. In the study, people who lived in regions with shorter, darker days were more likely to experience poor mental health.

While light almost certainly plays a role, not all cases of SAD occur during the short, dark days of winter. A small fraction of cases occur on a seasonal basis during the spring or summer, which suggests that no single factor can fully explain SAD. Other potential risk factors include:

Seasonal lifestyle changes. If you only work during a portion of the year, have less to do during a specific time period, or face annual stress, you may experience seasonal depression.
Seasonal associations with previous trauma and grief. Our minds form strong connections between the sights and sounds of seasonal shifts and memories of the past. You may find yourself growing depressed each year around the time you suffered a trauma or loss.
Cultural norms and traditions. The high of the holiday season followed by the low of the new year can spur depression in some people.
Certain health issues are more likely to manifest at specific times of the year. For example, if you have severe allergies, you may get depressed in the spring, while chronic bronchitis can make the winter months depressing.

Each of these factors alone is unlikely to trigger depression, but in conjunction with other risk factors—including a family history of any form of mental illness—they can lead to SAD.

Symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Cyclical depression that occurs around the same time each year or that relents when the season changes, is the hallmark of SAD. If symptoms are not cyclical, you might be diagnosed with another disorder, such as major depressive disorder or dysthymia.

People with SAD often experience depressive symptoms which are less severe than those associated with major depressive disorders. Though suicidal thoughts can and do occur—particularly if SAD is left untreated—these thoughts are less common. Some common symptoms include:

Low energy, feelings of grogginess, or excessive sleep. People with summer SAD may experience insomnia.
Changes in appetite. People with SAD are vulnerable to weight gain. SAD sometimes causes carbohydrate cravings, because carbs offer a temporary energy boost.
Irritability and anger.
Changes in your relationships with others: People with SAD often feel lonely and rejected.
Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities.
Feelings of guilt.
Dread or uncertainty about the future.
Loss of motivation.
Feelings of sadness.

Treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder

People with winter SAD often respond well to light therapy, which involves sitting under a UV lamp for a short period of time each day. If you have access to daylight and can spend time outdoors, you might also find your symptoms improving if you receive 20-40 minutes of daily direct sun each day.

Treatment for major depression can also prove effective at treating SAD. Those treatment options include:

Psychotherapy to help you talk through your feelings, identify problematic thought patterns, and more effectively cope with your depression. If causes relationship problems, therapy may also help improve your relationships. Your therapist can also talk to you about lifestyle changes—diet, exercise, activities—that may complement your treatment and help to alleviate your depression.
Antidepressants: Depression alters chemicals in your brain. Sometimes lifestyle remedies are inadequate to get things back on track. Antidepressants can be effective and often need only to be taken for a short period.

Is It Possible to Prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Research on the prevention of SAD is mixed. However, there is some evidence that light therapy can help prevent SAD in people with a previous history of the condition. If you’re worried that you might develop SAD this winter, talk to your doctor about preventative strategies. Also, maintain a healthy lifestyle—overeating during the holidays, excessive spending, and low motivation can all make SAD worse.

If you experience SAD, you don’t have to suffer through months of misery. SAD is one of the most treatable forms of depression, and with the right care, you can feel better in weeks, or even days.

This article originally appeared in Psychology Today magazine

Joel L. Young, M.D., is the Medical Director of the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine outside of Detroit and teaches Psychiatry at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Trained at the University of Michigan, Dr. Young is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and holds added qualifications in geriatric and forensic psychiatry. In addition, he is a diplomate of the American Board of Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr. Young and his clinic have been primary investigators in a number of clinical trials involving antidepressant, AD/HD, and bipolar medications. He has authored three books and more than 70 textbooks and articles. His most recent book, When Your Adult Child Breaks Your Heart: Coping with Mental Illness, Substance Abuse, and the Problems That Tear Families Apart, was published by Lyons Press in December 2013.

References

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorde…
Sunshine matters a lot to mental health; temperature, pollution, rain not so much. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/byu-sma110316.php

Good is Not Enough: You Need More Than Getting Rid of Your Depression Symptoms

If you asked any one of us, we would say that top on our list of what we want is to feel better. But what is “better”? To most, it means that the symptoms of depression have gone away. However, just the absence of symptoms is not enough to feel well. Being well is not only freedom from the episodes of a mood disorder or depression symptoms. It’s an ongoing process that includes participating in the world around you, being in control of your life, having a sense of personal growth and relationships that matter. It means that you have a sense of competence and mastery in the things you do in your life and that you feel good about who you are. How do you get there?

There is an interesting professional article by C.D. Ryff from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014) that discusses psychological well-being. In the past psychologists thought of well-being as happiness, satisfaction with life, and a positive affect (similar to mood). Thinking about well-being in deeper terms, Ryff describes the essential features of well-being which I will summarize for you here.

What are the components of well-being? First is having a purpose in life, where you feel your life has meaning, purpose, and direction. You might find this as a working or volunteer person, student, parent, or whatever it is that guides you. It’s something that’s easy to forget when we are depressed, so you do have to work on it. Next is whether you are living a life based on your own personal convictions, beliefs, opinions, and principles. You are free to make decisions for yourself (that is called autonomy). For example, if you are an adult, do you feel controlled by another person? The third feature of well-being is making use of your personal talents and potential, called personal growth. This could be in your work, school, volunteering, or family life. Another feature is how well you are managing your life situations, the ups, and downs of daily life called mastering your environment. We all have fluctuations: the key is how we learn to deal with them.

The fifth feature of well-being is in having positive relationships, with deep ties to others. It could be with friends or family members, just as long as you have close personal connections. That is very important to maintaining your mental health balance and definitely helps with depression, a time when isolation can occur. The last is self-acceptance, which means having knowledge and acceptance of who you are, including your own personal limitations. Nobody’s perfect – we all have our strengths and weaknesses and do better when we learn to accept and work with them.

This list must seem daunting! How in the world can I be well if I have to achieve all of these things that are difficult for anyone to do, let alone someone with a mood disorder? Good question! It’s not the kind of thing that happens overnight; it takes a lot of time and effort on your part. And you don’t have to master them all, certainly not all at once. Begin by having a conversation with your therapist about this and try to identify one or two areas in your life from this list that you want to work on. Then put those two areas into a clearly stated goal. Having a goal set in this way helps you to achieve the kind of life you want. Understand what you have going for you that will help you, such as your strengths, and what you might have to change about yourself and your world to reach this goal. Try to identify how you personally impact the situation and potentially get in the way of reaching your goal. Is it negative thoughts you may have? Are there barriers that exist to achieve your goal? Find a way to work around them. Make a list of the first 3-5 steps to reach your goal. Stay focused on the goal and not how difficult it is. Care for yourself as you work to achieve it.

For example, your goal might be a purpose in life and personal growth as a musician. You might state it as “I want to improve my skills as a musician and get more professional gigs. That will make me feel good about myself, bring people pleasure, and earn some money to support myself.” You might then identify that you are not always consistent with practice time, and feel shy about going out and promoting your musical performance. Neighbors might complain about hearing you practice. Thinking about it, you may identify one or two negative thoughts you have about your skills (I’m not very good” or “Nobody will hire me”) that are behind these behaviors. Use CBT to challenge those negative thoughts and behaviors and replace them with more realistic thoughts. Then think of your strengths, of past successes you have had in this area, and use these to boost your confidence.

Next make a to-do list of what steps you might take to make this happen, and who can help support you in this. That might include: set aside a specific practice time and place each day; take a music lesson(s); make a CD of your performance and bring it around to a few places where you want to perform; put a small sample of your music on social media to attract audience members , such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter; make attractive posters to promote your skills and performance dates; put the posters on social media and hang them up in a few select areas around your town announcing your performances and availability. It’s a lot to do when depressed; have a friend help you. Do these one-at-a-time, so you don’t get overwhelmed. It is possible and realistic for those of us who have depression to expect wellness.

By Susan J. Noonan, MD, MPH.

Susan is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a long-term patient and the author of two books on managing depression, Managing Your Depression; What You Can Do To Feel Better, and When Someone You Know Has Depression: Words to Say and Things to Do, with a companion website and blog. She is also a mental health Certified Peer Specialist, counseling fellow persons with mental illness. In these ways, she bridges that space between recipient and provider of healthcare services. This blog was previously posted, in modified form, on website www.susannoonanmd.com.

The Role of Anger in Depression

Sigmund Freud used to refer to depression as anger turned inward. While many people may regard this as an overly simplistic approach to the most common mental health disorder in the world, there is no doubt that anger plays a significant role in depression. As one study from 2016 found, when it comes to emotional disorders in general, the presence of anger has “negative consequences, including greater symptom severity and worse treatment response.” Researchers concluded that “based on this evidence, anger appears to be an important and understudied emotion in the development, maintenance, and treatment of emotional disorders.” When it comes specifically to depression, science seems to be further supporting Freud’s theory, showing more and more how anger contributes to symptoms. A UK study from 2013 suggested that going inward and turning our anger on ourselves contributes to the severity of depression.

Having worked with depressed clients for more than 30 years, these findings were not surprising to me. Many of the people I’ve worked with who struggle with depression also share the common struggle of turning their anger on themselves. As much as I try to help my clients express their anger rather than take it on and turn it inward, I witness first-hand how hard it often is for people to interrupt this process. It’s a challenge for them to recognize the nasty way they treat themselves; they are significantly more critical of themselves that they are of others.

People who suffer from depression often have intense “critical inner voices” that perpetuate feelings of unworthiness and shame. When they listen to this inner critic, they not only feel more depressed, but they also find it much more difficult to stand up to their depression. This includes acting against their critical inner voices, taking positive actions that could help them feel better about themselves (like engaging in activities they enjoy), and being more social.

Getting angry at these “voices” can be liberating, but that means getting in touch with our core feelings of anger rather than aiming it at ourselves. Dr. Les Greenberg, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, describes an important difference between adaptive anger and nonadaptive anger. Anger is an adaptive response when it motivates you to assertive action to end a violation. For example, when we may feel angry at the cruel way we treat ourselves today, we’re in touch with our adaptive anger, and we feel like we’re on our own side. Letting ourselves feel and express adaptive anger can help us feel less burdened, freer, and more in touch with our real self.

Maladaptive anger, on the other hand, affects us negatively. For one thing, it can contribute to feeling victimized, sulky, or stuck in a feeling of being wronged. Examples of maladaptive anger turned inward can include feeling overly critical toward ourselves, hating ourselves, or seeing ourselves as powerless, pathetic, or helpless. The generally dysfunctional responses that result from maladaptive anger are based on emotional schema from traumatic experiences in our past. Often, our critical inner voice is at the root of maladaptive anger, driving us to remain in a state of frustration and suffering.

We can almost feel the difference between maladaptive anger dragging us down and deeper into a state of anxiety or depression and adaptive anger relieving us of a heavy burden, lightening us emotionally, and contributing to our taking constructive actions. While it can feel scary to face these deeper, core emotions, we must access adaptive emotions to transform our maladaptive emotions. This can be a vital process in helping us deal with depression.

One study by Dr. Greenberg showed that Emotionally Focused Therapy can transform maladaptive emotion through the process of expressing it and eliciting the response of an adaptive emotion, i.e. adaptive anger. This approach was especially effective in improving depressive symptoms, interpersonal distress, and self-esteem. As Dr. Greenberg described it, the process “aims within an affectively attuned empathic relationship to access and transform habitual maladaptive emotional schematic memories [articulated as critical inner voices] that are seen as the source of the depression.” Transforming these maladaptive emotions may, therefore, be one of the keys to fighting depression.

Our approach to transforming anger turned inward, which has some similarities to Greenberg’s approach, is to have the person verbalize their critical inner voices as though someone else was telling them these angry thoughts. We also encourage the person to express the feeling behind the thoughts. Often, when people do this, they express a lot of rage toward self. By saying the thoughts in the second person (as “you” statements), they begin to get some separation from their harsh, critical attitudes, and often have insights about where these thoughts come from. It sets the stage for them “answering back” to these attacks and taking their own side. The goal is also to help the person develop more self-compassion and a kinder, more realistic point of view toward themselves.

As we externalize our negative thoughts and the accompanying anger, we can better stand up to our inner critic and take a compassionate stance toward ourselves, treating ourselves as we would treat a friend. This doesn’t mean denying our struggles and setbacks, but it does mean embracing the practice of self-compassion. Self-compassion, as defined by researcher Kristin Neff, involves three key elements: self-kindness, mindfulness, and awareness of common humanity. Research has shown that the practice of self-compassion can significantly reduce a depressed mood. As one study pointed out, maladaptive or irrational beliefs underlie the development of depression, however, when high levels of self-compassion helped to counteract these negative thoughts, there was no longer a significant relationship between irrational beliefs and depression. This same study showed that it is “especially the self-kindness component of self-compassion that moderated the irrational belief-depression relationship.” Thus, the primary aim for someone struggling with resolving their emotions around depression is to treat themselves and regard their feelings the way they would a friend. It’s not about feeling sorry for ourselves, but about feeling strong and worthy and less afraid to make mistakes.

Ultimately, accepting that anger plays a role in our depression should be an empowering tool in our fight to feel better. When people express anger outwards in a healthy adaptive manner, they feel less depressed. Accessing and expressing this anger isn’t a matter of acting out, being explosive, or feeling bitter toward our surroundings. In fact, it means exactly the opposite. It’s an act of standing up for ourselves and accepting that we are not who our “voices” are telling us we are. It’s a process of facing up to the things that hurt us but also facing off against the inner enemy we all possess that drives us deeper into our suffering. The more we can take our own side and resist our tendency to turn our anger on ourselves, the more compassionate and alive we can feel in facing any challenge, including depression.

Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, author, and the Director of Research and Education for the Glendon Association. She studies suicide and violence as well as couples and family relations. Firestone is the co-author (with Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett) of Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice, Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion, and Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships. Firestone speaks frequently at conferences including the APA, the International Association of Forensic Psychology, International Association of Suicide Prevention, the Department of Defense and many others. She has also appeared in more than 300 radio, TV, and print interviews including the BBC, CBC, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Psychology Today, Men’s Health and O Magazine.

Rewire Your Burned-out Brain

If You’re Burned Out, Your Brain Has Rewired to Survival Mode

There are specific and reproducible patterns of changing neural activity and brain connectivity associated with the stress buildup that leads to burnout. In the high-stress state subjects’ neuroimaging scans reveal less activity in the higher, reflective brain (Prefrontal cortex/PFC) and more activity in the lower, reactive brain that controls involuntary behaviors and emotional responses. Prolonged stress correlates with structural increases in the density and speed of the neuron-to-neuron connections in the emotion-driven reactive networks of the lower brain and corresponding decreases connections in prefrontal cortex conscious and reflective control centers.

Reset Your Brain’s Default Neural Network from Retreat to IGNITE!

The good news is you can apply what we’ve learned from neuroscience about your brain’s survival mode to take actions to retrieve voluntary control of your choices and emotional wellbeing.

Goal Buy-In for Your Brain’s Neural REWIRING

These first goals that can provide ongoing awareness of your progress are often tangible (visible, such as planting a garden or making pottery on a wheel, or auditory such as playing an instrument, or physical such as learning tai chi), but your goal can also be spending more time at something you already do, but want to do more frequently or successfully, such as journaling, practicing yoga, or sketching.

You’ll Find Your Own Goal for Buy-In, but Here are Some Examples of Planning

Mindfulness and meditation are certainly positive interventions for burnout and will be topics of a subsequent blog.

Your Rewired Brain’s Default Changes from Defeat to Ignite

Dr. Judy Willis is a board-certified neurologist and middle school teacher, specializing in brain research regarding learning and the brain. With a unique background as both a neurologist and classroom teacher, she writes extensively for professional educational and parenting journals and has written six books about applying the mind, brain, and education research to classroom teaching and parenting strategies. The Association of Educational Publishers honored Dr. Willis as a finalist for the Distinguished Achievement Award for her educational writing. Check out her website.

Up, Up and Away: Lifting Depression By Tweaking Your Antidepressants

In my last post, I wrote about a recent downward turn in my mood. While not severe, it still sucked: low energy and motivation, sadder more often than I’d like, and lack of joy in things that formerly made me happy.

If felt like I had one foot in gooey, hot asphalt. I keep trying to yank it out to no avail. Finally, I called my trusty psychiatrist. His name’s Chris.

We hadn’t seen each other for six months. Over the past ten years or so since he’s been my shrink, that was about normal because not much had changed in the past decade: we’d found a combination of two pills seven years ago that was effective in managing my depression. Sure, there had been some ups and downs over that period of time. But nothing like the psychic hurricane that blew through my brain when I first experienced major depression years ago.

He suggested I stay with my two old friends: Cymbalta and Lamictal. But, he said that we could “tweak” my treatment by adding

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Depression and Loss of Energy: A Waiting Game

Reversing the downward spiral of depression takes less energy than you think.

Depression and loss of energy — it is the beginning of a waiting game that does not end well.

Sometimes depression is born from loss of achievement, loss of goals, and loss of positive feelings about oneself. When low energy plays a role, a person who is not blessed with high drive and physical energy can see a spiral into depression start quickly. But even people with more energy lose it while bearing the weight of the losses. And, without a lot of energy, people begin to wait for things to get better around them rather than take action to make a change.

The Downward Spiral

Spiraling — the word makes it seem like a gentle way to go down, but when it comes to depression, going down is hard to stop, and once at the bottom, reversing the spiral takes intention and support. I hear about this often from my younger depressed clients — those adults who started out of high school or college ready to be successful but who found the world did not fulfill the vision they had.

Jeremy (not his real name) was one such young man. He never had to work too hard to get a passable grade point and was popular enough to have a solid romantic relationship. He was ready happy with his life. But, as commonly happens, the college romance did not last, which made him feel down in the dumps. Then the company he worked for, facing hard times, cut his hours. He now did not earn enough to live on but he expected the company, not himself, to change and he took no action. He waited for work to increase his hours, but in the meantime, he felt like a failure, and the waiting sapped him. His self-esteem, already suffering from being single again, took another hit as he saw his money dwindle to nothing. He started to isolate himself from friends without funds for fun and without a date to go along. Waiting was his enemy. Without meaningful activity beyond limited work hours, that isolation increased his depressed mood.

Waiting also intensified the mental and physical fatigue, so he slept later in the morning since he did not have to get to work early. He began to think he had a lot of time every day to work on his situation, so he did not start on possible job hunting and, as the day melted away, it was too easy to let himself decide that tomorrow was a good day to start fresh. But that waiting also increased his fear that nothing could change and his mood became very depressed. That depression and his situation robbed him of the very things he needed to reverse the spiral: meaningful work (purpose, as well as money), positive interactions with others, pride in his achievements, sense of competency, and a feeling of being loved.

This spiral is one I have seen repeatedly in young adults who have not met with easy success out of high school or college. They often did not have to work at jobs during those years to obtain phones or cars or clothes or do costly activities, such as attend concerts or sporting events. One young man I worked with as he finished high school, Casen (again, a pseudonym), felt literally terrified of applying for a part time job so that he could begin developing job skills and a resume and have some spare cash. Without classroom demands, he moved into waiting mode: waiting to apply to community college, waiting for a job that might fall into his lap. (The job that a friend would provide not that Casen would go search for since the friend said he could get his boss to hire Casen). Waiting did not bring him the job or the college acceptance letter, and he felt even more scared and more depressed. And he judged himself rather mercilessly: believing he would never succeed. That negative mindset robbed him of even more energy, and the more time he spent watching shows on his laptop, the less energy he had to reverse the downward spiral to depression.

What can be done about this? It is typical that an outside force will help. If you are reading this you might be saying to yourself phrases like, “Yeah — the outside force of getting evicted or starving! That would work!” If so, you would be correctly identifying motivators! At times, though, a person in a downward spiral ends up living with family or friends who are being helpful to them in averting disaster, but the pattern of waiting on something outside themselves does not change until motivation can pick up.

Reversing the Downward Spiral

How is it possible to reverse the spiral? Raising energy is a primary initial goal — with or without motivation. To start the spiral on an upward trend, simply:

Stop telling yourself negative things: you only reinforce the belief they are true. Interfere with negativity, saying, “Stop! I choose to believe I will solve this!”

Stop isolating. Get in contact with people, any interaction with others will help you also get outside of your own negative thoughts or mood.

Stop talking about your own life for a short while. When you only ruminate on your troubles, they seem larger. Ask someone else about his or her life. Hearing about another’s life, you can look at your reactions. I love the saying that troubles shared are cut in half and joys shared are doubled.

Then start the upward spiral with attention to developing a sense of purpose. Don’t assume this is a deep spiritual quest. In fact, it can be initially as simple as scheduling your day and meeting some regular commitments. An important brain change toward a less depressed mood occurs results from intentional activity. You get a blip of glutamate, an activating neurochemical, and one of dopamine, the feel-good neurochemical, and the combination is energizing. The bigger the step you take, the more you get. And any action will supply enough energy to do a little more.

My Tips

If you are underemployed — set a daily schedule that begins with a reasonable wake-up time.

Have a pattern to the day what news show you listen to or watch when you have your coffee when you feed a pet or meet a friend for tea.

Leave the house — you might have to start with leaving your room and interacting with others in your home- but forcing yourself toward less isolation is important.

At work, be sure to talk to your colleagues and ask them how they are; It improves the chance of a positive social exchange that can increase your self-esteem a bit and moves the spiral upward a fraction.

Set small goals — like walking the dog an extra 5 minutes — and notice you achieved them. There’s a bit more glutamate and dopamine!

Do something physical. When you move your depressed body you gain energy rather than lose it, so even a few minutes of tidying up can raise enough energy to do a bit more.

The above ideas tend to work best when you are working with another person who supports you, such as a therapist, a 12-Step sponsor, or a good friend who knows your goals and will help you keep track of them.

As you stop the waiting game — that passive waiting for life to change without you doing something to change it — the spiral reverses. You will be surprised that you will slowly feel your energy rise so you will be more able to take the next steps toward success.

By Dr. Margaret Wehrenberg, Psy.D.

This article first appeared in Psychology Today website.

Dr. Wehrenberg is the author of 5 books published by W.W. Norton, including The 10 Best Ever Anxiety Management Techniques, The 10 Best Ever Depression Management Techniques and her most recent 10 Best Anxiety Busters, an ideal book for the general public. She earned her M.A. studying psychodrama and bioenergetics, and had years of experience as a certified drug and alcoholism counselor, before earning her Psy.D. She now specializes in treating anxiety and depression and has a private practice in Naperville, IL. She is a frequent contributor of articles to The Psychotherapy Networker magazine, has contributed a chapter to Clinical Pearls of Wisdom (Ed. M. Kerman), and has produced CD for breathing, muscle relaxation and imagery for anxiety management. Check out her website at www.margaretwehrenberg.com.