Similar to everything else in life anything that requires you to change your entire mental state of mind, be it social skills or depression requires several years of work. Unfortunately, no one wants to put in the work and instead they turn to over the counter drugs (Big Pharmacy profits) or talking about their problems (getting stuck in their own head). You will never cure your depression with outward expressions or thoughts, instead you should continue to focus on your internal self. Below is how you should tackle the problem.
Mental: This is an old book that has been pushed to the wayside and needs to be purchased by anyone you know that is suffering from depression “A Guide to Rational Living”. The book has sold millions of copies world wide. It will take roughly 2-3 years to internalize all of the concepts in the book, if you want a cliff notes version you will not succeed. As a review the main points are as follows: 1) don’t expect people to act in a specific way in-line with your beliefs, 2) always remember to ask yourself if your emotions are reasonable and 3) worry is a wasted action where you exaggerate the actual impact of a negative event. We consistently feel the way we think, this book will help you train your thoughts and improve your quality of life.
Nutrition: The brain always comes first, however the second most under-rated point is your stomach. Most people continue to eat and drink products manufactured by mankind which will only accelerate your depression and well being. You have to overhaul your entire diet, from the inside out. Increase vegetable and fruit consumption to 2-3x the prescribed ideal and you’ll quickly see an impact from a decrease in brain fog to an increase in natural energy levels. Stop eating food out of a box. We have recommended this site before and simply visit it for additional information on juicing: fit-juice.com
Exercise: Most of our readers are heavily interested in fitness, yet if you go to the gym on a regular basis (6 days a week), you’ll notice people lift incorrectly, check their cell phones at the gym and spend more time sending text messages than doing sets. In fact we would bet people send more text messages at the gym than they do sets at the gym, it’s that bad. With that said, if you’re in a higher state of depression when you enter the gym your goal is to have high intensity workouts. You should be dripping sweat and you should be sore after every single gym session. If you are lifting aggressively with proper form you’ll have a hard time thinking about anything beyond the task at hand.
Get Out of Your Head: This is very similar to working on your belief system through the recommended book above however you need to address your depression through actionable steps. This means doing activities that will force you out of depression. Simple activities include 1) playing sports, 2) learning a new language and 3) taking up an instrument. We tweeted this earlier but it applies to depression as well:
“No one in the history off man kind has found his “purpose” in life sitting at home thinking and listening to emo music. Not one”
Similarly, you will not cure your depression by thinking about how depressed you are. If you think about depression you become depressed. Your happiness is driven by your thoughts.
Get Off the Media: This is great advice at any point in time, but most depressed people spend an enormous amount of time reading terrible articles from Yahoo! News, reading Facebook feeds and watching horribly boring sitcoms on TV. Throw it all away. If you want to know what is on mainstream media here is the quick run down: 1) some new diet trick to avoid actual exercise, 2) some “man or woman” who luckily finds money – which is a trick to make you believe money is all about “luck”, 3) Top X retirement destinations – to remind you to have blind faith in your 401K , 4) articles about the life of an average man today versus many years ago – designed to make you feel bad and 5) some updated tech gadget – to decrease your attention span.
Now that you’ve read every single article on the internet you can spend your time outside reading books, getting a new job and spending time in the gym. You’re growing or you’re dying and every second you spend reading mainstream media is a small drop of poison.
Accept Responsibility: The final piece of the puzzle will not come out of a psychiatrists mouth. “Take responsibility for yourself”. No one will tell you this, however the only way to get out of a depression is to do it yourself. You can’t look for anyone to hold your hand, you can’t spend your time waiting for a solution. Go through the steps outlined above and do this for the rest of your life.
Generally life is going to throw curveballs at you and no one is going to help you.
After you recover from your depression, subsequent negative events will become easier and easier to over come. Remember that you will always be defined by what you can recover from, think of a battle with depression as step one in a long-term battle against life.
