Hi Friends, Time for another mini episode. The topic this week is something that came up on our Facebook group this week, and it went something like this, I'm dealing with depression, and some people say the way to do that is to get up and exercise and eat right and try and connect with other people. And then other people say, hey, just go easy on yourself, take it slow, you know, just be good to yourself and relax. And so which should I do? And I think this is
a great question. And the person in the group who said that also said, look, I know I should be doing some of these more positive things, but I just it's very difficult for me. All I want to do is lay on the couch watching Netflix and eat junk food, which I think we can all relate with to some degree.
I think this is a very good question. It's also a very difficult question to answer because the answer is it depends, and I think it depends on a lot of factors, the most important one being you and what works for you. You've often heard me use the analogy of depression as the emotional flu and I think it's an analogy that is useful in this circumstance. So exercise,
eating well, connecting with other people. All those things to me are like washing my hands a lot as far as preventing the flu and going and get in the flu vaccine. I can do a lot of that stuff as a preventative step, and when I'm doing more of that, I am less likely to get the emotional flu or about of depression. So those things are really important to me as preventative. As I slide into depression, depending on its severity, those things become much harder to do, and
it depends. So I think that I try and keep doing those things because I know they're good for me, but I also give myself a lot more slack. And I think this is the way to kind of do both these things, which is, if you're feeling lousy like that, try and do something that you know is in the self care regimen. Try and do something that you know helps, even if that help is is insignificant in the moment.
You know, a quick walk around the block, or three minutes of exercise, or three minutes of meditation, or one phone call to a friend, see if you can do something small, and then you've got the rest of the time to kind of take it slow and work with yourself and be easy on yourself. I also think it depends on what are natural tendency is some of us have a natural tendency to try and do too much.
We're all is doing something and if we're not doing something or accomplish in something, we feel bad about it. And in those cases right taking it easier, taking it slower at certain points is really good for us. Others of us have the opposite tendency, which is that left or own devices, we will lay around and watch Netflix and eat junk food all of the time. And so in those cases, for people like that, the prompt or the encouragement to to push a little bit harder can
often be helpful. It depends on where you're coming from. The other thing is circling back to the flu idea or analogy. Another concept comes up for me, which is how to deal with the flu or cold while I have it, and while I have it right, I just try and take really good care of myself, drink a lot of fluids, rest, rest, rest, right, and then when I come out of it, I'm able to engage in
those preventative activities again. But the reason that that analogy of the flu or the emotional flu has been so helpful to me is that it doesn't cause me to fall into an existential crisis every time my depression rears its head. Now, I believe that we need to be spending time looking at our lives, and I do believe that depression has a lot of causes that relate to how we live our lives. Are we living with purpose and integrity? Are we doing a lot of those things?
So those things are important to deal with. My experience has been in the midst of a cute bout of depression. Is not the time to re examine my life. It's the time to take care of myself and get better. So by knowing that I've kind of got something like the flu that in my case is gonna there's gonna be some at least lightening of symptoms at some point, that's the time for me that I think looking at
the deeper underlying things can be helpful. And then the last thing I'll say is, you know, if depression is incapacitating to a great degree for a very long amount of time, I strongly recommend getting help and not listen into a podcast host for all your advice, because obviously depression can be a medical condition, and in a lot of cases, certain medications are very useful in treating depression.
I don't think they're the whole story. I don't think that just taking a pill and going about living in whatever way you have been works, right. I think it's some more holistic answer. But medical help can be part of the solution, particularly if you're in such a place that you're unable to do the other things that we know will help with depression exercise, eating right, living a
life of purpose, doing things that matter. If you're to the point that you can't do any of those things, then seeing a medical professional is probably a good idea because you have been unsuccessful in working your way out of it. So those are some thoughts on depression that came up from a post in the Facebook group. We'll have a new episode out on Tuesday. As always, Thank you so much for listening. If you love what we're
doing here, go over to patreon dot com. If you like these mini episodes, go over to when you feed dot net slash support and you'll get access to a bonus mini episode every month that no one else gets if you subscribe at a ten dollar level. So when you Feed dot net slash support if you like what you're hearing, and we'll talk Tuesday. Thanks, bye,