Finding Positive Thinking Patterns

Vivienne Greene authored one of my favorite quotes.  It states “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain”. To me, this is an important message about finding the positives in all the things in your life, even those that could otherwise be construed as negative.   This is especially important for those who suffer with depression.  Negative thinking can lead to feelings of hopelessness and people with depression tend to get mired in negative thinking.

One technique I teach patients is a form of a pro and con list.  Whenever you begin to feel overwhelmed with everything that seems to be going wrong or seems to be negative in your life, make a list of those things.  Then you draw a line down the center and try to make a list on the opposite side of any positive you can think of about that situation.  For instance, you may say “my son had to have emergency surgery” as the negative thought and the responding positive may be “thankfully he is through the surgery, doing well and will make a full recovery”.  In part, this is acknowledging the old adage of remembering that things could always be worse.  In fact, if you are struggling to come up with the positive in the situation you can always ask yourself how it could be worse.  It will always be a positive that the worse thing didn’t happen!

Over time, this technique can help to change your negative thinking, but I must warn you that it does not work overnight.  It takes practice to rewire the way your brain thinks.  I often have to remind patients that they did not start thinking negatively yesterday and, therefore, thinking positively is not going to take effect overnight either.  Seeing the world in a different light is worth all of the effort involved in getting there and the more you practice the better you will become.  The hope is that eventually you won’t need the list or the negative thoughts to be able to see the positive ones.  They may just naturally occur to you instead.

Depression and Nutrition

As our society becomes increasingly health conscious, I have noticed a recent trend in people looking for non-medication solutions to depression issues.  While many people with severe depression are simply unable (and should not attempt) to manage without medication, I do not think it is ever a bad idea to look at how lifestyle can be changed to either aid medication or remove the necessity for it in milder cases.  In previous blogs, I have explored the importance of exercise and sleep in regards to your mental state, but I would also like to include your eating habits as a central part of the discussion.

There have been many studies about the benefits of Vitamin D for people who suffer from depression and I often recommend sources such as Vitamin D drops or artificial sun lamps to try and increase Vitamin D intake in depressed patients.  I also recommend a great deal of natural sunlight.  If you can, take a walk outside during your lunch break or have your morning coffee on your deck.  However, Vitamin D is only part of the nutritional solution.  There are newer studies that have shown the benefits of Omega 3 fatty acids for people who suffer from depression. A lot of psychiatrists are now prescribing them to supplement anti-depressants because they have been shown to combat depression and boost the effectiveness of anti-depressant medication.  Fish, vegetable oils, leafy vegetables, nuts and flax seed are great sources of Omega 3 fatty acids, but a supplement can also help do the trick.

In addition, protein has been shown to be an important nutritional component in combatting depression.  I recently attended a lecture about this link and was amazed to hear that people with depression tend to have lower glucose levels which can create dips throughout the day making mood shifts more likely.  One way to combat these dips is to consume more protein, especially slow burning protein such as that found in meat, quinoa, brown rice and nuts.  For this reason, it is also a good idea for people with depression to have small protein rich snacks in between meals to keep their moods and their glucose steady.

I am not willing to say that quality sleep, exercise and these nutritional guidelines will completely rid you of depression, but I think the evidence of their benefits is too compelling to just ignore.  Anyone with depression whether they are on medication for treatment or not, should consider lifestyle an important part of their treatment along with therapy.  Slow and gradual lifestyle changes are easier to maintain and can have long lasting effects.

Finding work-life balance

Often when people begin to feel overwhelmed by their lives it is related to their lack of work-life balance.  One of the drawbacks of our increased reliance on technology in our life is that it has changed our work day.  We no longer go to work, finish our daily tasks, and head home to enjoy our personal life.  We are instead available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via mobile phone, computer, skype, etc.  It is not uncommon in this day and age for work to significantly encroach on family vacations and holidays.  The question people often ask themselves (and me) is, how can I create more balance in my life given my current circumstances?  I have two quick and easy suggestions to help restore some of that balance.

A lot of people seem to struggle at the end of a long hard day to transition from work to home.  If a day has been particularly tense, or if they have a problem leftover from the day that they need to deal with later, that tension and stress carries over into their first few hours at home.  They will often stress about work the whole way home from the “office” and find themselves unable to engage with family when they do get home.  This is one of the first things to address.  It is possible to feel more balanced if your personal life creates a feeling of connection and well-being.  If work interferes with this quality time, you never connect with loved ones or activities that make your life feel more enriched.  It is time to begin using your travel home more wisely.  This is the time that you should be transitioning mentally from work mode to home mode.  Use this time to shut out work concerns.  Practice some deep cleansing breathing and switch your thoughts to home.  If you have children or a spouse, this is the time to think about what you know about their days so you are ready to ask questions and engage when you get home.  It is also the time to let go of the stress and tension.  You may want to take the time to do a small short guided meditation (if you are not driving) or, if it was a particularly difficult day, to think about the positive things that happened.  It is important to change your mind set before you arrive home.  If you absolutely must take a work phone call or review something on your way home, take a few minutes before you walk through the door to reset, but, no matter what, make the transition.

The other suggestion I have is the creation of “personal time”.  Force yourself to shut off your electronic devices for a certain period of time every evening.  Leave them in another room so you aren’t even tempted to open up your personal social media or games.  It is important to have periods of time when you are awake that you can disconnect and recharge.  People often make the mistake of keeping their phones beside them or in their hands.  It is much harder to ignore a work request that comes through if you are aware that it is there.  Even if it only takes a few minutes to address, it has broken up your personal time and diminished your quality time.  Plus, being attached to your phone can cause frustration with the significant people in your life.  Nobody wants to feel that they don’t have somebody’s full attention when they are interacting.  You will have fewer arguments with significant members of your life if you give them undivided attention for periods of time every day. 

While these habits may seem hard to implement at first, if you put them into effect regularly they will quickly become habits that I am sure you will enjoy.  Plus taking time to recharge will certainly make you more efficient and effective in every aspect of your life.  You are only a few steps away from creating more balance in your overwhelming life.  Take the first step today. 

Alternative Therapies

It is often the case that people come to me when they are feeling desperate and believe they have no other remaining avenues to explore.  While I would love to see someone sooner in their mental health decline, I appreciate the fact that therapy is often difficult for people to seek out due to the stigma against mental health issues and the time commitment involved in change.  These individuals are often looking for answers to things that will help them feel better quickly that will then allow them to work through deeper longer term solutions.  Unfortunately, changing thought patterns and learning new coping mechanisms is a process that takes time and the longer you have been solidifying your behavior patterns the longer it can take to unlearn them.  However, if people are open to alternative solutions there are many to choose from that may offer some relief while working through larger issues.  Today I would like to share two of them that I suggest regularly.

Vitamin D has been linked to many overall health benefits but most people are unaware that it is also a strong combatant when facing depression.   Multivitamins and certain foods are a good source of vitamin D but often not enough to cause a substantial difference.  There are two sources of increased vitamin D that I highly recommend.  The first is a vitamin D drop.  It is a natural additive that you can drop into any food or beverage.  It is odorless, tasteless and safe enough for children as long as dosage instructions are followed.  The second is the sun.  Being out in the sun for at least thirty minutes a day increases your vitamin D and can be enough to help combat depression.  If you cannot be out in the sun because of the weather, an indoor sun lamp can often have the same effect biologically even though it doesn’t feel as uplifting emotionally. 

Another recent discovery of mine is the use of essential oils.  When a massage therapist friend of mine recently shared with me that she was using a diffuser filled with water and essential oils to help her children sleep and boost their immune system I was skeptical.  However, I never turn down an opportunity to test something that may be helpful to the people I treat, so I bought a few diffusers and began to use them in every bedroom of our house.  My kids and I quickly became fond of their effects.  Lavender oil truly does seem to help them sleep better and I am falling asleep faster and sleeping more soundly.  Rosemary does seem to be helping my son with his memory.  The true test was a diffuser necklace that I bought to wear during the day.  I wanted to see if the calming oils really did help me lower my stress level.  While none of these scents completely takes stress away, I can say it seemed to have a marked effect on helping me stay calm.  I found it extremely soothing.  My friend keeps suggesting different oils for different problems and I have not tried them all, but I do believe this is a viable way to help improve mood and sleep.

So treat yourself to something that appeals to you and can help you as well.  While neither of these treatments replaces the need for therapy or other medical interventions, they are different tools that can help you manage in the interim while you do the long term work. 

A Happiness Journal to Combat Unhappiness

The mindset that leads people to seek therapy is often a result of a habitual negative pattern of thinking.  Interestingly, the amount of change required to make a large impact in the way you feel is often minimal.  The hard part is having the motivation to make an initial change and then maintaining that change until it becomes a new permanent habit.  Therefore, I normally suggest that people start with a tiny insignificant change such as changing their morning coffee to tea.  While this seems like such a minor shift, it is a building point to prove to yourself that you can make change, and a very easy way to break out of your mental rut.

If you are capable of making a minor change, which everyone is despite what they may believe, I often suggest the implementation of a “happiness journal”.  Most people who feel unhappy struggle to even find the smallest positives in their day-to-day life.  They have become adept at seeking out every negative experience throughout the day and ruminating on how “unlucky” their lives have become.  I have discovered that journaling is a powerful tool in many ways.  A happiness journal is a tool that anyone can use to teach themselves how to recognize all the positive things that do occur in their day-to-day life. 

At the end of every day I suggest that people sit down and write a list of at least three things that were positive about their day. Believe it or not, this is often a struggle for people who are unhappy.  They often seek guidelines for what is acceptable as a positive item for the list and I refuse to give any.  I want them to be forced to expand their thinking to allow for all of the wonderful things that happen in their lives.  Maybe a stranger complimented your shoes. Maybe a coworker who is notoriously difficult for you to deal with was out of the office or, even better, suddenly kinder that day.  Maybe it is just that you are grateful for your spouse sticking by you even though you have not been the most pleasant person to be around lately. Maybe you saw a beautiful sunset while stuck in traffic on your way home.  I don’t really care what it is that made you feel a moment of cheer that day, I just want you to be able to recognize the positive events.

In response to this requested task, I often get complaints that people are tired and don’t want to “waste” the time at the end of their day.  Ironically, these are often the same people who struggle to fall or stay asleep.  Doing it at the end of the day is important because it allows you to go into sleep with a happier and more relaxed mindset.  It may actually help you sleep better so that you are less tired the next day.  It will also help you have a more positive feeling about a day that may have seemed overwhelmingly awful.  Another complaint is that people feel silly writing these things down.  While the goal may be that you can eventually do this in your head as you are drifting off to sleep, it is vitally important that it begin as a written exercise for two reasons.  First, writing something down will solidify it in your mind, which will have a larger emotional impact and cement something in your memory.  Second, if you have a written record, when you are feeling extremely low you can look back over previous entries to recapture some of the happiness that does exist in your life.

I know that initially this may be a difficult and time consuming task.  However, I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t find it easier in a very short amount of time and love the effect that it has on their emotions.  As you become adept at this exercise you can utilize it to boost your self-esteem by simply changing it to three things that you did well every day.  Or use it to help a marriage by coming up with three things your spouse did that made you happy that day. So pick up a pen or pencil and get started.  The only thing you have to lose is your negative viewpoint.