Procrastinating, sleeping and loathing are the exercises depression makes you practice, leaving no space for productivity nor any room for joy. The drawbacks are obvious, but the solutions are obscured. After years of enduring depression, and becoming quite an athlete in the discipline, I decided to act and reverse the vicious routine. The results of my efforts surpassed the expectations I had formerly in mind, landing me in a world flooded with opportunity and motivation. What I have done is clear and simple, making it easy to replicate:
Practice mindfulness meditation - meditation enables you to achieve harmonious and objective thinking pushing the pessimism, inherent to depression, aside. As if it were not enough, frequent meditation has been associated with thickening of the grey matter and increased activity of the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region important in self-regulation.
Aerobic exercise - physical activity results in, but is not limited to, perceivable changes in bodily structure making one look more seductive to the stranger's eye. Nevertheless, the changes to which the naked eye will remain blind are more numerous and comforting - your mental stamina and focus improve, heart rate drops, blood pressure declines, mood-soothing neurotransmitters are released and, astonishingly, the neurotoxic effects depression imposes upon the brain region, implicated in cognition and memory, termed hippocampus are prevented and reversed.
Know your depression - understanding the mechanism, symptoms and dynamics of the disorder will help you change the perspective on the issue. Instead of succumbing to the symptoms and accepting them as the inevitable faith analyze your depression and trace its sources. As you find out that depression has biological causes, as any state of consciousness does, you will be able to separate yourself from the depression and distinguish it from your unadulterated personality. Elucidation of the sources and habits intrinsic to depression will bring more comfort and confidence into your daily life. Once you learn how an engine works you will become more proficient at tweaking and adjusting its performance; the same concept applies to depression. Read books, articles and texts related to depression and so become acquainted with your disorder. There is a lot of great literature covering this topic so seize it.
What to do is clear now, but bear in mind that it takes a speck of effort and patience at first to incorporate all these steps into your daily life so do not be surprised if you feel resentment at first; you will soon slide into it and enjoy the real benefits these techniques have to offer!
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