Even in the depths of depression, sometimes you have a great day. A content few hours. A joyful moment.

Sieze them! Clap along.

FlyLady

If just the words “de-clutter and get organized” fill you with anxiety, relax! There is help you can take in baby steps.

Flylady has a simple, step-by-step, little-by-little system to get you organized! No, really. It works. And it's free!

Give it a try. Take your first baby steps by checking out flylady.

And, if it just stresses you out more, then don't do it! See how this works?

Gurdeep Pandher Wins the Internet with Kindness

I recently discovered Gurdeep Pandher, who became an Internet sensation by dancing. Just gleeful jumping and free flow dancing in a traditional costume in the snow of the Canadian North. Offbeat is the way to get views!

His joy and his philosophy are inspiring. Below is a recent post from his Substack, with this title:

"When the Weather is Cold, Kindness Becomes Even More Crucial: Kindness does not just bring warmth and light into the lives of others, but it also heals many hearts, mending wounds and fostering a sense of peace, unity and care."

Kindness and dancing with abandon sound like a great prescription for battling depression.

Read his post HERE. 

Get Help!

If you are depressed, have been chronically depressed, or are in a crisis of depression and suicidal thoughts – please, get help.

You deserve to feel better. You deserve to get your life back on track. And you can and you will. You may just need some help from someone experienced in helping.

So, talk to your doctor or your spiritual advisor, minister or rabbi. Talk to a guidance counselor or teacher or trusted friend. Talk to someone and ask how to get the help you need. And then get it.

You deserve it.

Anti-inflammatory Foods

“Severe mental illnesses (SMI), including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, are associated with increased inflammation. Given diet’s role in modulating inflammatory processes, excessive calorie-dense, nutrient-deficient processed food intake may contribute toward the heightened inflammation observed in SMI.” (Frontiers in Psychiatry, May 15, 2019)

Anti-inflammatory foods include:

• salmon
• tuna
• flax seeds
• tart cherries
• oranges
• strawberries
• curry
• edamame
• green tea
• whole grains
• tomatoes
• olive oil
• blueberries
• green, leafy vegetables
• nuts

One Simple (but Pesky) Change

Do you have hundreds of unread emails haunting you but can't delete them because “what if one of them is important?”

Delete them. If you miss something important, you'll find out sooner or later. And you are much more likely to miss important things if your inbox is perpetually full.

After that liberating act, check your email and clean up your inbox(es) daily. Don't read everything. If it's not important, delete it.

If you've signed up for way too many email lists, unsubscribe as they pop up.

You'll feel so much lighter, so much more together and on top of things. You are so virtuous and organized!

Turn Off the News

Turn off the news.

That's it. Simple. I allow myself one hour of TV news a day, but rarely even do that.

Go to youtube and watch one or two short segments of a network you trust.

Read the paper.

Follow people on Substack and other platforms that compile articles and essays by author, and read only those.

Television and radio news are designed to agitate you. Turn them off.

Depression Lies

Do you get depressed because you think your life will never get better and there is no way to make changes and you will always be underemployed and in debt and broke and unlovable and pathetic?

PLEASE NOTE: 

You think these things because you're depressed.

They are not true.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

"King realized that to solve the problems of human life, especially the deepest problems - like racism, poverty, and war - we have to become, in a sense, abnormal. We have to stop going along; we have to stop accepting what everyone else believes. We have to become maladjusted if we are at all to become creative...

"King knew what it meant to be maladjusted, psychologically, because he was not normal, psychiatrically. He had multiple periods of severe depression, and twice made suicide attempts as a child. Near the end of his life, some of his staff tried to get him into psychiatric treatment, but he refused." 

Read the whole article from Psychology Today HERE.