Depression. It's affecting a lot of us. And I get this question a lot. "Dr. Paul,
how do you beat depression naturally?" I've got 5 strategies for you. Quick
disclaimer right up front. I am NOT anti medication. I'm a psychologist. I'm not
licensed to prescribe medications and so my interventions with people when it
comes to depression are more geared toward psychology and what we can do
naturally to beat depression. Let's start with the number 1 thing that you can
do to get on top of depression naturally. Move your body. Get this thing moving.
Exercise in all of the clinical trials. Exercise beats antidepressant medication.
Oftentimes we'll use those together. But here's what I learned from that research.
If we get our body moving, our body naturally starts to do the things that
will help us to overcome some of the mental health challenges that we're
having. Now, there's some obvious benefits to exercise, physically. Emotionally?
It's just as important. Get that body moving. There's different studies that
suggest different frequencies. What I'm finding in what I've reviewed is that
roughly 3 to 5 times a week for about a half hour. Good aerobic exercise.
Something that gets your heart moving a little bit. Maybe you work up a sweat. You
want to get that body moving so that you can get the natural chemistry of your
body to work for you and not so much against you. That's the first tip. Here's
tip number 2. And this probably won't surprise you if you've been paying
attention. Get involved in service to other people.
Depression tends to be so self focused that it's not always very helpful. And
there's a lot of chatter that goes on in our mind usually about ourselves. When
you turn your focus to other people, it gives you an opportunity
get off of your own concerns for a little while. But there's some other
reasons that service is such a powerful way to counteract some of the negative
psychological processes that cause depression in the first place. Now for
the next 3 tips, look up, look out look in. Let's take each one of those
separately. First of all, look up. I'm picturing depression as it was depicted
by Charles Schulz in one of the peanuts cartoons. This particular cartoon
depicted Charlie Brown standing like this. And he said, "When you're depressed,
it makes a lot of difference how you stand." The worst thing you can do is
straighten up your shoulders and hold your head high. Because then you're gonna
start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've
got to stand like this. Now, that's funny but it's also really true. And sometimes
we hang on to a posture that's not supporting our positive mental health. So,
by look up, I mean straighten up and look up. Get your eyes higher. Sometimes when
we're depressed, we're always down here. Look up but not only physically with
your eyes. I'm talking about positivity as well. Negativity
fuels depression. If you're not sure what I mean by positivity, go to the very
first introductory video on this channel, Live On Purpose TV. It's right there when
you open up the channel page. The positivity model that I teach in that
video is what I'm talking about when I say look up. Choose a positive
perspective. It's going to make a huge difference. And really this is the first
thing that I teach all of my clients when I'm doing personal coaching. Look up.
Tip number 4 is look out. We already talked about service as being an
important part of handling depression. Looking out means that you get your
focus out there. And there's a couple of different ways that this works.
Service is the most obvious one and that's why we included it as its own tip.
Getting the focus from me on to other people. But also notice that sometimes
when you get stuck in that depression, you're ruminating, you're really inside
of here. Thinking about and repeating all of the things that are contributing to
your depression. What's not working for me, what I don't like, how things are not
going well for me. When I say look out, notice that there's this beautiful
bright world around you. And that doesn't change based on the circumstances that
are affecting you right now. Years ago, if you've read my book, you know that I
start with a chapter called Lightning Strikes. This was about a time in my life
that was very difficult personally. I was at the lowest point economically that I
had ever been. And I actually found myself in the middle of a bankruptcy.
When I walked out of that room where that whole thing was finalized, I noticed
something. And it surprised me actually. Everything was in color. What?
Everything's in color. Trees are green. There's a playground over there with red
sides on it. Children are wearing clothing that's actually bright and
colorful. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe one of those old
twenties movies where everything's black and white and people are walking around
like Charlie Brown. Color! Breezes blowing, birds are singing. Huh!
You know what? It surprised me and it surprised me that I was surprised. And I
got to look out and notice this big bright beautiful world around me that
hadn't changed because I was in a fix. Look out.
There's neat things to see out there. You're going to think that I'm switching
positions on you because tip number 5 is Look In. These last three are Look Up,
Look Out, Look In. I just talked about how you're supposed to look out and get
outside of yourself. Now, I'm saying look in. But I want you to do it in a specific
way. There's a concept called metacognition.
Metacognition is simply thinking about thinking. Until we do this, we just roll
with whatever we're programmed to do. And there's a common error that happens in
our thinking. We think that what we believe is true. Okay, track that a little
bit. whatever beliefs are going on for you,
you just assume that whatever it is that you're thinking is true. So notice that.
When I say look in, I want you to examine your thinking. And you're never wrong
about how you feel. How you feel is 100% consistent with the way
your mind is doing 2 processes that I described in that earlier video I
referred to. Notice that whatever it is you're feeling is driven by those
thought patterns. And until you look in and really engage in metacognition, you
don't see it. And until you see this as a choice, it's not. I say that to people all
the time --happiness is a choice. You've heard it. It's kind of irritating. It's
kind of annoying. I get fired for saying that sometimes until people pause to do
just this thing: Look inside. Test and examine and scrutinize your own thinking.
Just because you think it doesn't mean that it's true. Don't be too quick to
believe everything you think. You know, before you tweet that as Dr. Paul having
said it, I got that from a 93 year old woman who lives three houses down here
from my house. "Lived' she has passed away. Before she passed away,
I asked her, "What have you learned from this rich, abundant life that you've
lived?" She said that to me. "Don't be too quick to believe everything you think."
Brilliant! Hey, thanks for being here and thanks for
sticking with me through all 5 tips. Something I didn't mention in these tips
is that it helps to get out of your own way and get a coach. Coaching is
available to you to help you do exactly what we talked about in this
video. Would you please visit liveonpurpose.coach. Not dot-com. Liveon
purpose.coach where we have a team of coaches who are trained in the live
on purpose strategies and philosophies that are ready to help you.
We're on your team.