- Pills, pills are good.
Well, I mean, you could take antidepressants
if you feel hopeless and depressed.
There are other things you can try as well.
Let's go through the gamut.
Let's run the gamut.
I'm Jonathan Decker, "Mended Light."
(upbeat music)
What should you do if you feel hopeless and depressed?
There are lots of things you can try.
It's a terrible way to feel.
By nature we want to feel happy.
By nature we want to feel hopeful.
By nature we want to feel like we have a purpose
and things to look forward to and a spring in our step.
And we kind of feel like that should be our default setting
or at least like that's what we're working towards.
And if we're not accomplishing it,
then there's something wrong with us.
The first thing to recognize
is that there's nothing wrong with you.
I'm not saying you're not struggling with depression.
I'm saying that there's nothing wrong
with you as a person, right?
You have value.
You have worth, it is limitless.
It is eternal.
There's nothing wrong with you morally
for feeling hopeless and depressed.
There's nothing wrong with you
in terms of weakness versus strength.
You're not weak.
Feeling hopeless, feeling depressed
are natural human feelings.
Everybody feels sad.
Everybody feels down.
Everybody feels weary.
The issue with depression is that these normal feelings
that people have from time to time, get blown up,
get magnified to the point where they drag us down
and they keep us from living our lives the way we want to.
Keep us from connecting the way we want to.
Keep us from succeeding the way that we want to.
Like anchors.
And that is not a moral failing.
And that is not a lack of strength.
Nobody that I've ever heard of chooses this,
but we do have to deal with it.
I've heard it said
that your mental health is not your fault,
but it it is your responsibility.
So, what do we do?
A lot of people run
for antidepressants and I'm not anti antidepressants.
I think they have their role.
And for some people they're definitely helpful,
but I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna level with you,
I'm gonna tell you my biases today.
This is what I would do if someone came to me and said,
"I'm feeling depressed."
I'm gonna tell you the steps that I would take them through
so you can take yourselves through them.
And I would land on antidepressants at the end
if the other stuff isn't working, right, that's just me.
Another clinician might give you a different opinion.
First of all, diet, rest, and exercise.
People tell me they're depressed.
I'm like, "Okay, are you getting enough sleep?
How are you eating?
Are you getting enough exercise?"
And they sit, there they go,
"My therapist thinks I'm fat.
And I'm like, "No, it's not that.
It's got nothing to do with appearance.
We need to exercise for sanity, not for vanity."
Getting a good workout is one
of the greatest endorphin boost releases that you can find.
And for a lot of people
sometimes there's self-harm involved, right?
I feel depressed because I feel guilt
because I feel shame because I feel nothing.
'Cause depression isn't always sadness.
Sometimes it's flatness, right?
I feel nothing, so I want to feel something
and self-harm gets involved as a way of feeling something
or of relieving guilt by punishing yourself.
And I tell people,
"You know what's punishing?
Running three miles.
You know what's punishing?
Doing lunges, doing the bench press, swimming laps.
That's punishing."
Getting your heart going.
Getting the blood flowing.
Releasing those endorphins is a great way to feel better.
It's a natural antidepressant.
Finding the right amount of sleep.
Some people feel depressed and hopeless
because they work themselves so hard
and they drive themselves so hard that they sacrifice sleep
and they think that they can handle it.
The studies are limitless on why we need sleep.
And you can tell what a big deal it is
when you actually start getting good sleep
and you can see the difference.
And you think I should have been doing this all along.
I should have been making this a priority.
Or, what if you're getting too much sleep?
If you're getting too much sleep
or you're spending too much time in bed,
what I would urge you to do every day,
even if you just do one thing,
get outta bed, shower, and dress.
If you literally do nothing else that day
because you feel too depressed,
you did something that you didn't want to do
because you felt like you should and that's empowering.
And most people, by the time they've gotten
out of bed, showered, and dressed, they find that they can
at least do something and start getting somethings done
because they're already dressed for the day
and psychologically, because they've already
made themselves do something that they didn't wanna do,
that they needed to do.
If you're getting too much sleep,
have a reason to get out of bed in the morning,
give yourself that.
As far as diet is concerned, I'm not a nutritionist,
but I do know enough.
The more processed foods we eat, the more sugar we consume,
the more things that we put
into our bodies that aren't actually food.
The link between mind and body is strong
and eating a lot of junk food,
eating a lot of fast food
is correlated highly with depression.
Eat better.
You don't need to cut off junk food or fast food entirely,
but use it as a reward
or as an incentive once or twice a week and then lay off it.
If you need something sweet, eat fruit.
If you need something salty, eat some peanuts,
eat some nuts, eat some jerky.
Drink a lot of water.
I know somebody who literally never drinks water.
They'll literally only drink Dr Pepper
and Mountain Dew all the time.
And they are sad as can be all the time.
You need to take care of your body because your body
and your mind are all part of the same system.
The next thing I would advise you to do
is find some purpose.
Sometimes we feel depressed
because we don't know what we're doing with ourselves.
We don't know what our purpose is.
We feel stuck in the same rut.
And it's like in the movie "Unbreakable,"
there's a line where Samuel Jackson says to Bruce Willis,
"That little sadness that you have
when you wake up every day, I think I know what that is.
Maybe you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing."
Look for people to serve.
If you can't find anybody, go to justserve.org
and look for service opportunities in your community.
Ways to give back, ways to contribute your time,
ways to help people.
But honestly, the best way to start.
You know people, you have family, you have friends
that you haven't talked to in a long time.
Some of them are struggling just like you,
reach out to them.
Being there for somebody can help you to feel better.
Or the flip side, allowing them to be there for you.
If you're feeling depressed,
if you're feeling hopeless, maybe you're disconnected.
Next thing I would advise is to feed your mind.
If you're spending a lot of time with TV shows,
with video games, with movies.
Look, you know me, I love screen time as much as anybody,
but there's such a thing as too much.
Feed your mind with a good book,
not a trashy beach romance novel.
I mean, maybe there's time for that in your life
or there's room for that in your life,
but something that actually lifts you up.
Something that actually helps you to grow.
Something that gives you new skills or new perspective.
I would start with a book called
"Man's Search for Meaning," by Victor Frankl.
Victor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor
in the most depressing, hopeless circumstances
you can imagine.
He was in a concentration camp,
separated from his family,
loved ones killed in front of him.
His home destroyed, his possessions taken from him.
He didn't know if he was going to survive
and what his quality of life would be
for the rest of his life looked dire.
And he talks about
in that book that the Nazis could take away everything.
"They could take away our homes.
They could take away our families.
They could take our lives,
but what they couldn't take was our ability
to choose our response to our circumstances."
He says that in the concentration camps
the people who were focused on survivalism
and focused on themselves often didn't make it.
The people who did make it, not all the time,
but if you were to make it,
is because you were focused on community.
Is 'cause you were focused on being positive.
Is 'cause you focused on I'm gonna make it.
It's because you were focused
on sharing and lifting and helping
and using your talents and strengths and being scrappy
and being creative and looking for solutions.
Start with that book
because when it comes to depressing, hopeless circumstances
there's no better guide
to surviving that and thriving in it
than "Man's Search for Meaning," by Victor Frankl.
And then move on.
Move on to "Tuesdays with Morrie"
is another one that I would recommend
for a book that helps you find purpose in your life
when things are dire and when things are sad.
Read good books.
Feed your mind.
Listen to a podcast that uplift you.
Follow YouTube channels that edify
and feed your soul like this one.
We are all you need.
Everybody else sucks.
In your face TED Talks. (laughing)
It's not true.
I would love to be on a TED talk, please.
That would be amazing.
Now, if you are getting enough rest,
if you are having a healthy diet,
if you're getting enough exercise,
if you're fostering connection,
if you're serving and lifting one another,
if you're feeding your mind,
if you're trying to have a purpose,
if you're looking for a purpose in your life
and following that,
if you're using your talents,
then the next thing I would say
is that it's not fake it till you make it, but it's similar.
The behavior precedes the emotion means
that oftentimes I have to do something before I feel it.
I'm doing a lot better at exercise in my life right now.
I rarely feel like going to the gym.
I make myself go, even though I don't want to
and then once I'm there, I start to feel it.
Sometimes I don't feel like interacting with my kids,
but I make myself play with them
and listen to them and connect with them
and then I start to enjoy it.
What I tell people in your shoes
is you cannot wait until you feel better to do things.
You have to do things so that you feel better.
Let me say that again.
You cannot wait until you feel better to do things.
You have to do things so that you can feel better.
And then if that's not working, if that's not doing it,
that's when I would say we turn to antidepressants.
Again, you may get a different opinion
from a different clinician,
but that's the order of operations that I see.
How do you deal with depression?
How do you deal with hopelessness?
Let me know in the comments below
what you think of my thoughts,
what techniques and strategies that you have used.
And if you have any questions
for this Ask a Therapist Segment,
leave them down below in the comments
and I'll try and hit 'em up in a future video.
If you're enjoying this series,
I wanna direct you to another Ask a Therapist video,
"How to Get Traumatic Images Out of Your Head."
And Like, subscribe, click the bell,
share this video with your friends.
And most importantly, if you are struggling with depression
you don't have to go through it alone.
There is professional help, members of my team,
therapists on my team are qualified and able to help you.
Their links are in the description below
to schedule a 15 minute complimentary consultation
to see if you're a good fit for each other.
But if you don't get help with us, get help somewhere.
I'm Jonathan Decker with "Mended Light"
and I'll see you next time.
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