If you’ve never experienced clinical depression, it is hard to understand what it is like. Well-intentioned people will say things like, “just think positive,” or “just snap out of it.” Though they may not say it out loud, some people think a person with depression is just being lazy, or just trying to get attention. However, major depressive disorder is a serious psychological condition.

Depression: Saying "Be Positive" Doesn't Help

<ul><li>Depression is the second most common mental health issue (behind anxiety) and affects almost all human beings on the planet.</li><li>Everyone has ups and downs, but clinical depression is debilitating, affecting the ability to do even the most simple daily tasks.</li><li>Serious depression literally changes your brain and how it perceives in three ways:</li><li>You develop a negative view of yourself (I am worthless)</li><li>A person with depression believes they are terrible people, they cannot do anything right, and they are inherently flawed. This is why suicide starts to become an attractive option.</li></ul>

Understanding Clinical Depression

<ul><li>Encourage them to seek professional help: Since depression makes people think things will never get better, they often don't bother to seek help.</li><li>Help them get moving: The most important thing in the treatment of depression is "behavioural activation," which basically means to get moving-both literally (as in exercising or just getting out of the house) and metaphorically (in moving toward something you value, like family, career, or spirituality).</li><li>Offer validation and encouragement: People with depression tend to think very negatively, so avoid the temptation to argue with them.</li></ul>

What You Can Do to Help

<a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-5122-1_13">Numerous</a> <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2016-37833-001">studies</a> have shown that social support helps prevent and moderate the effects of depression. Since a big problem with depression is getting lost in the negative thoughts in your own mind, being around other people helps to refocus the mind on more important things, and can remind the person that they are so much more than their depression.

Foster Social Support

People with depression can be very challenging to be around, even for the most loving and well-intentioned person. Since these disorders hijack people’s thinking patterns, their ongoing negativity and pessimism can be hard to deal with. Progress can also be very slow for someone with depression. Even with professional help, it may take weeks or months to show improvement, so great patience is required.

Take Care Of Yourself

Knowing how depression works can help you better support loved ones who are struggling.

Stashed ideas

Five Ways to Help Someone With Depression

• You can't reason someone out of a notion that they didn’t reason themselves into.• Your best job will be the one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact, only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.• Buy used books. They have the same words as the new ones. Also libraries.• You can be whatever you want, so be the person who ends meetings early.• A wise man said, “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself, “Is it true?” At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?” At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?”

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• Take the stairs. • What you actually pay for something is at least twice the listed price because of the energy, time, money needed to set it up, learn, maintain, repair, and dispose of at the end. Not all prices appear on labels. Actual costs are 2x listed prices. • When you arrive at your room in a hotel, locate the emergency exits. It only takes a minute. • The only productive way to answer “what should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “who should I become?” • Average returns sustained over an above-average period of time yield extraordinary results. Buy and hold.

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• It’s thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers. • It’s possible that a not-so smart person, who can communicate well, can do much better than a super smart person who can’t communicate well. That is good news because it is much easier to improve your communication skills than your intelligence. • Getting cheated occasionally is the small price for trusting the best of everyone, because when you trust the best in others, they generally treat you best. • Art is whatever you can get away with. • With your children, spend half the money you think you should, but double the time with them.

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• Purchase the most recent tourist guidebook to your home town or region. You’ll learn a lot by playing the tourist once a year. • Dont wait in line to eat something famous. It is rarely worth the wait. • To rapidly reveal the true character of a person you just met, move them onto an abysmally slow internet connection. Observe. • Prescription for popular success: do something strange. Make a habit of your weird. • Be a pro. Back up your back up. Have at least one physical backup and one backup in the cloud. Have more than one of each. Backups are cheap compared to regrets.

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• Don't believe everything you think you believe. • To signal an emergency, use the rule of three; 3 shouts, 3 horn blasts, or 3 whistles. • At a restaurant do you order what you know is great, or do you try something new? Do you make what you know will sell or try something new? Do you keep dating new folks or try to commit to someone you already met? The optimal balance for exploring new things vs exploiting them once found is: 1/3. Spend 1/3 of your time on exploring and 2/3 time on deepening. It is harder to devote time to exploring as you age because it seems unproductive, but aim for 1/3.

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• Actual great opportunities do not have “Great Opportunities” in the subject line. • When introduced to someone make eye contact and count to 4. You’ll both remember each other. • Take note if you find yourself wondering “Where is my good knife? Or, where is my good pen?” That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those. • When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make “explaining the problem” part of your troubleshooting process.

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• When buying a garden hose, an extension cord, or a ladder, get one substantially longer than you think you need. It’ll be the right size. • Dont bother fighting the old; just build the new. • Your group can achieve great things way beyond your means simply by showing people that they are appreciated. • When someone tells you about the peak year of human history, the period of time when things were good before things went downhill, it will always be the years of when they were 10 years old — which is the peak of any human’s existence.

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• You are as big as the things that make you angry. • When speaking to an audience, it’s better to fix your gaze on a few people than to “spray” your gaze across the room. Your eyes telegraph to others whether you really believe what you are saying. • Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make habits. Don't focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout. • When negotiating, don't aim for a bigger piece of the pie; aim to create a bigger pie. • If you repeated what you did today 365 more times, will you be where you want to be next year?

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• You see only 2% of another person, and they see only 2% of you. Attune yourselves to the hidden 98%. • Your time and space are limited. Remove, give away, throw out things in your life that don't spark joy any longer in order to make room for those that do. • Our descendants will achieve things that will amaze us, yet a portion of what they will create could have been made with today’s materials and tools if we had had the imagination. Think bigger. • For a great payoff, be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.

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• Focus on directions rather than destinations. Who knows their destiny? But maintain the right direction and you’ll arrive at where you want to go. • Every breakthrough is at first laughable and ridiculous. In fact if it did not start out laughable and ridiculous, it is not a breakthrough. • If you loan someone $20 and you never see them again because they are avoiding paying you back, that makes it worth $20. • Copying others is a good way to start. Copying yourself is a disappointing way to end.

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• The best time to negotiate your salary for a new job is the moment AFTER they say they want you, and not before. Then it becomes a game of chicken for each side to name an amount first, but it is to your advantage to get them to give a number before you do. • Rather than steering your life to avoid surprises, aim directly for them. • Dont purchase extra insurance if you are renting a car with a credit card.

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• If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another, you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself, your conclusions will not be predictable. • Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce. • The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.

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Golden bits of advice from a 70-year-young person! ⭐ (Volume 2) | For Volume 1, visit my profile.

Navigating Life

103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known – Volume 2

I turned 50 this year. While I’m pretty happy with my life, I wish I had made different choices, both in my personal and professional life. If I could hold on to the knowledge I’ve learned and do it over again, I would have made different choices.Here are some of things I would change:

Background

By the time I turned 50, my bad eating habits were a daily part of my life. It is now hard as hell now to lose weight. My body holds on to that extra padding for dear life.I wish I had gotten serious about changing my eating habits and exercising. If you’re in your 30s and think it’s difficult to change your bad habits, it’s a thousand times harder at 50. I’ve had more years to get into the habit of eating what I want, and most of my food choices aren’t good ones.

1. Developed better eating habits.

Remember when you were little and you had your little gaggle of girlfriends? Me neither. I always had a few close friends and continued this trend into adulthood. But here’s the thing.Once you get into your 40s and 50s, if you don’t have any close friends, you may never have them. I’m finding this out the hard way. I haven’t had a close girlfriend in years, and it makes me sad.I guess I could meet people online, but why? Why aren’t there normal places to make friends? I miss the days when your friend sat next to you in homeroom and you hung out after school.

2. Made more female friends.

I’ll admit it. I shouldn’t have married my first husband. I was approaching 40 and I thought it was time to get married. So I did, and it was a mistake.I also should have married younger. I really didn’t get out there and date like I should have. Then I could have found someone I loved who shared my same values.

3. Married younger.

The weird thing about turning 50 is you start noticing more high school classmates dying.More people my age are seriously ill because of years of drinking, smoking and eating badly.I’m trying to do better, but I wish I had taken my health more seriously when I was younger. It’s hard to change my behaviour now, but I’m trying. Turning 50 is not the time to start thinking about your mental and physical health. Yet here I am, and I just have to do it.

4. Taken better care of myself.

I rarely thought about my own mortality until this year. Women in my family tend to live into their 90s, so I took for granted I would have a long life. Then I realized these women took better of themselves than I do. Who knows how many years I’ve shaved off these good genes I inherited with my poor choices?

I graduated college at 21 and started working. My jobs were fine, but if I had to do it over again, I would have taken more chances with my career.I probably would have gone into broadcast journalism, or worked harder to be a professional singer. I would have done something other than go to a 9-to-5 that didn’t challenge or interest me.I’m grateful that I am financially stable, but having a career that interests me would have made me much happier. I’ve played it safe instead of running the risk that I don’t excel at something. I’ve started writing, though, and that does challenge me.

5. Gotten out of my career comfort zone.

I put off traveling and didn’t go outside the country until I was 36. I wish I had had more adventures. I’ve probably traveled more than most Americans — because Americans don’t travel much — but I should have started in my 20s when I originally thought about it.I should have taken a semester abroad in college. Now I’m trying to travel abroad regularly. I’m coming up on two years since I went hiking in Spain, and it’s time to plan another adventure.

6. Started travelling when I was younger

I spent years bending over backwards to please guys I was dating, and I did it to the point where embarrassed myself.While I tried to change who I was to keep the relationship going, I lost myself along the way. And I took way too much time finding who I was again. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve contorted my personality to be more compatible in relationships my entire life.

7. Stayed true to myself in relationships.

This goes along with trying too hard to please guys. For most of my adult life, I worried about whether people liked me. I would change who I was to fit the situation. I was a classic people pleaser, and I did it to the point where I no longer recognized myself.How exhausting to hide who I was that way, but I did it to make and keep relationships. Now I don’t care. I don’t lose any sleep over it because these people hold no importance in my day-to-day life.

8. Stopped caring about what other people thought of me.

I’ve always been smart, but somewhere along the line, I stopped taking chances. I doubted myself, and it held me back.I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and while I looked good on paper, I constantly second-guessed myself. Can I really do this? Am I good enough?Part of this was internal, but part of it was also how others treated me. My blackness made them doubt me, and I felt invisible at times. I suffered the sting of being treated differently than white people and feeling helpless. It did a number on my self-confidence.

9. Believed in myself more.

I’m an introvert with extrovert tendencies, meaning I can socialize with people, but I also need time alone. I’m more introverted, so I enjoy solitude and time alone.I wish I had known this was normal instead of feeling like something was wrong with me. I didn’t come to this realization until I was in my mid-30s and met other people who were like me.

10. Spent more time getting to know myself.

It is important to note down the lessons and life advice from elders, as they have had the experiences that we are yet to have. I found this person's insight really interesting and a way to inform my future choices.

While I’m pretty happy with my life now that I'm "middle age," I do wish I had made different choices, both in my personal and professional lives.

My stuff

10 Things I Wish I Had Done Before I Entered ‘Middle Age’

Researchers have established a clear link between spending time on email and stress: the more frequently we check our email, the more frazzled we feel.Meanwhile, office workers check their inboxes 74 times a day and spend 28% of their workday on reading and responding to email.

The Email Story

<ul><li>When you don’t know if you’ll get a big reward, small reward, or no reward at all - that's when you are most likely to repeat a behavior and slip into addiction.</li><li>Email is a near-perfect random reward system.</li><li>Random rewards make us want to check email repeatedly in the hope of a reward.</li></ul>

Why Email is So Addictive

<ul><li>Inbox Zero is a state when you have answered or filed all your email and there are no new unread messages.</li><li>Chipping away at our inbox gives us a sense of satisfaction precisely because the act includes such clear progress indicators.</li><li>Progress is one of the most motivating forces known to humankind.</li><li>Email inboxes make progress so visible which is another reason why email is so attractive.</li></ul>

Why Inbox Zero is Irresistible

Our negativity bias toward email means that every email we send or read is interpreted more negatively than it was intended, which is one of the reasons why more email tends to equate more stress.The lack of social cues in email also forces us to spend more time trying to interpret what the sender meant: Are they angry? Are they satisfied? Should I apologize?

Why Email is Stressful

<ul><li>The rule of reciprocity states that if someone does a favor for you, you want to return the favor even if the favor wasn’t something you wanted.</li><li>Numerous experiments have shown that humans tend to adhere to the rule of reciprocity in social interactions.</li><li>When emails start piling up, you begin to feel stressed out.</li></ul>

The Rule Of Reciprocity

<ul><li>Set aside 30-60 minutes in the late morning and a similar amount of time in the mid- to late afternoon for checking email.</li><li>Turn off notifications and don't check email throughout the day.</li><li>Just having your email program open in the background of your computer screen as you focus on another task can decrease performance.</li><li>Avoid such distractions by quarantining your email in a separate area from your main workspace.</li></ul>

Tips To Check Email

<ul><li>Every time you stop doing a task you are working on to check your email, you incur what researchers call a “switching cost”.</li><li>It typically takes at least 25 minutes to get properly back into the task after you’ve interrupted yourself.</li><li>The more frequently you check email, the less productive you are and the less happy you are.</li></ul>

The Switching Costs

The best way to get less email is to send less email. A great way to do this is to proactively close the conversation as soon as it’s convenient. This means always striving to respond to emails completely, cutting off the possibility of a long back-and-forth.Do a bit more work when you send or reply to emails.

Closing The Email Loop

The average person checks email 77 times a day, sends and receives more than 122 email messages a day and spends nearly a third of their workweek managing a constant influx of email. Even when we're away from work, checking email is the most popular activity we engage in on our mobile devices. Email is a powerful and essential tool - but it has become a near-constant source of frustration, anxiety and distraction from our work. In this insightful and intensely practical book, Jocelyn K. Glei explains why email is so overwhelming and addicting, and lays out strategies for limiting the energy you spend on it. These include setting meaningful work goals, clarifying to yourself which people and messages truly matter and creating a daily routine that aligns with your natural creative rhythms. Through her actionable, thoughtful advice, Glei will help you to: - Stop letting email dictate your mood, your focus and your to-do list - Process your inbox efficiently - Compose messages that get people to take action - Establish boundaries that allow you to engage in more meaningful work.

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"All things are difficult before they are easy."

Doing what's right tells people that you care instead of when you always take the shortcuts.

Do what is right, not what is easy

How are you going to learn if you're the one that's talking? When you're a good listener you learn a lot more than you think you would.

Listen to learn

When you make a decision you should have a clear and conscious mind because that is when the best decisions are made.

Don't make decisions when you're in a bad mood

"One bad chapter doesn't mean your story is over"

You might think that life is fair and there are no problems but this mindset is what causes unhappiness because you are tricking yourself into thinking it's fair.

Five Ways to Help Someone With Depression

103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known – Volume 2

10 Things I Wish I Had Done Before I Entered ‘Middle Age’

Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done

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