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April 7th is World Health Day. The theme for 2017 is Depression: Let's talk.
Depression -- A word that needs no introduction in the current context. However, with rising cases of teenagers and young adults coming to the limelight, it is our responsibility to do your bit to help people with depression deal with it. While asking for help is the first and most crucial step to fight depression, there are a few ways you can help YOURSELF to get through it. Spiritual healer Mynoo Maryel shares a few ways based on her experience of living through depression and anxiety experienced by her son between 11 and 17 years of age. You can use these for yourself and also use them to support a loved one who may be experiencing a slide into depression. It's important to understand that it is a widespread condition and you can recover from it fully.' Here are 10 ways to help yourself through depression -
1. The first step is to acknowledge and accept that depression is in your current reality. Depression doesn t take hold overnight. It builds up through a series of anxiety triggering incidents. If you ignore any signs of depression, it forms a layer of deep-seated dark moments, piling up and reach a tipping point. And then when an emotional trigger of any kind sets off an avalanche, which can bring on the full onslaught of depression.
2. The second is to have faith even in the darkest moments, that you will recover from this fully and emerge back into your light. Every dark cloud has a silver lining as they say. And the best you can do at this stage is to speak up about your inner feelings with friends, family or loved ones and get a professional help to nip it in the bud. Read about what is the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist and whom should you go to for counselling?
3. Now start looking for every little evidence of silver lining. Find signs, objects, words that feel uplifting. I ask people to bring in their Miracle lens and become a miracle hunter, looking for things that make you smile, make you feel a connection, that uplift you. Take baby steps and support yourself in finding what uplifts you. Initially, it may seem hard but keep going until you find something. Once you get one such thing that makes you happy, you will feel motivated to find some more until these objects and experiences of beauty start to flow to you. Having been in the darkest of situations with my son, I know that when we took matters into our hands and supported one another to do this, life transformed.
4. Overcoming depression from my experience is about vibrations, uplift them the moment you feel any advent of negativity. Nip it in the bud strategy is the key to achieving this. Be vigilant, aware, notice yourself and be proactive. The moment you feel numb, take some action and find something close to you, that generates a positive feeling. The moment you notice self-doubt or hopelessness creeping in, shift that state by either watching a funny video or lovely photographs or beautiful vistas in nature.
5. Eat a healthy diet (high vibration foods, which I call as rainbow foods). Bring together a variety of colours in your diet. A healthy diet can help you a long way in making your physically and mentally strong to fight depression. Be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian foods, make sure you get your daily dose of vitamin and minerals from the diet. Here are few diet changes you need to make if you are depressed.
6. Uplift your mental state by listing everything you can appreciate at the moment. This may seem difficult because when depressed your feelings might often oscillate between feeling numb or hyperactive. Simply diverting your mind and bringing in positivity in everything you do can help you out.
7. Shift your emotional state by getting a move on. Use music, a walk in the park or amongst the trees to rejuvenate your inner self. The idea is to start feeling the feelings, which stimulate all your senses by being in nature. Here's how to help yourself when fighting depression.
8. Ensure you have a support network and with your support create a gratitude brigade and go searching for things you can be grateful for. Gratitude is the key to peace. As you become more and more grateful, peace is the consequence. Create little gratitude reminders, like a knot or a pebble that you carry in your pocket. The moment you see it or touch it, you remember to be grateful for something.
9. Avoid negative people, negative news on TV or negative situations as it can worsen your condition. The idea is to stay from negativity, and feeling stressed but to feel happy and positive.
10. Enjoy sunsets and sunrises in photos if you do not have access to them in reality. The colours of gold and orange stimulate the reconnection to your soul identity, and this is a big step in unblocking the desire to experience the magic of life. You may also like to read about are you suffering from depression, or is it just stress?
*Note: Spiritual healer Mynoo Maryel is a corporate leader turned seer, who lives in Bali. Her 'The BE book' is an Amazon bestseller.
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