Count your blessings.

New research indicates that those who are grateful to others for life's little gifts often are less stressed and less likely to succumb to depression. So developing gratitude can make our lives better. a longitudinal study showed that people who were more grateful coped better with a life transition.Grateful people are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships
participants in a survey who were told to express their gratitude to someone they knew experienced feelings of well-being and good mood. if you often find yourself sad and want to use gratitude to improve your life , you actually might have to fake it at first. , but eventually you will start feeling real feelings of gratitude.

CHEER UP !

hello friends , life can be demanding and tiring sometimes . We all need to periodically recharge our batteries.
I have found a new way of recharging ourselves... TREKKING.. or as they call it in the west, mountain hiking .
After years of watching Discovery and National Geographic , i have decided to take the plunge my self and go for some adventure.
If you are in india simply log on to www.yhaindia.org and find a trekking program that suits your aspirations and budget. The Youth Hostel provides trekking at much lower prices than private tour operators.
One of the places you might find yourself is the Valley of Flowers in the Himalayas , which has been designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. Wow.

One way to reduce stress

It is well known and well understood that major setbacks can induce certain people to lose hope and become stressed or even depressed.
But it is relatively rare that we experience major setbacks like job loss, divorces or failure in examination.
But even then , it is very difficult to find people who are not stressed out. People often become stressed in reaction to minor everyday annoyances like power cut, internet disconnection or when someone else's behavior smacks of ill will.
one common reason for the high prevalence of stress amongst people ( including me) is that we unknowingly deny the universal truth that " Life is not a bed of roses "
psychologists call this Low Frustation Tolerance.
People often have difficulty reconciling to the fact that frustation and annoyance are a part of human existence. People often expect things to go as they want , and are unable to tolerate when this doesn't happen. People then go on to catastrophising the situation, erroreneously believing the current source of frustation will ultimately ruin them . A student who has just performed poorly on a single test can catastrophise the situation and paint doomsday scenarios about his future life.
people with LFT may expect other people to be always good to them and never behave in a way they don't approve of. Failure to realise that other people are not bound to always please us , can lead to feelings of hostility and anger.
People with LFT can develop a complaining nature, and can have negative perceptions of people and the world.
Less obvious is the fact that LFT can induce procastrination . We might seek immediate pleasure instead of facing something that is necessary but likely to induce annoyance and frustation. This can force us to delaying essential tasks , just because we are scared of the annoyance we are likely to encounter if we take up the task.
What then, is the way to reduce stress arising out of LFT ? Simple, we should try develop High Frustation tolerance .
To accept frustration is to acknowledge that, while we may dislike it, there is no Law of the Universe says we ‘should’ be exempt from it (though we may prefer to be). we should expect to experience appropriate negative emotions like annoyance and disappointment. But we should avoid exaggerating these emotions into depression, hostile anger, hurt, or self-pity.

One way to recover some of the lost self esteem in extreme depression

During depression, a person often evaluates him/her self to be worth less and incompetent , fundamentally incompetent and incapable. In extreme examples like mine, I often used to wonder the reason for my continued existence ,and even doubt that my coming into this world was of any use. No wonder, this is followed by suicidal tendencies; the person thinks it would be better if he were gone , or even wish he wasn't born in the first place. To quote a famous poet,
" O had I perished in the womb,
that deed were left undone"
This kind of pathological thinking requires urgent professional attention. However, there is one way we can feel better in such a situation, temporarily atleast.
We can help other people . Of course this isn't easy , considering the fact that the individual doubts his ability to help himself. One way this can be done easily without much effort is to pledging to donate our eyes after our death. This will provide the person some evidence he isn't entirely useless, and regardless of whatever he has been unable to achieve , he will continue to be useful to the world even after he is gone.
I did this, and I have also volunteered to donate my blood to help other needy people. This assures me that no one on this planet is essentially useless, and that we all have capability to be useful and contribute something to this world.
We all feel better after having helped somebody, and in depression such acts often help recover some segment of the person's initial self respect and self esteem.

learned helplessness

long before I ever thought i would ever take up the study of psychology, i inadvertently discovered the principle of learned helplessness ( or rather I should say i had a horrible episode of depression and ocd and after that episode i realized in retrospect that it was due to my pathologically pessimistic thinking.)

learned helplessness can be expressed as the common phrase" damned if you do, damned if you don't" When you see that your repeated and sincere efforts are not being fruitful and this situation lasts for some time, say a 6 months , you are likely to develop the tendency of thinking that there is no point of applying effort since it will all be in vain. ( " there is no use doing this ; it is not going to make any difference anyways. ") (" anyways i am an incompetent person incapable of the simplest tasks.")

The problem with this kind of thinking is that the circumstances that brought about the period of poor performance are unlikely to persist for long. Those underlying circumstances( whether you are aware of their identity or not) for your poor performance will eventually go away.

But by now you have developed such a pessimistic attitude towards life that you fail to notice that the situation has changed and commit the costly mistake of assuming that any effort you apply will simply go in vain.

and so now you have persistently low mood ; lack of motivation for the simplest of everyday tasks ; lack of interest in things previously considered interesting . In other words , you have major depression now. And as if this wasn' t enough , you think that approaching a doctor would be of no use since the situation is out of control and you are bound to be doomed. There is little a doctor could do about it.

And frequently , as in my case you develop obsessions and compulsions too . You keep on repeating the same ( usually pessimistic) thought in your mind that you go mad. Sometimes your mind gets so tired of repeating the same thought incessantly that it resorts to repeating a single word instead of the whole sentence. Your compulsive state of mind forces you to perform the most ridiculous of rituals , and your inability to control repetitive thoughts and actions ( often weird, arising out of exaggarated anxiety) further destroys your already plumetting self esteem ( what psychologists call "ego dystonic")
But if learned helplessness ( you ' learn ' to be helpless) is the gateway to mental illness, then what is the method to prevent mental illness in adverse situations?
This issue would be adressed in another blog.

depression: when we perceive setbacks as catastrophe

My advice to people who have had just experienced a negative life event..

A career loss.. failure in examination.. not getting admission in the college we wanted..
Getting fired from one’s job., sickness
Getting divorced, even sickness or passing away of a loved one..

REMEMBER…

It might be a SETBACK,

But it certainly isn’t a CATASTROPHE.

When people perceive a setback as a catastrophe, it is called depression
I SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE