by Ada M. Palles

Depression is a debilitating and devastating condition that only those who have struggled with it can truly understand. It saps your strength, it steals your hope for the future, and it nullifies your will. And it is very serious. If you are suffering with the symptoms of depression, you must take action immediately. If you've ever needed to take charge of your life, the time is now.

Why? Because depression is not normal. It's not reasonable, it's not logical, and it's not natural. Hope, joy, excitement, and fun are natural!

How do I know? If you look around you, you will hear birds singing. You will see them diving to catch air currents, for no other reason than to swoop dizzily down for the thrill of it. You'll see dogs barking at passerby's and each other, wagging their tails all the while, for no other reason than because it's fun to cause a commotion. You'll see squirrels chasing each other and frolicking around trees. You'll see cats batting around leaves with their paws, just for the fun of it. You'll see kids taking every opportunity to bounce a ball, kick at a can, or jump in a puddle. Look around you - every healthy creature on the planet has a natural inclination to play and have fun.

Our goal should be to achieve joy. -- Ana Castillo

Our natural state is happiness. It is natural for us to want to enjoy ourselves. "Men ... are endowed ... with certain unalienable Rights ... among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." So, do not for one minute think your depression is normal. It is not. Take action.

No Magic Bullet

There is no magic bullet for depression. Partly because if you've been struggling with it for some time now, then "feeling bad" can become a habit. But I can promise you that you can get better, a little bit each day, until the moment comes when you're feeling happy, hopeful, and alive again when you put these things into practice:

1. Take responsibility for your condition. Take charge of your own health and life, and start taking care of yourself. Start thinking of your depression as an illness from which you can recover, and be disciplined about doing the things that will lead you back to wellness.

Safeguard the health both of body and soul. -- Cleobulus

2. Go to and tell your doctor immediately. Once you've taken responsibility for getting better, the first thing you need to do is rule out any kind of physical condition that may be the cause of your depression. Perhaps something as simple as a vitamin or mineral deficiency, or a perfectly treatable hormonal imbalance such as hypothyroidism, is the cause. This is very important, because if you're like most people, you don't connect your melancholy with a physical problem. We tend to think we're depressed because life is so hard. But many times there is a physical problem that is the real underlying reason for your mood. So get yourself checked out right away.

The only cure for grief is action. - George Henry Lewes

3. Get active! If you are depressed because of some external event or some kind of trauma - a death in the family, losing your job, the end of a relationship, or just a feeling of low self-esteem - then do something about it. Allow yourself to grieve, but don't allow grieving to become a way of life. Get out of the house and start participating in life again. Call you friends and invite them out to dinner and a movie. Go to that community festival that's coming up. Join a new group - something you've always been interested in - and sign up to be on a committee.

Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter. -- Paxton Hood

4. Surround yourself with inspiring and uplifting things. Turn off the news right now, and watch a funny movie instead. So what if you've seen it before? They're often just as funny the next time around. Watch only uplifting programs about finding inner joy, unlimited human potential, and self-improvement. Go to the bookstore and buy 10 books and magazines of inspirational and uplifting material, and read them! Listen to motivational tapes in the car. Search the internet for inspirational websites that celebrate joy and happiness. Subscribe to Readers Digest and read the laugh columns. Subscribe to Positive Thinking magazine, and read it before you go to bed. Don't roll your eyes - it works! Saturate your mind with positive and uplifting words until you believe them, and start feeling healthy again.

It doesn't pay to live in the past ... there's no future in it! -- Unknown

5. Put the past behind you. Regrets are wasted energies that constantly pull you backwards. Stop replaying the past as if it matters. Stop thinking about it. Stop giving it power over you. The only thing that matters is now. The only place you can do something in is now. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and visualize yourself physically putting "all things past" behind you. Then open your eyes and promise yourself to only look at what's in front of you - this moment, the future. You can never go back again, so you must face forward and promise yourself to make better choices from here on out. Start over. That's all you can do.

Starting over is the only thing that needs to be done. The reality is that the past is dead. It's over. Join the living again. Here and now is where you are needed. Here and now is the only space you can occupy and act upon. So, bury the past and let it rest in peace.

The simple solution for disappointment depression: Get up and get moving. Physically move. Do. Act. Get going. - Peter McWilliams

6. Move! Sign up for dance classes. Watch "Sister Act" for the 100th time and sing and dance along with the numbers. Get that oxygen in your blood circulating again! You'd be amazed what a pep-me-up simply moving can be! Commit yourself to that exercise program you've been thinking about. There's nothing like feeling physically strong and confident to boost your morale and make you feel that you can accomplish anything. Join a fitness club with a friend, or schedule a daily walk with each other, and commit to doing it 3-4 times a week on a regular schedule. Then, don't let the other person down. Be there for the each other when one is feeling weak of spirit or lacking motivation.

Tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you what you are. - Miguel de Cervantes

7. Surround yourself with only positive people. If you have a buddy with whom you regularly commiserate with over how bad life is, take a vacation from that person. If you've been hanging around with the "wrong crowd" - bitter, cynical, angry people - then suddenly become too busy to see them. Put yourself in quarantine from this kind of influence. Some people are toxic, and attitudes and moods are contagious. In order to get well again, you must surround yourself with uplifting people - people who make you laugh, who bring a smile to your face whenever you see them, people who spread sunshine and cheer - so that you can start seeing the good in life again, and start putting the negative into its proper perspective.

8. Start making simple goals at first. Give yourself a mission, a new purpose in life, something new and interesting to focus your energies on. Having something to look forward to can you move out of inaction into action, and action moves you out of depression.

You can't help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself. - H. Norman Schwarzkopf

9. Volunteer to help others. First of all, there's no better medicine for feeling good about yourself again than to help others. You'll start realizing that you are valuable and that one person can make a whole world difference. Second, focusing on others' needs takes your mind off of your own problems. Third, you'll start to really see and appreciate your own blessings, and develop the feeling of gratefulness.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday. - John Wayne

10. Here's a powerful secret. You already know this secret, but I will remind you. Your life can literally change in a day! How many times has it happened to you? One day you may be miserable, and the next day something happens that has you wanting to spin cartwheels across the floor. You could meet someone unexpectedly that changes your entire life. You could read a book that inspires you so deeply, that you will never be the same again. You may get a flash of an idea that excites you so much, you can't sit still until you do something about it. You could be discovered by a Hollywood producer at the ice cream parlour.

The fact is, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. In a fantastic, dramatic way your whole life can change literally in a second. So no matter how gloomy you're feeling today, look towards tomorrow with hope in your heart, because life is always full of surprises.

Do everything possible to start lifting yourself out of your funk. Take responsibility and take action. Consider it therapy because it is! The key is to do.

The undertaking of a new action brings new strength. - Evenius

Depression just may be the number one health problem in our world today. Many people have lost hope. Many people live in a state of cynicism and defeat. In the US, we live in a country where anything is possible, and so much is available to us. Yet so many of us have become frightened, cynical and hopeless about the future and the world. The doomsday crowd is out in full force over external events. Yet we know it is not the external but the internal events that are the true cause of our discomfort. It's time to lift the cloud of depression from our lives, and see the good that is possible again. It's time to embrace hope again in our hearts. The strong and healthy do not live in a state of fear or cynicism or hopelessness. They face life with joyous expectation, and so must you!

If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. - Philip Crosby