stress

How can we draw on the power of our own minds to heal depression? As I’ve tried to answer this question, I’ve had to rethink my beliefs about recovery. This is the first in a series of posts to describe what I’ve been learning. Like everything else I’ve been writing about here, this search starts […]

Simply getting to work when you’re depressed can feel like an impossible task. Dealing with people in the workplace and doing the most basic parts of the job seem to take more energy than you have. The routine becomes hard labor, and the stress and depression feed off each other. Over the past year, several […]

The psychologist Richard O’Connor believes that we tell ourselves stories about our lives to control stress. Stress has a way of becoming a chronic condition. It wears down your body and damages your brain, especially when combined with depression. Yet stress is a killer we often crave like a drug. We create stories that help […]

My mental clock is always running, and most of each day I tensely evaluate what I’m doing by its measurement. Am I using this time productively, am I wasting it? Most people adapt to schedules fairly well, but for a depressive mind, time is another weapon. It becomes the relentless reminder that I am not […]

What’s the best way for coping with stress? Sometimes, when I’m starting to feel overwhelmed, it’s easy to forget everything I’ve ever learned and every skill I’ve ever mastered to stay sane. So then I have to retrace my steps and go back to first principles. It’s like being a musician who practices scales every […]

A Terrible Melancholy is a documentary about lawyers with depression, but it’s relevant to anyone trying to understand more about the illness. Dan Lukasik, a lawyer who has lived with depression for the past ten years, produced the film to encourage others in his profession to seek  help. The message is on target for anyone […]