From Languishing to Depressed and Back to Mental Health

5 Most Powerful Tactics to Improve my Mental Health

A few months back, I featured an article in the GoGoDone newsletter by Adam Grant about something I called "chronic meh" and that he called Languishing. It's a decrease or absence of joy and a dulling of motivation and focus.?

Although languishing is not clinical depression, if you're languishing, you're at risk of falling into a clinical level of depression.??

I also disclosed in the newsletter that I had most certainly tipped over from languishing to depression.?

Clinical depression is not something I regularly struggle with. But these are unprecedented times. Many if not most of us are experiencing a prolonged period of increased stress. If you’re particularly empathetic, you’re feeling your community and even global stress.?

For me, between being laid off and trying to build a business as a very reluctant (but passionate!) entrepreneur, my system just hit a wall. Nothing was particularly “wrong” or “bad.” But it didn’t change the fact that I had stressed my systems too hard for too long.

I am seeing this in a TON of people. Whether languishing or depressed, there’s an epidemic of, “Nothing is wrong but I don’t feel good and I can’t seem to get any work done?!”

I won’t say I am out of the depression slog, but I’ve made some huge strides over the past two months. Here are a couple of the keys for me:

1 - Crank up the affection. In their epically helpful book, Burnout, the authors really get focused on how to decrease stress. It’s exercise and affection. I’ve carved out extra time with my partner and forced myself to go to some social events that had me riding high once I got over the hump of showing up. And I’ve kept showing up to my GoGoDone sessions for the community support and laughter there.?

2 - Adjusting my expectations. We've all basically been running a stress marathon. What would you expect a marathon runner to do at the end of a race? Rest and gentle movement. I’ve taken my productivity expectations down to recovery levels and doubled my break times.

3 - Go for the low-hanging fruit. I’m taking my vitamins, especially Bs, C, and D. I have my sleep schedule dialed in and am eating my veggies.? I’m walking outside in the sunlight most days - even for two minutes.? I started taking St. John’s Wort (Disclaimer: do some research and talk to your doc. I’m just a rando on the interwebs. But it’s worth checking out.)

4 - Crowd out unhealthy responses to stress rather than quitting them. Typically unhealthy habits take over during hard times like zoning out in front of the TV or overeating. Rather than trying to muscle my way out of those habits with willpower (which I have almost none of when depressed), I just do more of the healthy responses. I ask myself to do two minutes of a healthy response BEFORE I engage in the less-healthy ones.?

5 - Patience. I remind myself to be patient with my brain. It will not shift in a day or a week. But I can notice the baby steps along the way. I notice them and pat myself on the back (positive reinforcement folks!). Success builds on success.?

That's my top 5. Depressed or not - we all have more stress than usual. Please take care of yourself and reach out to each other if you need more support!