Facing Negative Thoughts in Depression
September 7, 2012
Margie states desperately, “I get depressed a lot and it makes it hard for me to relax. And I can’t put as much time with my four-year-old daughter. I’m taking medication for depression; it helps a little but then I get depressed again.”
Margie wants to feel better and not be depressed as much as she is. When she is with her daughter, Carrie, her mind drifts into negative thoughts. She worries about her life, her husband leaving her, and feels inadequate. Carrie tries to get her mother’s attention but Margie’s mind is somewhere else. Her negative feelings and thoughts take over her life. She thinks about how wonderful her married life was until her husband had an affair and left her. The loss of her spouse takes a toll on her mental health. She doesn’t feel like doing any work at home and “forgets’ about her daughter’s needs and wants. She sees herself as a failure: as a wife and mother. Margie constantly blames herself.
Negative thoughts can take over your life if you let it happen to you. The thoughts themselves become the new “reality” for the depressed person. So it’s important to see the thoughts as just thoughts: not real but only in your mind. To be sure, these negative thoughts have a basis in reality, from the negative experiences of the past or anxiety about the future. For Margie, it was her husband’s affair and him leaving her. She never expected this to happen. It came as a shock, because she thought she and her husband were happy.
If you are depressed like Margie, or have other types of problems that make you feel depressed, blaming yourself doesn’t help. It will only make you more depressed. Instead, take time for yourself in a quiet place and “look” at your thoughts mindfully: focusing on your thoughts and feelings with acceptance. Focus on these thoughts as they flow through your mind–and then let them slowly flow away like clouds in the sky. You can focus on one ‘cloud’ at a time as each one passes by.
In cognitive theray, you can practice changing these negative thoughts to more positive or rational ones.
The next thing you can do is to increase your social connections. Make new friends, and connect with your best friends and family. If you have a child, like Margie, connect with her and play with her. Read interesting stories to your child. Enjoy being with her. Social connections inside and outside of the family are therapeutic.
I discuss meditation, mindfulness, and depression in my book, Create a Healthy Lifestyle. Since depression, or even sad feelings, are pervasive in our family and society, I think it’s an important mental health issue. So it’s important to support and connect with one another.
Chronic Stress can Affect your Health
September 4, 2012
Everyone has stress now and then. Life is filled with challenges and changes, and we need to cope with them on a daily basis. For instance, there is always stress at home. Your spouse may have different needs or expectations, and you need to respond to them. If you have children, they have needs and wants that you will have to respond to every day. Your job or career will give you problems and challenges that you need to resolve. In short, every day there is normal stress that we must confront and resolve.
There is, however, chronic stress that doesn’t go away. Even when you don’t have a particular problem, just thinking about a problem brings on a stressful response. When you have a problem that can be easily solved, you may still have thoughts about it that doesn’t go away so easily. You may have worries or thoughts about the past or future but can’t do anything about them. All of these worrisome thoughts cause chronic stress.
Chronic stress causes your brain, the part in the lower part of the temporal lobe ( the hypothalamus) to stimulate the pituitary gland to produce a stress hormone (ACTH) that in turn stimulates the adrenal glands above the kidneys to make the stress hormones, cortisol and epinephrine. In chronic stress, these hormones can block arteries in the brain and cause a stroke, or block arteries going to the heart and causing a heart attack. Every one has normal stress during the course of life, but when stress becomes chronic (bad stress) it can do damage to our brain and heart. It can be fatal.
In my book, Create a Healthy Lifestyle, I discuss how you can discover the “secrets” of health and happiness. The good news is: We can prevent chronic stress from wrecking havoc on our health.
Mother Needs time to Relax and Enjoy the Kids
September 2, 2012
Katie states, “It’s hard for me to relax because I have two preschool children who are constantly wanting attention. I wish I could relax, and even meditate, but my hectic life makes it hard.
Katie is in a dilemma. She loves her children and gives them all of the attention they need. At the same time it causes her a lot of stress. It is affecting her health and this is disturbing for her. Katie says quite anxiously, “I’ve been getting a lot of headaches lately, and my blood pressure is higher than it was in the past month.”
If you are in a situation, like Katie, you need to find time to meditate and relax. It’s not easy, of course, with two children who are very active and wanting your attention, But it’s imperative to begin to set a time to meditate. It’s best to do this when the children are in preschool, or in the evening after they’ve gone to bed. At these times, put your mind at ease away from any distractions. In this quiet time, close your eyes and focus on your breathing, inhaling and exhaling deeply and slowly. When distracting thoughts pass through your mind, let them pass by, and go away. Don’t fight it. Just let go. Return to your breathing, for about fifteen minutes. This type of meditation is a good start.
In addition to meditation, when the children are awake and want your attention, do a project with them that you and they would enjoy. For instance, it’s helpful if you can buy some story books that you and the children would relish. Read these stories to them with enthusiasm. If you do this often enough, it will be relaxing for you and the kids. Make this a regular, daily practice.
Finally, as you practice these new ways to relax, your health will improve and your life will be more enjoyable. I discuss some ways to relax and meditate in my latest book, Create a Healthy Lifestyle, which you can order through my website.
Informal Mindfulness Makes it Easier to Meditate
August 30, 2012
Mindfulness is when you focus your attention on an object, image, or nature. It is a healthy form of meditation where you focus on the experience– and accepting it as it is. You don’t form any judgments about the object of focus. You accept it as it is. This will take practice, depending on where you are in your life. In one example, Jim says, ” I just can’t focus. I’m used to being busy all the time and I can’t concentrate.” In this situation, Jim is used to being busy all the time. Even when he comes home from his job he works in the yard or does wood work in the basement of his house.
If you are in a situation, like Jim, it is important for you to take time to relax and “smell the roses.” If you don’t, you will eventually feel a lot of stress in your life. It can affect your health in a negative way, causing various stress related conditions, such as: high blood pressure, tension, and autoimmune disease. So mindful meditation can bring you closer to a healthy lifestyle.
One way of making it easy to meditate is to do informal mindfulness. Begin your day focusing on the things you do. As soon as you awaken, become mindful of you taking a shower with the droplets of water flowing on your skin. There are various ways to being mindful during the day: getting dressed, eating slowly, doing work around the house or on the job, and so on. Remember to focus only what you’re mindful of and accepting it as it is. Your mind will become distracted at times, but go back to what you are meditating on. As you practice, it will become easier.
Essentially, as you practice mindfulness you will be closer to a healthy lifestyle as I further explain in my latest book, “Create a Healthy Lifestyle.” It will be a joyful adventure.
Focus on the Object in Meditation
August 29, 2012
During the day, there may be a lot of distracting or negative thoughts that may cross your mind. It will make it very difficult to meditate on an object. Jennifer, for instance, says “I start to meditate, and then all my worries come to me. I also have fibromyalgia and I feel pain all over my body. I wish I could meditate but it’s so hard.”
If you have similar problems, like Jennifer, or if you have stressful thoughts that just don’t seem to go away, you need to continue to concentrate and try to make those thoughts go away. This will be difficult, but it’s important to concentrate and get back to the ‘object’ or image that you are focusing on. As you do this, don’t blame or judge youreself . It will be even more difficult to focus if you have fibromyalgia, which is a condition of physical discomfort through various pressure points in your body. But even then, it is possible to go back to the object of focus–the image you are meditating on. Let the discomfort or troubling thoughts come to you, and then let it go away as you go back to your meditation experience.
My book, Create a Healthy Lifestyle, discusses some of these issues to help you meditate in pure mindfulness. It’s an important step to health and happiness.
A Pre-teen’s Search for Identity
August 25, 2012
Adolescence is a difficult time for both parents and the teenager, so it is important that communication is clear and empathic. The teen is experiencing changes, both physically and psychologically, and the parents need to be attuned to what is happening to their son or daughter. But if the parents are open to understanding their teen’s inner needs and feelings, it will be easier to have good communication with him or her.
Many changes occur at this time and it really begins before adolescence, during the pre-teen or ‘tween’ period at about 11 or 12 years old. The child begins to see ‘self’ as an individual in his or her own way. She sees herself more clearly as an individual apart from other members of her family, and different from her peers. It is a new discovery that seems to come from nowhere. This new discovery of ‘self’ can be exhilarating or depressing. If the child can perceive it as a positive discovery, self-esteem will be enhanced and she will feel good about herself. It will make her feel good and her self-worth and self-image will be resilient.
It is important at this time that family life is stable, and communication with the child continues to be positive in the home. If there is any conflict she will subjectively feel responsible for the chaos in the home. If the parents don’t talk with their tween, or talk to her in a negative way, she will perceive it as an affront on her. She will usually blame herself for the confusion in the home, since she is centered on her own self and identity.
When the tween becomes a teenager at 13 she will have more difficulty in finding herself. Identity will be affected. It will be difficult to have a clear sense of identity. She will not know who she is. She will look in the mirror and not really know who she is. But she will continue to search for an answer.
Tommy’s Aggressive Behavior
In one case example,Tommy, age 12, wants to be close to his father, John. But his dad is always busy working or associating with his peers. When he comes home from work he is in a bad mood and gets angry at Tommy for his uncontrollable behavior. Tommy wants his dad’s attention and goes to any means to get it. So he becomes defiant and misbehaves. His aggressiveness increases John’s yelling and criticism. Tommy only becomes more rebellious.
In this situation, Tommy is craving for his father’s attention. He needs John to validate his identity. But John becomes emotionally reactive, which doesn’t solve the problem, or meet Tommy’s needs.
After a while, John became aware of his handling of the problem. He discovered that he can’t take his problems at work home with him. He needs to leave these problems at work and resolve it in that situation. More importantly, John has to schedule his time with his friends and not let it interfere with time spent with his son. These problems will not easily be resolved, but with a commitment to a better relationship, there is a solution.
Essentially for a tween to have a healthy image of self, the parent’s relationship with the child is crucial. It is important for the parent to be attuned to the child’s needs while reinforcing a healthy identity.
Nurturing Resilience
August 24, 2012
Resilience is vital to a healthy lifestyle, so I devoted a whole chapter to it in my recent book: Create a Healthy Lifestyle: Secrets of Health and Happiness. Resilience will help you to cope with the everyday stresses that you will likely encounter in daily life. You may have problems in your relationships, family life, or stresses in your job or career goals. Any daily stress can ruin your day or prevent you from moving forward. It can also make you feel sad, depressed, or lonely. There can be a myriad of stressful experiences that may prevent you from moving on, or coping with everyday life. Resilience can help you cope with the various stresses in your daily life.
Resilience can also help you to overcome crises in your life. It is difficult and often impossible for a person to cope, and move on, without resilience. Therefore resilience will help you to cope with the more serious crises that can occur during the course of your life: such as separation, divorce, loss of a loved one, job loss, and other very difficult experiences. In other words, resilience helps you to overcome adversity.
So resilience is an important ingredient towards a healthy lifestyle. Along with enhancing the self and being proactive, resilience fosters individual growth as I explain in the book. It will help you to cope with the ordinary stresses in life, as well as the crises and unforeseen events.
Breathe to Release Tension
August 22, 2012
Deep breathing is one of the best and easiest ways to enhance your relaxation and relieve tension. It’s helpful to set a time each day to do this exercise– “breath counting.” You can also do the exercise when you feel “stressed out” or feel a lot of inner tension. The purpose of the exercise is to induce the “relaxation response.” So let’s begin:
1. Sit or lie in a comfortable position with your arms and legs stretched out, as you sit with your spine straight.
2. Breathe deeply into your abdomen. Pause before you exhale.
3. As you exhale, count “one” to yourself. As you continue to inhale and exhale, count “Two…three…four…five on each exhalation.
4. Continue to count to sets of four or five as you exhale; do this for at least five minutes.
5. Notice your breathing gradually slowing, your entire body relaxing, and your mind becoming calm as you practice this meditation.
If you haven’t practiced breathing in this way, it may seem difficult at first, but as it becomes a part of your lifestyle it will be easier and even enjoyable. It will help you to cope with the tensions in everyday life.
PARENTS’ QUARRELS AFFECT CHILD’S WELL-BEING
August 21, 2012
Chronic conflict can deeply affect your child. It can be pervasive. Although violence and conflict can be seen on television programs, video games, and other media, conflict in the family has a direct effect on the child. So the less the child is exposed to violence or chronic disagreements the better it is for the child’s well-being.
In a particular case, Mary constantly hears her parents argue. It’s not a single incident; it occurs on a frequent and almost daily basis. At seven, she really doesn’t completely understand the reason her parents fight. She only hears them yell and scream at each other. The cascade of negative emotions is chronic. Mary is perplexed and doesn’t understand what is really happening. Fear and anxiety can ensue.
To get away from the confusion and fear, Mary goes into her room a lot. It is a temporary reprieve from the agony of hearing her parents argue. But it’s not an effective escape from the turmoil. Mary still hears sounds and rumbles of disagreement. It isn’t clear, but the arguments are still within her reach. She can only try to think of something else, or do something to keep her mind occupied. But these are still ineffective.
It is important, therefore, that parents become aware of their impact on the child. The parents need to talk with each other about how they are affecting their child. Of course, they can’t do this when they are angry at each other. They need to talk about it when they don’t feel hostile toward each other. Within a more calm and tranquil atmosphere they would be able to sort through the problems in the family, and discern how their quarrels affect the child.
If you are in that situation, wait until you calm down and feel relaxed. Then talk to your spouse.
As a parent, it may be difficult to understand your impact on the child. The negative emotions take over and it’s impossible to think clearly. Discuss your relationship problems (with your partner) in a calm and peaceful environment. Try to work on ways to resolve your own issues. Come to some compromise with each other to resolve some of the problems. Be opened in going to some counseling if the problems seem to be entrenched in your relationship. Agree to make a commitment with each other to begin to work on the problems in your relationship.
After you have taken this step, agree with each other that you will no longer fight, yell, or become violent with each other within the child’s reach—physically or emotionally.
Now you are ready to carry out your plan into action. You will be in a better position to reduce conflict in the family. Your child will reap the benefits from your efforts.
Once you work on your own problems you are ready to attend to your child’s needs. Be available for her. Listen to her needs and feelings. Reassure your child that everything is all right at home. Let her respond with her own feelings. This will allay some of the anxiety that she felt when the conflict was intense. Your new approach will help your child to feel loved, safe, and secure.