How To Overcome Depression Without Hours of Doomscrolling
The topic of mental health always makes me cringe when I write about it. It’s such a deeply personal topic, so nuanced, and definitely out of my league when finding a general solution to the millions plagued by depression, anxiety, and any other debilitating mental disorder. I personally have lost loved ones to these disorders. These memories are painful to bring up and I am certain that countless others feel the same.
Thus, how do we as a society fight this crisis of declining mental health? It can’t be possible that there is no way to beat mental disorders, more specifically, depression. I will go over some scientifically proven methods of improving one’s state of depression and weigh the benefits with the amount of effort required.
Before starting, I acknowledge and understand that some scenarios feel impossible to overcome due to societal burdens and the general tragedy of the world around us. I will do my best to be respectful and keep these methods reasonable.
Exercise is one of the ways that I keep myself in check in so many ways other than just mental health. It is not only one of the most cost-effective ways of improving your mental health, but it is also scientifically proven that aerobic exercises of any kind reduce both anxiety and depression (Sharma). Move in any way you possibly can. It doesn’t have to be intense. It doesn’t even have to feel like you’re doing exercise. You can pace around your room while looking at your phone. You can help around the house doing chores. If you can do anything that will get your body physically moving, you will bolster your mood and overall physical health as well (Sharma). If you can’t physically exercise, there are ways to move while bed or chair-bound to increase blood flow to your limbs. If you have someone you know who is feeling down, try doing some activity that gets them moving in some way.
Pursuing hobbies that involve creating and not consuming content is another method of battling depression that can be beneficial. Studies have proven that having a hobby is associated with fewer depressive symptoms (Mak). Further, countries with higher hobby engagement also find greater life expectancies. My personal experience has been as long as I am creating something that I am proud of, my depression usually melts away.
So with these two options, what can we do? Let's start with setting a goal that we can hit every day. With exercise, I believe that any small movement or action compounded over a long enough period of time can yield amazing results. This is why every single day, without fail, I will do some sort of movement, whatever it be to improve the strength of my knees. This means either stretching, walking, or doing the bare minimum, which for me is an unweighted set of squats before bed. Start small with your exercise goal, if you're down in a hole you can't just jump immediately out. Take a good grip on the wall of the pit of despair you find yourself in and see if it's a good enough hold to pull yourself up. There are many different ways to climb out of this pit, but if you can find one sturdy hold, one ledge to pull yourself up and rest atop, the escape will just be that much easier.
For hobbies, there is always difficulty in starting something new, especially if you're already feeling down. Before you give up, realize that a creative hobby is something that has a pretty low bar of entry and can also lead to really great outcomes down the line. I implore you to ask yourself what made you excited as a child and just go out and do that thing. We all spend way too much time on our phones, consuming information we just don't need. Rather than being passive with your time, set out a specific time of the day to do one thing that you wish you could have always done as a kid. For me that was creating clay figurines, a picture of which I have attached to the bottom of this blogpost. When I look at these clay figures, I am not proud of my creation but wishing more people would give things like this a shot. Don't take life so seriously, some days it's ok to sketch in a notebook or record yourself doing a dance, just take action and do it!
This paper is meant to inspire those who feel like there are not any actionable steps to improve their quality of life. There is always a way to solve a problem, one must take action to do so. Do not rely on the pharmaceutical industry to be the thing to get you out of that hole. We all know that is a predatory market and the efficacy of most antidepressants isn’t something I would bet on (Moyer).
Keep active, keep busy, and keep going.
This is Matt from the ALIVE Company, thank you for reading and please let me know what you think about this article!
contact me at: matthewferoz@gmail.com
^Ducklass Enjoying a Swim^
Work Cited
Sharma A, Madaan V, Petty FD. Exercise for mental health. Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry. 2006;8(2):106. doi: 10.4088/pcc.v08n0208a. PMID: 16862239; PMCID: PMC1470658.
Mak HW, Noguchi T, Bone JK, Wels J, Gao Q, Kondo K, Saito T, Fancourt D. Hobby engagement and mental wellbeing among people aged 65 years and older in 16 countries. Nat Med. 2023 Sep;29(9):2233-2240. doi: 10.1038/s41591-023-02506-1. Epub 2023 Sep 11. PMID: 37696932; PMCID: PMC10504079.
Moyer, M. W. (2022, April 22). How much do antidepressants help, really?. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/well/antidepressants-ssri-effectiveness.html