 Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. All the tools to improve your mood and quality of life. Today, we're going to be talking about 10 ways to prevent depression. In this holiday season especially, but even if you're listening to this and it's not a holiday season, there are things you can do to help sort of hedge your bets against getting depressed, or if you're starting to feel depressed, there are things that you can do in order to prevent yourself, hopefully, from going deeper into that depression. So we're going to look at some tips and tools. Obviously, if you are feeling depressed, like you are going to harm yourself, or if you're feeling significant depression, you need to consult with a mental health provider. This is not a replacement for working with a mental health provider. These are just some tips that you can use in order to help you better deal with your depression and prevent it when possible. So the first thing is to get enough sleep. And you might think, well, when I'm depressed, I sleep all the time. So one of the things that you're going to be looking for is to make sure that it's quality sleep. And there are other podcasts that I've done on sleep hygiene and how to get quality sleep. But if you're not getting good quality sleep, you're going to feel tired. You're going to have trouble concentrating. Life is going to seem a whole lot harder. So it's important to figure out how you can get enough quality sleep and keep your circadian rhythms in sync. So you don't want to be napping all day long. You don't want to be sleeping at weird times. You want to try to go to bed about the same time each night and get up about the same time each day. Give or take, obviously, you're not going to get up at the same time on the weekend probably as you do on the weekdays when you've got to go to work. But you want to try to keep it as steady as possible. And you'll find that when your circadian rhythms are more in sync, your body secretes a hormone called cortisol, which we normally think as our stress hormone. But it's also our energy hormone. And your body normally secretes it multiple times during the day. It goes through peaks and valleys. So if you keep your circadian rhythms straight and stable, you'll have those peaks and valleys, but you'll start feeling a little bit more energetic. And your body will get used to when it's supposed to sleep and when it's supposed to be awake. The second thing is to get regular physicals. There are a lot of physical conditions and physical things that can cause or contribute to depression. So you want to make sure that you've got enough vitamin D. You want to make sure that you're not anemic. You want to make sure that your hormones are in balance. Whether you're a man or a woman, low levels of your sex hormones, estrogen or testosterone, can lead to symptoms of depression. So it's important to get those regular physicals. The nice thing with getting regular physicals is a lot of times you can prevent problems from happening. And a lot of the things that cause symptoms of depression are really easily fixable either with small dietary changes or the addition of supplements or something like that. The next thing you can do is eat a healthy diet. And I'm not saying go crazy with it. I want you to enjoy what you eat so you don't feel like you're being deprived, but you need to have good protein. Your body makes the neurotransmitters that help you feel happy and energized from protein and tryptophan specifically. But that's not really all that important. Just make sure that you're getting enough quality protein per day. And the recommended guidelines for most people are generally about 0.4 grams of protein per pound of body weight. So I rounded up to 0.5 just for the sake of ease and doing my math. But if you're a 150 pound person, that means 75 grams of protein a day or a little bit less, that is really not that hard to get. Most Americans get way too much protein unless they are a vegan or vegetarian, in which case you may struggle a little bit more to get enough protein. But make sure you're getting good quality protein. The next thing you want to have in your diet is complex carbohydrates. And I know the C word scares a lot of people. I'm not talking about sugars here and I'm not even necessarily saying go out and eat bread. What I'm saying is it's important to have those complex carbohydrates like come from vegetables and fruits and legumes and a variety of other things. In order to help your body break down the proteins to make the neurotransmitters. There are all kinds of vitamins and minerals in the foods that have complex carbohydrates, you have to have carbohydrates to live. Now you don't need to have 400, 500, 600 grams a day. Some people can do just fine with lower levels of carbohydrates and that's going to be between you and your medical provider. But it is important to have some carbohydrates, especially if you struggle with depression, try it. If you've been on an extremely low carbohydrate diet and you feel more depressed, try adding a little bit more carbohydrate back in and see if it helps you feel better. You may not have enough of the vitamins and minerals needed to make the neurotransmitters with the low levels of carbohydrates. Think about vitamins and minerals kind of like spark plugs. They help the body initiate those chemical reactions that break down the proteins and make the neurotransmitters. If you don't have a spark plug in an engine, the engine ain't going to start. If you don't have a spark plug in your body, then the process is needed to make these neurochemicals. That's not going to work either. So protein, carbohydrates and remember carbohydrates are in just about everything except for your meats. What you're looking at is grains, vegetables, fruits, even your dairy has a fair amount of carbohydrate in it. So you can get them on a variety of different meal plans. Water is really important and you're like, oh, I hate water. Well, try to figure out how to get some in. Carry a water bottle around with you. Try adding some lemon or some lime juice to it. And worst case scenario, look at things like powerade or crystal light or some of those things that can help you get at least 64 ounces of water in a day, 1% dehydration. And you don't even notice that can lead to problems in concentrating and decision making. 5% dehydration leads to sluggishness, fatigue, foggy headedness. When you're 5% dehydrated is when you start feeling, you know, I'm really thirsty, I'm parched right now. If you get to that point, you're already probably dehydrated. So it's important to make sure that you're getting water frequently. And if you drink caffeine, caffeine is a diuretic. So for every glass of caffeinated beverage you have, you have to have another glass of water on top of your 64 ounces as a general rule that we're going with. So remember that simple dehydration can cause you to feel sluggish, tired, have difficulty concentrating and may feel somewhat depressed. You may not be as enthusiastic about things. And finally, minimize sugar and caffeine. Both of these cause surges in different excitatory chemicals in our body. And they also cause drops. So if you can maintain your energy level without artificially spiking it with sugar or caffeine, you'll feel more stable. So your highs may not be quite as high, but your lows aren't going to be as low either. You'll feel more level, more even keeled. And for many of us, you know, giving up caffeine completely is a really difficult thing to do. So do it slowly, work with your healthcare provider. And when I talk about minimizing sugar, you know, there's sugar in a lot of things. I'm not saying to give up all processed foods because that's not realistic for a lot of people. But I am saying, you know, look at how much sugar you're using in your coffee. Try not to add additional sugar to things and choose lower sugar options when you've got the ability to, such as the low sugar jellies and jams and the low sugar ketchup and things like that. All right. So those are the physical ways and physical things you can do to help prevent depression. If your body is running well, if you have all the necessary nutrients to make the neurotransmitters, if your hormones are in balance, then you are not as vulnerable to depression. Okay, so, but you still may be depressed or you may be struggling with depression. What else causes it? Well, another big one for people is your internal critic. That voice inside your head that tells you you're not good enough, you're stupid, you shouldn't have done that. Well, we just need to silence that internal critic. And again, there are other podcasts on how you can do that. The short version is just tell it to shut up. When your internal critic says you are never going to amount to anything, tell it to be quiet or ask yourself, who says, who says I'm not going to amount to anything? You need to stand up to it because your internal critic is nothing but an internal bully. It may have come from something somebody said to you when you were younger or it may be something that you've always had. You've just always been really hard on yourself. Another thing you can do to silence your internal critic is when you hear those words in your head, think to yourself, would I say those words to my friend or to my child? Would I ever say that to somebody I care about? And if the answer is no, then don't say it to yourself. What would you say to your best friend or your child if they failed at something or if they were getting ready to embark on a new task and they were a little bit anxious? Are you going to tell them, well, you're going to fail at this like you fail at everything else? Or would you give them a pep talk? So treat yourself at least as kindly as you treat everybody else. Number five, practice dialectics. That means look at both and. It's possible that two things that seemingly contradict can both be true. You can be strapped for money, but still be able to pay all of your bills. It's not the ideal situation. Obviously, you don't have a lot left over for extras. You can be happy and in general, but be angry about a particular thing. So practice dialectics. The other thing you want to add to that is gratitude. During the holidays especially, but these things can come up throughout the year, finances and commercialization can become a big humbug for people. A lot of people get really frustrated around the holidays because it's all about buy me this, buy me this, buy me this, you've got to buy this. And they're looking at their finances going, I just can't afford it. And I feel like a failure because I can't afford these things. I feel like I'm letting people down because I can't buy them things. So we want to look at that and say, is there a both and? Can you be in a position where you can't afford to buy people things, but still make them feel like they are loved and appreciated? Yes. The other thing you can do during this time is use the attitude of gratitude. Your finances are strapped. Yes, maybe you can't buy the presents that you want to buy. Maybe you can't buy a new car. Whatever the case may be. If your finances are tight, but what are you able to do? Are you able to keep a house over your head? Are you able to put food on the table? Again, you may not be eating prime rib, but are you able to eat every night? So be grateful for what you do have instead of focusing on what you don't have, which I'll just jump ahead and say, when you start feeling down and negative, make a list for everything you think of that, well, I don't have this or I wish this were different. Make a list of what you do have and what's going well in your life. So you can focus on the positives because the more you focus on the positives, the less time you have to focus on the negatives. Another thing that kind of bums people out around holidays and Valentine's Day is a big one, but Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah also can come in here. Relationships, maybe you are estranged from your family or your family lives far, far away and you're alone on the holidays or you don't have people to spend the holidays with. That can be extraordinarily depressing for people. So again, focus on both and. Can it be the holidays and you can't spend time with your family or you don't have the family that you wish you had and can you still enjoy the holidays? So what can you do? Can you spend time with friends? What can you do to help yourself get through the holidays? And what do you have? What relationships do you have that are good and important to you? Another thing that comes up during the holidays is lost loved ones. This is a time when you think, I wish that so-and-so was still here or you remember holiday traditions with your parents or your grandparents who were no longer with you. So focusing on what they brought to your life and what they taught you and passing that on, you can miss them and still cherish them at the same time. And a final thing that kind of gets people depressed sometimes especially when you start looking at New Year's resolutions is you look back over the year and you look at your accomplishments and you may be like, A, I don't know where the year went and B, I didn't accomplish a 10th of the things that I wanted to or I should be further along with XYZ than I am. Well, you can focus on what you didn't do and what you don't have or you can focus on what you did do. So you can focus on the things that you did accomplish. And if you didn't accomplish everything you wanted to, what did you do instead? Was it worthwhile? Sometimes it may be. Sometimes you thought you were gonna get these six things done and you only got one of them done but three other opportunities came along that were really beneficial. Or you can look at it and go, well, this is a learning experience. I wasted a lot of time last year. So let me plan for the next year so I don't waste as much time. I don't make the same mistakes again. Getting angry and sour puss over the fact that you didn't accomplish stuff over the year ain't gonna change it. So the only way to do it to change the situation is either look back and identify what you did instead and how that was meaningful and or look forward and figure out how you can avoid falling into those same traps and you can get more accomplished in the upcoming year. All right, that's a little bit of the cognitive stuff. Number six is just to add happy. It's really difficult to be angry and curmudgeonous if that's even a word and happy at the same time. So find things that make you happy. Find comedies on television. Find comedians that you can listen to in the car. Do things that make you happy. If you like going rock climbing, go rock climbing for goodness sake. If you're doing things that make you happy, you're getting those happy hormones going. So I suggest to people, regardless of whether you're depressed or think you're getting depressed, add 15 minutes of happy every day. Anybody can find 15 minutes. So if that's doing something on the internet or reading a book you like or even just enjoying a really good cup of coffee and focusing on savoring it instead of drinking it while you're doing six other things, add happy to your day. Number seven is know your triggers. What makes you depressed? We all have things that can trigger a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Know what yours are. They may be, they are different for everybody. Once you identify what your triggers are, then you can start doing your best to either prevent them or figure out how to deal with them. So we'll use Valentine's Day again as a trigger for a lot of people because there's expectations that you're supposed to have this Disney storybook hallmark relationship. And if you're not in a relationship or if your relationship's not Disney Princess worthy, it can be a trigger for depression. So what can you do about that? Valentine's Day comes around whether you like it or not. And I encourage my children and people I know who also don't like Valentine's Day. Instead of focusing on Valentine's Day, the holiday, focus on the benefits. And one of the things with Halloween and Valentine's Day, in our house, we focus on the day after because that's 50% chocolate. Everybody else can spend a buttload of money on flowers and candy leading up to Valentine's Day, but we are going to get the 50% chocolate. And then on Valentine's Day, we go out and do something enjoyable. If my kids right now, they're just now getting to the place where they're dating and maybe wanting to be in relationships. But we've always sort of done something a little bit different on Valentine's Day. Identify what's different when you're not depressed is another thing you can do. So think back to, during times when I'm not depressed, what's different? Maybe you're not working as much. I know I can get into a groove where I'm just working 16, 18 hours a day, coming home, sleeping, saying hi to my kids and then going back to the office. And I realize in a very short order that I'm not happy because I miss doing my gardening. I miss spending time on the farm. I miss hanging out with my kids. So identifying what's different when you're not depressed is a really important thing to do because you can focus on making sure you create that situation that supports your happiness. So when I notice that I'm getting in a funk, I look and I say, have I been doing the things that make me happy? Have I been doing the things that are important and meaningful to me? And if not, then I stop right there and I say, how can I change that? How can I get back to doing what it is? Because life's short. I could work 18 hour days for the rest of my life and still not have everything done that I want to accomplish because things are gonna always keep adding to that list. But my kids are only gonna be little for a while. The farm, there's only a period that's a planting season each year. So I try to get more done during the holidays and during the winter when it's too cold to be out on the farm, planting, doing all that kind of stuff. So then when it's really nice weather, I can spend more time outside. Which takes me to number nine, get sunlight. Vitamin D deficiency leads to seasonal effective disorder. People who don't get enough sunlight tend to feel more depressed, especially because they don't have enough vitamin D. But even if they're taking vitamin D supplements and theoretically they have enough vitamin D. If you're not getting enough sunlight, your circadian rhythms can get out of whack which will negatively impact your sleep. Which will leave you feeling fatigued, foggy-headed and sometimes depressed. So make sure to get sunlight and you don't have to be bathing in it. I am a sunphobe to a certain extent. My daddy had melanoma, so I try not to go out without sunscreen. But you wanna get up in the morning and get into a bright room, preferably by a window. Spend at least 15 minutes throughout the day outside so your body knows, oh hey, it's still daylight. And focus on doing that even during the summer, even during times when you could be outside, even times when it's sunny. If you're working inside in a building and you're not sitting right in front of a sunny window, you're probably going to be more at risk for seasonal effective type symptoms. Even if it's like I said, even if it's not that season, even if it's perfectly sunny outside, if your work keeps you inside too much of the day and you're not getting that sunlight, you may start to feel depressed. Work it in, it's not that difficult. All you're asking yourself to do, again, is 15 minutes. So five minutes in the morning on the way to work, spend a little bit of time outside, enjoy the sunlight, five minutes at lunchtime, five minutes on the way home. It gives your body enough. You're not having to spend hours on hours. Exercise, exercise releases serotonin. Exercise helps people reduce anxiety. Exercise gets oxygen throughout your body more efficiently. And when you're more oxygenated, you have more energy. When you are oxygen deprived, you feel foggy-headed, tired, difficulty concentrating, et cetera. I'm not saying, again, you have to go to the gym and work out in your target heart rate zone for 40 minutes or something. No, I want you to get your blood moving. Get up off the couch, move around. Bonus, if you do it outside, but get some exercise. Get your blood moving. If you can get some exercise, whatever you and your doctor determine is safe for you, 30 minutes a day, it will greatly help reduce your stress levels. And you can walk around the neighborhood at a leisurely pace or you can run a 5K. It depends on your fitness level and what you're willing to do. If you're able to run a 5K, but you're not willing to do it, then it does no good. So I would rather you go out and walk for half an hour than do nothing, even if you're able to do more than that. And two little bonuses here, essential oils. You don't have to put them on you, matter of fact, it's probably better if you don't in most cases. You can inhale them. The essential oils work by targeting some of the sensors in the nose and they can set off feelings of relaxation, they can help with depression. Particular essential oils that can be really helpful include Clarice sage, chamomile, lavender, catnip, believe it or not, and valerian. Now catnip and valerian have very unique smells. So you wanna kind of test those out before you order them because they're also a little more on the expensive side than something like lavender. But those essential oils, among others, you can go online and Google essential oils for depression and you'll get a whole list, can be helpful if you just keep them in, keep a little bottle with you and you can take the lid off and sniff it every once in a while or I sprinkle it on my pillow at night. When I have foster cats that come in, when they first come in, I sprinkle it around their room. That helps them feel more calm. It's not going on them. Essential oils are highly toxic to cats but it's going in their room so they can smell it and they can feel more relaxed. The other bonus, and this kind of goes without saying, minimize anxiety and stress. When you are revved up, when you are stressed, when you are anxious for a long time, eventually your body's gonna run out of gas and it's gonna go, I gotta have a break and you will start feeling energy-less. You will start feeling flat. You will start feeling fatigued. You will start feeling depressed. It's your body going, I'm gonna shut you down so I can rest and rebalance whether you want to or not because you've been going for too long. So it's important to make a list of the things that are causing you stress. Mark off the things that are irrelevant. It's like, this isn't worth my energy. This isn't worth my stress. This isn't worth worrying about. Whatever's left, figure out how to deal with it. When it comes to anxiety, use some anxiety control techniques because anxiety is generally worry or energy tied up in the future. Things that could happen but haven't happened yet. You don't know what to expect. So when you're dealing with your anxiety, figure out what can I do in order to help myself feel okay with this situation. Avoid things that trigger your anxiety. Avoid high stress situations when you are thinking that it might be, you might be getting ready to get depressed. If the holidays are really big triggers for depression for you, then try to minimize your anxiety and stress during the holidays. That way you can focus on having more happy feelings and doing more happy stuff to avoid or to counterbalance those feelings of grief or loss or depression that you may be experiencing. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app or you can join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or join our community and access additional resources including a weekly live chat with Doc Snipes at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into happiness and brain surgery with Doc Snipes. 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