Changing your habit

One of the hardest things for me in treating my own depression has been the lack of a real clue as to how treatment works. It did work. It took a willingness to try something different born out desperation. I began by adopting new habits.
Most people, depressed or not, are aware when something bad happens. Depressed people feel bad. Then, they try not to feel bad. But the really bad part is when you become aware of your failure at eliminating your bad feelings. That final part is really hard on you. It’s the kick in the groin for many depressed people.
Depression is actually simple to understand compared to how depression starts or stops. And yeah, it’s all just chemicals in your brain but so is everything in your brain. I couldn’t write this without the chemicals and electrical impulses in my brain.
When someone takes drugs to restore some kind of balance in their brain, they affect the chemical balance. There’s receptors and lots of stuff that I don’t really understand going on.
But I do know this, that is going on in everyone, all the time. And that’s what makes it tricky. Short of electroshock, which is still used in severe cases, and not that effective, there is no reboot. You take drugs to affect the drugs/chemicals that are already there.
I am not depressed now. I didn’t take drugs. So, uh, what changed?
What changed is my habit. My habit of telling myself that bad things were worse than bad. That something should not have happened. I did this for myself with the help of compassion from other people, books, practice, and talking therapy. That’s what worked, and works for me. And it happened to be, probably, the most effective, and long term treatment for me.
This book is what prompted me to write this blog. It is excellent.
The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Guilford, 2007).
The book is written by some great authors including one from UMass Medical. Jon Kabat-Zinn. HIs clinic is in Worcester. Worcester?? That’s mindboggling to me.
Research shows that actually trying to think/reason yourself better makes depression worse. Scientists can see this happen in the brain with clever experiments. The brain can’t escape itself. It’s something of a recursive problem, like a bad loop in software programming. That’s my understanding.
But breaking that loop is a habit you can develop. You can do this through meditation for example. And the practical guide for that is on the CD that comes with the book.
It’s a little bit like golf or swimming. To improve, you have to release the bad habits that you have adopted as a means to end. Pro golfers work on their swing not on hitting the ball. They have the time and inclination to do this.They have good coaches. They do drills that help them with weight shift and swing plane to change habits that will not let them progress to something beyond amateur level.
Good swimmers relax into the water and let it support them. They focus on balance not propulsion. Water is dense so you little speed increases come with great effort while balance and streamlining is low cost. But you can only do this when you release the bad habit of churning your arms and legs. You do drills that change these habits. But at the core, you are changing your habit.
Coaches might start with “We need to change your habit.” But mostly they start with “Do this drill.” Because that’s more effective. So think about your habits a little bit, but do the drills that change them.
This book is great at explaining all that from the point of view of the brain habits around depression. I read it last month and it really made me feel good. I understand habit changing mechanism better. But mostly it was a good encouragement for me to keep doing the drills.