Listening to Depression

by Nina

“Many people believe that if they feel sad, there is something wrong inside of them. But sometimes a depressed mood can be a healthy reaction to something that’s not right in the external world, and dealing with it may be the best means of alleviating the depression.” —Dr. Timothy McCall, Yoga As Medicine

In my post The Importance of Emotional Pain, I discussed how painful emotions are all valuable signals. I will confess, however, that when I was writing about depression in my book Yoga for Times of Change, I had a challenging time reaching an understand of what depression might be signaling. How, I wondered, could feelings like despair and hopelessness be beneficial?

But I persevered in my research because I had become convinced that all emotions, painful or not, can have a positive function in our lives because they are signals about your current situation that you should recognize and heed. That’s because while feelings of pleasure and happiness cause us to want to repeat experiences that are beneficial for us, anger, fear, envy, and even depression impel us to take actions that keep us safe.

Here is what I discovered.

We often feel mild depression, despair, or discouragement during times of change when we are comparing the present with the past and are feeling a loss.  The symptoms we may feel can include overeating or loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping or crying spells, feeling lethargic and numb, or experiencing irritability, outbursts of anger, or even violent reactions. They can also include problems with thinking and making decisions, lapses of memory, and feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and self-blame. I’ll add that a particularly difficult symptom can be a feeling of hopelessness because you may feel stuck both in your life and in the feelings that you’re experiencing.

But it’s natural for us to remember the past and compare it to the present. In fact, our ability to remember is one of our greatest strengths as a species. And ruminating about the past can help us learn from our mistakes because we reflect on what happened, learn from mistakes as well as from things that went well, and carry forward the lessons we learn. However, even just remembering an upsetting incident from the past can trigger very strong emotions. Our brains are so effective at imagining the past that our nervous systems respond as if the events were happening in the present moment. So some of our ruminating about the past can churn up rather painful emotions.

In addition, depression can actually be a response to danger. Although there are differing opinions about what depression might be signaling, it is considered to be a form of “freeze” in the fight-flight-or-freeze response. Freezing can include immobilization (as in “playing dead”) as well as hiding. Dr. Lauzé describes it this way:

In response to overwhelming stress, loss, or helplessness the sympathetic nervous system is triggered, and a person retreats as if into a cocoon, turning inward and away from the stressful environment and seeking safety by isolating (so as not be further hurt or disappointed), losing interest in external things (the outside world feels too scary), no longer feeling desire or joy (it feels too overwhelming to risk those things if they’ll only be taken away), and sometimes sleeping for many hours a day (avoidance).

The theory is that if your nervous system detects a threat that is so bad or that goes on for too long and fighting or fleeing aren’t possible options, “freezing” is the only other possible response. I watched a friend go through this when the relationship they were in—one that they thought would be for life—became abusive. Because they still loved the other person, rather than ending the relationship or reaching out for help, they fell into a depression.

From this perspective, it’s interesting that many people who are feeling depressed tend to have a similar forward-rounding posture, with a collapsed chest and shallow breathing. This makes sense because your “freeze” response could cause you to take a posture that protects your heart area and results in quiet breathing. In the yoga tradition, both changing the depressed posture by opening your chest and deepening your breath are techniques for relieving depression.

Depression may also be a signal that there is something wrong in your community or the world around you, such as climate change, income inequality, or racial injustice. In this case, taking action may be the best way to resolve your initial emotional response.

That is why for depression, as with anger and fear, it’s worth assessing whether there is a real threat that is causing your emotional reaction. This could, in turn, lead to taking action, as my friend in the abusive relationship ultimately did. For community or worldwide problems, even though you might not be able to solve the problem personally, you can take steps that will contribute to a solution in the long run.

But as with all these painful emotions, sometimes there is no appropriate action to take. For those situations, making peace with change might be the most skillful response. For example, that’s what helped my mother after she became depressed when my father gave up his business where she had worked alongside him for many in order to become a teacher. There was nothing she could do to change the situation—he had found running the business to be too stressful and really wanted to do something else instead—so gradually she accepted the end of a career that she had really enjoyed and made peace with the new phase of life she would now be entering.

Of course, it’s hard to think clearly about whether or not to make change when you’re feeling depressed, and if you’re feeling hopeless it can be hard to even contemplate change. Using yoga to uplift yourself emotionally, calm yourself, or both can be helpful for thinking more clearly about what to do next while providing some relief from some of your symptoms.

Start by determining which type of depression you have by reading Tamasic and Rajasic Depression. This post will also help you identify which kinds of practices might help relieve your depression. You can also read Practicing Yoga for Depression: An Overview for more ideas.

And if you’re feeling hopeless, taking even a small action, such as practicing a yoga pose, can help you feel less “stuck” and allow you to feel a glimmer of hope. My friend Melitta, who has gone through bouts of depression after the end of a long- term relationship as well as after being diagnosed with a chronic disease, says:

“I know that even just doing Legs Up the Wall pose can drastically change a bad “stuck” mood for me. So doing these self-care actions can be a springboard for change—you can feel the change however small, and that might give hope.”

See  Yoga for Depression: Taking a Small Step for specific suggestions of small steps you can take.

Caution: If you have serious depression, please consider yoga only as a supplement to other treatments you are currently receiving from a medical professional. Although it may help relieve some symptoms and can help you think differently about your situation, yoga should never be considered a standalone cure for depression.

And if you have mild depression and symptoms last for more than a couple of weeks and perhaps are worsening, you should find a psychotherapist and/or certified yoga therapist to work with. And if your symptoms include ceaseless thoughts of death and suicide, if you have a family history of clinical depression, or if you have experienced biological, sociological, or medical trauma that affects your ability to feel, think, work, or be in a relationship, you might have clinical depression. In this case, please see a psychiatrist to determine what course of action might help you.

 

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