This word depression is commonly used nowadays and is at least once in a life time everyone has gone through the state; however, this state has become more prevalent amongst young adults. Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in things and activities you once enjoyed. It can also cause difficulty with thinking, memory, eating and sleeping. As mentioned earlier, the persistent feeling of sadness is familiar nowadays, and just as Superman’s most vicious antagonist is Darkside, Batman’s is the Joker. In the same way, depression is the archenemy and antagonist to productivity.

Depression is that state of sadness and loss of interest, is the yang of productivity, a state of happiness and fulfillment, and giving off the energy that you can accomplish so much more. That’s why to be truly productive in life, we have to overcome depression one way or the other. Full disclaimer, depression comes in life; there is no way of completely eradicating it. However, learning what to do in those times will help you overcome it.

This is a personal post, so like always I will be more open about my life and experiences, when I was entering university in my 100lvl, probably like 2weeks before test week or so, I received the worst news on a beautiful Saturday morning, my sister has called me prior in the morning she was jogging so we were gisting what has happened within the week, after the call ended a few minute later got another call that my older brother wasn’t waking up from sleep, that he is not even breathing. Him going to be with the lord at an early age was a very tragic experience for me. Followed by various failed relationships and breakups. And different family issues, especially bordering on polygamy.

The Mind cannot differentiate pain

One thing I realized in this situation is that the mind doesn’t know how to process pain. In many of my productivity and learning talks, I always hit on the aspect of life that the mind can’t process pain. Be it a family issue, breakup, someone lost their father/mother/brother/ sister or even anyone in their extended family, someone lost their job, it can even be as minor as someone breaking their phone screen. This period is when I learnt empathy to the greatest extent, knowing that, what can seem minor to you is a significant problem for another person. Many people always like to overlook another person problem or even belittle it, sometimes they do it unintentionally (eg. When one is talking about their problem another might say in my 100lvl I lost my father, another may say they didn’t even have a father while growing up), as you can see is easy belittle someone problem intentionally or unintentionally, but the ability to practice empathy knowing that the mind cannot differentiate between the pain of a breakup and losing a love one, is an ability only few possess. I hope that by your reading this, you realize the truth.

Now, what are the steps to overcome Depression, or rather, how did I overcome depression?

Someone to Talk To

Don’t doubt that you need someone to always talk through those times, because the mind will always go on an internal monologue, replaying your thoughts over and over. One of the best things to do is really talk it out, preferably with a friend or an adult. What you are going through or experiencing is not new to another person, most especially an adult. Your mind always needs clarity to make the next decision.

Make Yourself Accountable to Another

One thing I will always recommend for someone to do during this period is to be accountable to another person. Let me explain: one key thing that depression does to us is that it prevents us from being productive, from doing all that we have set out to do during the day. The key thing I said is to make yourself accountable to another person, not make yourself to be “busy and occupied” this is an advice that really get thrown around a lot, “keep yourself occupied” find something to distract you from thinking about it, for me this is just a delayed reaction to the evitable realization of what you are going through.

I remember in my 200 level in university after my brother went to be with the lord, I found myself over functioning, doing so many things, trying to keep myself engage and distracted, until one of my friend called Gloria just told me “you being busy is not you being productive, you are running from your emotion” deep words, from then on I spoke up more and reduces my overall false productivity outlook.

Now, why did I state “Make yourself accountable to someone” if you are depressed and you want to do your everyday tasks, e.g. read, study, go out, and do some office work before it piles up.  Tell a friend about it and tell them the set a time you intend to do it, so become your personal reminder, and you won’t want to let their effort go to waste. Therefore making all your actions accountable to another. 

The 10/10/10 rules

The 10/10/10 rule is a rule I learned from the book “Finish What You Start,” by Peter Hollin. The different 10s stand for 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days. When you are in that state of depression, procrastination, or laziness, you have to ask yourself. “IF I don’t get this done, how would I feel about it, and how will it affect me in the next 10 minutes, the next 10 hours or the next 10days?”

Practical explanation of this concept: when you are depressed, you may not want to study. Now, if you don’t study for the next 10 minutes, there are no practical consequences, but if you don’t study for the next 10 hours, the day may be gone, and other activities might pop up to distract you, or be compelled to attend. Now, let’s say the next 10days now you are behind in your studies, probably like 3 to 4 topics, maybe a test or exam is already fast approaching. All this could have been avoided just by the simple question of asking yourself the consequences of inaction.

Power of Music

This is no hinden secret right now, on the ability of music to change your mode, many people often say listen to sad music when you are down to make yourself feel happy and to ease the pain and all, I really don’t know if that is true, if it is I would love to you hear your experience on that through my email most preferably.

For me and my background of Christian faith, often we are advice to read the scripture when we are depressed to keep us going, the problem here is that during this state of depression the we tend to have less willpower to do what we set out to do. They are tasks that require more willpower than the others. The concept of willpower is one everyone needs to be familiar with in life, and it will be discussed in a later blog post.

Imagine the human being having a battery, each human being start their day with a 100% (except my friend Nosa, she begin with 500 battery percentage, very energetic human being) that our will power and as we progress during the day our battery reduces, now for a depressed person their battery(Willpower) start at 20% or lower, and the ability to do all those demanding task won’t be possible. However, that’s where music comes in; there is no friction between opening your phone and playing the right tones to boost your mood, and for my Christian brothers and sisters, listening to gospel music is as potent as reading the scripture. As my bishop stated, we may forget what we read. but, we don’t forget the lyrics of a song. Use music to boost your willpower in your depressed state.

Lastly, take it all in

Remember to give yourself time to really reflect on what happened to know where your mind is at, don’t forget to take it all in, some alone time be it 30min to 1hour a day of alone time for you to journal write down your taught or instead if you don’t want the stress if journaling or are not use to it record yourself (reflecting and giving yourself the best advice to move forward)

Reduces the intensity of your work

What I highly recommend for someone to do while facing depression is to reduce the intensity; this goes hand in hand with our low battery level or willpower during the state of depression. A practical example of this, is that I personally found it difficult to concentrate for long hours of times, I use to be able to sit down for up to 45min on a single task, but I ended up having to reduces my intensity to 5min-15min to get myself back in the grove and give my mind that sense of fulfillment which is a reward for replication of such activity.

Conclusion

If you have any method that you use to overcome depression, don’t be shy to tell me what you did to overcome it. This blog post will be updated until we have 32 practical steps to overcome depression.