TODAY I AM EXCITED ABOUT…Depression?

    Today I am excited about Yard work actually. For those of you that know me, you know how much I HATE yard work; I hate mowing the lawn, planting, pruning, sweating, getting dirty, general movement, etc…

    Yesterday I spent my day off keeping busy and not lying around, I am getting pretty good about keeping my energy levels high by eating the right foods, and by doing everyday things like cleaning and laundry and blogging, instead of watching TV and sleeping. I also did yard work. YES, I did yard work, willingly! I mowed the lawn with a push mower (half of it) I did a little planting, I used the weed eater, and watered my plants, and I even perspired, profusely!!!

     I am excited about this, because I have never been motivated to do it before. I always put it off until eventually someone else would do it for me. I was too depressed to care.

     How often do you put something off, sleep in to avoid a workout, skip a healthy meal or just sit on the couch all day? I used to a lot of those activities (if you can call them that), and even worse, I did them all while gorging on junk food. I find that once I allow things to get bad with my health and weight, I get depressed. Dictionary.com defines depression as an area that is lower than the surrounding one. I found that interesting…It totally explains how it feels, to me anyway.

   I don’t quite know how one chemically gets depressed, I DO, however, know for a fact that once your brain becomes depressed, even if you are the healthiest of people, it will always and for the rest of your life, know how to find its way back into its depression, if it is allowed to. That is why so many people are on medication for mental illness. Depression and mental illness are dangerous parts of a vicious cycle in the lives of many overweight people. I think we eat to put sadness out of our minds, to repress and to prevent addressing real problems in our lives.

My experience with the back breaking yard work I did yesterday filled me with pride, over a job well done, a nice yard for Cooper (my coonhound) to play in, smells from my past and something I had yet to EVER know anything about…Endorphins.Dictionary.com defines Endorphins as any group of peptides occurring in the brain and other tissues of vertebrates, and resembling OPIATES, that react with the brain’s opiate receptors to raise the pain threshold. Well, broken down this means Endorphins are a bodily chemical that is released during physical activity that turn on your brain’s feel good emotions. They basically make you high, only naturally.

So, now to the point of the blog… excited about Depression? Well to be perfectly honest I hate depression. Mental illness is a scary and tragic state that many, many people all over the world suffer from, including me. Depression has controlled me for a huge chunk of my life. It has held me captive, kept me miserable, and even suicidal. So for me to claim to be excited about it may be slightly misleading. I am excited because I believe that I now know how to keep depression from re-entering my life.

   Finding different ways to increase my physical activity, in order to release endorphins, is the best way for me to naturally keep myself from becoming depressed. I am not saying that it will work for everyone, but I think it is worth trying.

Let’s all try to get more active and stay focused on keeping ourselves happier, and healthier. I think it will help us reach our physical and mental goals, and the exercise wouldn’t hurt anyone. LEt's all get excited about Depression, Let's get excited about stomping it out of our lives forever!!!

Have a great night, and keep smiling!!!