And so it is with luck – unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. … Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

From Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn from the Telegraph. Via Huge’s Twitter feed.

Related to anxiety and mental health it seems. “Lucky” is a matter of perspective.

[M]ost often our minds do not consider a range of options; our first impressions, reactive as they are, are usually taken as an accurate readout on reality — the way it really is.

From page 163 of The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself From Chronic Unhappiness.

Depression skews your perspective so that everything seems hopeless and doomed to be that way forever. It is hard to reframe these thoughts in your head as a symptom of the disease. That is particularly true if you don’t know that it is indeed a symptom.

Mindfulness both as a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist practice can help break that reaction pattern — but breaking the pattern shouldn’t become a goal. Once it does, you set yourself up for dissatisfaction when there is distance between what you want (for example, to feel happier) and what is.

The researchers found that more activity conferred more mental-health benefits and that “participation in vigorous sports activities” tended to be the “most beneficial for mental health.” But their overall conclusion was that being active for as little as 20 minutes a week is sufficient, if your specific goal is mental health.

From the New York Times Phys Ed blog post Phys Ed: How Much Exercise to Avoid Feeling Gloomy?

I have fallen off the exercise wagon HARD. It started about a month ago after I strained my back. That knocked me out of my habit, and I haven’t returned to it since. Needless to say, I don’t haz a happy.

The good news is that I can get back on the wagon. And I need to do it soon. I feel that familiar gloominess standing in the corner waiting to grab hold. Can’t let that happen.

We value good physical health, but somehow, many of us believe we don’t deserve good mental health as well. That we deserve to live life to the fullest without dealing with soul-destroying depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, personality disorders, etc. Especially People of Color. Many of us feel that since we survived slavery, Jim Crow segregation, theft of land, homogenization of cultures and whatnot, that having good mental health is something we don’t need to talk about, because it means that’s one more stigma we need to over come, without the White Man having something else to hold over our heads.

I disagree. I don’t think the issue is that we fear being seen as weak or fear white judgment. It’s that we have no clue what mental illness looks like.

Depression can be misread as laziness. Anxiety can be misread as shyness or being high strung. Being bipolar or schizophrenic sometimes get expressed in violent or impulsive ways. It’s often misread as “mean.” In many cases, depression is masked by the person’s ability to be functional. I shower most days. I go to work most days. I am even able to crack a smile most times. People might not realize when I am depressed. They might think me stern, serious, or aloof perhaps, but not depressed.

I would also argue that some degree of misery is what black folks collectively expect from life. We don’t expect to be happy because we see suffering all around us. It’s part and parcel of life, and not in the Buddhist sense. Therefore mental health conditions — or their symptoms at least — get normalized.

We also can’t discount financial cost. Going to a mental health specialist is expensive, particularly if you are a member of the great, uninsured masses. Depending on what part of the country you’re in, seeing a therapist without insurance ranges from $75 to $150 per session, sometimes more. Even with insurance, mental health coverage is downright crappy. Many plans limit the number of sessions they will cover, if they cover mental health at all.

While there is still a stigma about mental illness in some quarters, more likely explanations are awareness and affordability. Knowing what the symptoms are and how they’re expressed — realizing that this is not normal and that you need help — is the first step to getting help. Finding affordable treatment is the second.

But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

Yes: the stress of running or other exercise causes the brain to produce new cells that are wired to react differently to stress — at least in rats.

Researchers know that exercise works to boost mood, relieve stress, and can be used to treat depression and anxiety. But what was less clear before now was how exercise affects the brain.

This study suggests that a sustained exercise habit — three to six weeks in rats — helps your brain rewire itself in a way that greatly reduces anxiety symptoms.

I think I want to be Natalie Dee’s BFF now. [Via Jason.]

Over the years, my depression and anxiety grew worse. Deep, year-long depressive episodes struck at 12, 15, 18, 21, 23, and 27. Fear of homelessness and bad credit is what kept me from falling headlong into a bed-and-tissue-ridden abyss in my post-college years. Even when not in a major depression, I experience symptoms of dysthymia.

About 18 months ago, I decided to get serious about managing my mental health. I wanted to know what happiness felt like. It had been at least 15 years since I had felt happy. So I went to see a doctor. She prescribed an anti-depressant.

I took Cymbalta and sought therapy for several months. It worked somewhat. Medication took me from depressed and anxious to merely unhappy. It also gave me periodic gastrointestinal distress, persistent medicine-head, and took $50 out of my budget every month — and happiness still eluded me.

About a year ago, I stopped taking anti-depressents and decided to try a non-medicinal, multipronged approach. Despite some recent backsliding, I think it’s working.

Prong 1: Exercise

I am not a fan of the E word. I won’t even pretend that I am. But what I found is that exercising regularly makes me feel incredible. As little as 15 minutes of cardio — usually on my stationary bike or doing yardwork, but sometimes just dancing around the house — relieves tension and clears my head. I can handle stress as well as I did when I was taking medication, but without the extra costs or side effects.

Prong 2: Reducing alcohol consumption

I love booze. I even wrote a blog called Cultured Wino for a couple of years. Microbrews and gastropubs? Izakayas? Fuck yeah! But I’ll be damned if alcohol doesn’t cause my anxiety levels to spike. Throw in liver damage, wicked heartburn, hangovers, and the potential for chemical dependency, and dialing down my booze intake is just smart business.

Prong 3: Remembering to work less and do stuff I like more

I returned to painting and to a lesser degree writing. I am learning new things. I am reading again. Instead of working longer, I am trying to work smarter. I am setting up firmer boundaries between home and work.

My reasons for doing this are three-fold:

1. It keeps my mind clear and focused. I find that the best way to solve a problem is to step away from it. Refusing to take work home gives my brain what it needs to problem solve.
2. It gives me more opportunities to reach flow, or a near-meditative state of happiness and concentration.
3. It breaks my usual work-stress-anxiety spiral: too much work makes me anxious me out which means I work more hours which just makes me more anxious. Because I am not repeating the pattern, I don’t fall into the trap.

Prong 4: Embracing new ideals

Three Buddhist concepts have become very valuable to me in this process, namely:

1. Mindfulness, or being aware and awake in the present moment, and
2. Detachment, or doing things without expecting a reward
3. Impermanence, or the idea that everything is always in flux.

To accept that change is the only constant in life reminds me that a mood or a stressful period will not last forever. Mindfulness helps me see that right now isn’t bad just because it’s not what I want. And detachment reminds me that whining about the gap between have and want is what sends me into a tailspin. Detachment also reminds me that I am not defined by what I have or attain.

Buddhism’s talk about suffering and pain can come across as nihilistic, depressing or hopeless at first. But on a second or third reading, I think Buddhist texts offer a lot of wisdom about the sources of and fixes for the pain caused when your “whatshould” doesn’t match your “is.” I think this is why several books and articles on depression and happiness recommend practicing mindfulness and the related concepts of impermanence and detachment.

Prong 5: Therapy

Yes, I see a therapist. I like the perspective shift that comes from sessions with a licensed therapist. She asks the right questions and forces me to change my inner dialogue.

Why this approach works for me

1. Its results are immediate. If I exercise that day, I feel better. If I don’t I feel worse. If I drink too much or too often, my anxiety ratchets up. If I don’t, it doesn’t. If I forget to be mindful, or to do things without detachment, or think that life will always be like this (whatever “this” is), I start to spiral downward. Feeling good immediately — not after a month of popping expensive pills — is a powerful motivator.
2. It is cost-effective. Skipping the wine and beer aisle at the grocer easily saves me $30 – $60 a month on groceries. Not taking medication keeps an extra $10 to $100 in my pocket per month, depending on the medication. Exercise requires at most, a sub-$100 investment in some running shoes a couple of times a year. And, honestly, I can scrap the shoes if I decide my workout will be dancing around my house. Changing my thinking? It’s Fuh. Reeeeee. My therapy sessions do cost money, but it’s not exorbitant, and I think it’s worth it.
3. It has no side-effects. Prozac / fluoxetine gave me wicked anxiety. Cymbalta, Zoloft and Lexapro would cause my stomach to feel like someone was sticking a hot poker through it right before giving me the runs. This plan? I might experience sore muscles if overdo it, but that’s about it.

In short, it just fits into my life and my philosophy much better than medication ever did or could.

Further reading

• The neuroscience of mindfulness on Psychology Today.
• The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn
• The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky
• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Songyal Rinpoche
• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. WARNING: this book is bo. ring. But it contains an important lesson.

Right now, I am taking deep breaths and reminding myself that it’s the anxiety doing that.

Right now, my head is starting to throb.

Right now, I am scared, tense, anxious, overwhelmed, drained — but most of all, I am tired.

Right now, I am reminding myself that Miss Moon always wreaks havoc with my body and my mind.

Right now, I am telling myself that rum is not an acceptable dinner, but I don’t want to eat.

Right now, I know the rum isn’t really helping, but each sip is making me feel better for now.

Right now, my t-shirt sleeves are covered in snot because I had a crying jag in the car and no tissues.

Right now, I have an intense desire to die. If wishes could come true, I’d be gone by morning.

Right now, I am also trying to keep it in perspective. Yesterday was good. Tomorrow might be better.