Lazy Productivity -- Make that DEPRESSED Productivity: 10 Simple Ways to Do Only Three Things Today

Editor's note: This post was written by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. For anyone who has ever struggled with the inertia of depression, this is invaluable.I have to admit, I'm as lazy as the next guy. I have my moments of productivity, where I'm cranking out the tasks and checking things off my to-do list like my life depended on it.But for the most part, I just want to do a few things each day, and then take a nap.And as it turns out, that's all that's needed. Doing just a few things each day has worked wonders for my productivity -- I do less, but those few things I do have a higher impact. With this method, I've created a couple of successful blogs, and achieved a few other things along the way. Not trying to brag, but only showing that laziness...

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Introducing The Candy Heart Generator

The Despair Inc. Blog reports: The signs are unmistakable.The dismal specter of yet another agonizing Valentine’s Day lumbers fatefully closer like some pink, sappy-faced behemoth. It reeks of refrigerated flowers and dirty cash, its roar a cacophony of disposable jingles for cheap diamonds, decapitated roses, and sickening confections barely fit for human consumption. It descends ravenous upon us all, feeding on hearts- whether bitter, black, or broken- passing over only the rare few it finds in a state of true romantic love.To them, rather the vulgar monstrosity it is, the beast appears instead as a dear friend long awaited. They are swept as lovers into the creature’s intoxicating embrace, not to be devoured, but rather only pickpocketed,...

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An Interview With Author Tom Wootton On Depression As An Adv

It is not the hardships we face that matter, it is what we become as a result of facing them. Some of the greatest people in history have said that depression is what made them great. The Depression Advantage is about facing our condition while accepting the possibility that we might gain from it instead of trying to hide from the experience. read more | digg st...

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At the York Public library

The excitement of holiday time is behind us. Looking ahead, there are still several months of cold and dark before we see strong signs of spring's return. There is hope, however. Haven't you noticed? The daylight is beginning to stay with us a bit longer each day. But even with this added light, it can be a difficult time of year for keeping up oneread more digg st...

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Depression risk 'highest in 40s'

BBC News reports:Life may begin at 40, but research suggests that 44 is the age at which we are most vulnerable to depression. Data analysis on two million people from 80 countries found a remarkably consistent pattern around the world. The risk of depression was lowest in younger and older people, with the middle-aged years associated with the highest risk for both men and women. The study, by the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College in the US, will feature in Social Science & Medicine. The only country which recorded a significant gender difference was the US, where unhappiness reached a peak around the age of 40 for women, and 50 for men. Previous research has suggested that the risk of unhappiness and depression stays relatively...

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Don't be happy, worry

Awash in antidepressants, America is manipulated by Big Pharma and numbed out to basic, and inevitable, human pain -- or so argue critics of our serotonin nation.By Jerome WeeksJan. 29, 2008 We are witnessing the rise of the anti-antidepressants. The '90s, of course, were the age of Prozac, a decade when a class of antidepressants called SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) came to dominate psychological treatment and public discusssion about why life in America had become such a downer -- even before 9/11. After Prozac's FDA approval in 1987, some 80 million new prescriptions for antidepressants were written in the next 10 years. It was as if America had suddenly caught a bad case of the Superpower Blues: Office visits to doctors...

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The road back from depression

From London's Sunday Times:In the final extract from her book, author Sally Brampton explains how, after her devastating illness, she pieced her life together again Tom drove me to the mental hospital. I don’t mean that he drove me via love to madness, although part of that is true, but that he put me in his car and took me there for my second stay. I asked him to sit with me at home while I waited for a vacant room – not as easy to find as it sounds. Even private psychiatric units are woefully oversubscribed, which says much about the mental health of this nation.A word about Tom here. We were still seeing each other, although our relationship was erratic and more highly charged than was comfortable, or even tolerable. He had separated from...

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Amy Grant: it's the little things ...

Beliefnet's Dena Ross talks with Christian recording artist Amy Grant about, among other things, struggling with depression. Read the entire interview here:In the book, you talk about battling depression off and on. What do you do to help yourself come out of a slump? It's so funny what age is doing. I never thought getting older would be so great. But when it comes to depression, I have experienced less the older I've gotten. And I think part of it is, there are things that I know to look for in myself. I know winter time hits me like a ton of bricks. My great-uncle told us when were kids, "If you're born into this family, you need to go take a brisk walk every day." He didn't know what endorphins were, but he knew that we battled that downward...

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Japanese firm offers "heartache leave" for staff

Reuters reports:TOKYO (Reuters) - Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more "heartache leave" on offer as they get older.Tokyo-based Hime & Company, which also gives staff paid time off to hit the shops during sales season, says heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed. "Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick," CEO Miki Hiradate, whose company of six women markets cosmetics and other goods targeted for women, told Reuters by telephone.Staff aged 24 years or younger can take one day off per year, while those between 25 and 29 can take two days off and...

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Writing Project Helps Veterans Heal Wounds

Weekend Edition Sunday, January 27, 2008 ·A writers' workshop for veterans provides a place for healing. The brainchild of award-winning writer Maxine Hong Kingston, the Veterans' Writing Group was founded in 1993. Roughly 30 vets meet every few months to read and discuss their material.listen here ...

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Pollyanna: Spirit of Optimism Born Out of War

Weekend Edition Sunday, January 27, 2008 ·She was cute, she was cheerful, and she was famous for the creation of "the glad game." But today Pollyanna her name is synonymous with optimism — to a fault.Politicians and scholars alike attribute "the Pollyanna principle" to people who look on the bright side and hope for the best, no matter what.Liane Hansen explores the roots of Pollyanna's story — as written by Eleanor Porter in 1913, as brought to life by Hayley Mills in the 1960s Disney movie, and as analyzed by psychologists and economists — to see whether this sweetheart's spirit has any place in real life.listen here ...

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Unanswered questions surrounding the death of Heath Ledger ...

Therese Borchard quotes William Styron in a recent Beyond Blue posting:The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it. To the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.Read Therese's complete blog entry here ...

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"The Future" by Wesley McNair

From The Writer's Almanac:The Future On the afternoon talk shows of Americathe guests have suffered life's sorrowslong enough. All they require now is the opportunity for closure,to put the whole thing behind themand get on with their lives. That their lives,in fact, are getting on with them evenas they announce their requirementis written on the faces of the younger oneswrinkling their brows, and the skinof their elders collecting just under their set chins. It's not easy to escape the past,but who wouldn't want to live in a futurewhere the worst has already happenedand Americans can finally relax after daringto demand a different way? For the rest of us,the future, barring variations, turns outto be not so different from the presentwhere we have always lived—the samestruggle of wishes and...

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Tonight ...on PBS 8 ...

This is NOT cheerful viewing ..... but it's sure putting the occasional frustrations with my psychiatrist's office staff in perspective ....To read more about the television show, click here... And for more information on the book upon which this show was based, in part, click here ...

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From The Storied Mind: Acting, Depression and Work

I am so tickled that I've gotten to know John a little via email ... he's the ginchiest. I wrote a 4,000 page comment to this post of his ... but you'll have to search that out; I won't take up the space here ...I was reading Joyce Carol Oates’ novel, Blonde, about the life of Marilyn Monroe, and was stopped by a line spoken by the character known as the “The Survivor.” Norma, he said, was a natural actor because she didn’t know who she was and so was driven to try to become the character completely. That was acting, the reaching into the fictional being, to become that person totally – to fill an emptiness where most people had a strong sense of self. I’m adding my words here – but getting that thought suddenly helped me understand my own...

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From the Archives: Hurricane Katrina Victims' Mental Health Worsens

Morning Edition, November 1, 2007 · A new report on the mental health of Hurricane Katrina victims shows patterns in the Gulf Coast that are contrary to post traumatic stress disorder usually seen after major disasters. The mental health of Hurricane Katrina victims is worsening with the drawn out recovery time.Listen to the story here ...The Bryant Park Project, November 19, 2007 · A new study finds that Hurricane Katrina victims are suffering increased emotional problems like depression, PTSD and suicidal thoughts.Listen to this story here...

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From the Archives: Post-Katrina Mental Health: What Can Be Done?

All Things Considered, August 8, 2007 · What is the source of the dysfunction in the FEMA trailer parks, and what can possibly be done to help? In the second part of the Scenic Trails story, reporter Alix Spiegel talks to government officials, mental health counselors, church volunteers and others.Listen to the story here ...

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From the Archives: Stuck and Suicidal in a Post-Katrina Trailer Park

All Things Considered, August 8, 2007 · The first morning of my visit to Scenic Trails, I was walking the path between some trailers when I bumped into a man named Tim Szepek. He was young, tall, and solidly good-looking. I asked if I could speak to him for a moment and he agreed. We found a spot of shade beneath a tree, and I started with what I considered a casual warm-up."What's it like to live around here?" I asked."Well," he replied, "I'll be honest." "Ain't a day goes by when I don't think about killing myself."And so began my time in Scenic Trails, a FEMA trailer park deep in the Mississippi woods where 100 families have lived in near isolation for close to two years. Though Szepek was the first resident to tell me he wanted to commit...

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From the Archives: Katrina Overwhelms Mental Health System

Katrina Overwhelms Mental Health Systemby Alix SpiegelListen Now [7 min 46 sec] Morning Edition, January 24, 2006 · The mental health system in Louisiana was never in great shape. But after Hurricane Katrina, demands for mental health services throughout the state have increased sharply and people in crisis are not getting ca...

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Stuck and Suicidal in a Post-Katrina Trailer Park

NPR reported back in August ...

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This I Believe: Learning to Find the Silver Lining

Weekend Edition Sunday, January 20, 2008 ·I'm 57. Divorced after 28 years of marriage, I no longer have a house. I own very little, make a marginal living and I lost my youngest child to suicide when he was 21. At my core I am grateful for it all — even my son's death. It gave me the lens through which to see everything.I believe in a silver lining.I will forever carry my son with me. How can a mother not? This is the only choice I had: I could either carry him as a bag of rocks or I could live a life celebrating him. Now let me be honest here: I wailed for months before I figured out how to trade the rocks for the joy, and found the silver lining thing. I'm a people person, but Arrick was really a people person. He told me once, "I talk to...

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Not Depressed, Just British!

A new take on mental healthJanuary / February 2005 Staff Living, Lightly George Farthing, an expatriate British man living in America, was diagnosed as clinically depressed, tanked up on antidepressants, and scheduled for a controversial shock therapy when doctors realized he wasn't depressed at all, he was just British! Farthing, a man whose characteristic pessimism and gloomy perspective were interpreted as serious clinical depression, was led on a nightmare journey through the American psychiatric system. Doctors described Farthing as suffering from pervasive negative anticipation: a belief that everything will turn out for the worst, whether it's trains arriving late, England's chances of winning any national sports events, or his own prospects...

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Being Mindful of Mindfulness ...

No sooner had I chatted with Scott about mindfulness yesterday (we're working our way through our "text," ("The Mindful Way Through Depression" -- Chapter Two: The Healing Power of Awareness if you're following along...) ... when the ever-wonderful Therese posted this on Beyond Blue:Today is the first time in over six months that I woke up with that horrible knot in my stomach--the kind that, I suspect, a priest or sister might feel after robbing a bank. It's like guilt in that I'm convinced it's the result of a recent action, something bad I did. Yet, after searching my conscience, I fail to arrive at any major crime or sin (though there are plenty of little ones).Early in my recovery I would take a sedative (or ten) on mornings like these,...

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Speaking of "Must Not Think Too Much" ....

Sandra G. Boodman of the Washington Post writes:One of the most horrifying medical treatments of the 20th century was carried out not clandestinely, but with the approval of the medical establishment, the media and the public. Known as the transorbital or "ice pick" lobotomy, the crude and destructive brain-scrambling operation performed on thousands of psychiatric patients between the 1930s and 1960s was touted as a cure for mental illness. As the riveting hour-long "American Experience" documentary "The Lobotomist" (scheduled to air Jan. 21 at 9 p.m. on WETA and other PBS stations) makes clear, Walter J. Freeman's operation reflected the neurologist's peculiar combination of zealotry, talent, hubris and, as one of his trainees noted, craziness....

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Nothing Is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are toldLie all our memories, lie all the notesOf all the music we have ever heardAnd all the phrases those we loved have spoken,Sorrows and losses time has since consoledFamily jokes, out-moded anecdotesEach sentimental souvenir and tokenEverything seen, experienced, each wordAddressed to us in infancy, beforeBefore we could even know or understandThe implications of our wonderland.There they all are, the legendary liesThe birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tearsForgotten debris of forgotten yearsWaiting to be recalled, waiting to riseBefore our world dissolves before our eyesWaiting for some small, intimate reminder,A word, a tune, a known familiar scentAn echo from the past when, innocentWe looked...

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Do Narcissists Get Abortions?

The Last Psychiatrist says: He gets a girl pregnant, and he slips $200 under her door, goes and plays softball, and never speaks to her again. And to this day, the regret wasn't that he was a self-centered asshole who slipped $200 under her door, went and played softball, and never spoke to her again, it's that she aborted the child. ... read more digg st...

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The Sad Decline of Britney Spears and Our Voyeuristic Complicity ...

Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute writes:"And here, for journalists, is the crux of the problem: While we linger beyond imagination on the dissolution of one young celebrity, mental illness is an almost invisible story in the American news media." The Poynter Institute is a school for journalists, future journalists, and teachers of journalists. read more | digg st...

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The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression

Author Darian Leader aims, in his new book The New Black, to disentangle the idea of natural mourning from melancholia or pathological grief, to help “shed light on how we deal - or fail to deal with the losses that are part of human life”.read m...

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The Bible is not a guide to optimism. It is a guide to hope.

Patton Dodd is the author of “My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion.” Therese Borchard recently did an interview with him for her blog, Beyond Blue, which you can read here ...Patton writes:Optimism doesn't let you acknowledge what's wrong with your life; it encourages you to lie to yourself, and over the course of the years, to live in willful blindness to your real problems. Optimism tells you to be positive no matter the circumstances—which, if you can't keep it up, is a recipe for depression. Hope lets you be honest about the circumstances, and still urges you to look toward something better. The testimony of the Apostle Paul, Augustine, John Calvin, Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day, and many other Christian saints attests...

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Bookshelf: Head Trips and Evil Genes

Why some people are ruthless monsters and other book reviews.read more...

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I'd kick Britney off the bi-polar express

(The Mirror's Sue Carroll demonstrates once again that you don't need to know of what you write to get published ...)The path to self-destruction is not due to an excess of mind-bending drugs, alcohol or general self-indulgence, but in Britney's case, the mental disorder, bipolar.So much sexier and hip than manic depression - as it was called until it became trendy. read m...

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Quirky Minds: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

In 1993, a man was rushed to the hospital for a stab wound he inflicted on himself. Though he was depressed at the time, the act wasn't intended to end his life; it was to prove to his family that he wouldn't bleed—because he was sure he was already dead.read m...

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Sometimes We Can't Do What We're Expected to Do

Beyond Blue blogger Therese Borchard says "I was impressed by all the compassion for Britney and others that are caught in the perfect storm of addiction and mental illness on the combox of my post 'Britney: Is Addiction More Acceptable Than Mental Illness?'" read more digg st...

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For most, there is no crueler day of the calendar year than that of Valentine's Day. While a tiny fraction of the population can look forward to a holiday of wine and roses, poetry and song, the vast majority of us can anticipate a day of nausea and grimacing, trauma and grief. A day in which minutes seem like hours, and hours like days, as we reflect sorrowfully on yesteryear's romantic indignities, today's loneliness, and the unknowable but certain heartbreak that will be visited upon us repeatedly in the years to come.When cruelty and holidays collide, the weak-willed find solace in self-pity and comfort foods. And now, Despair Inc. is pleased to announce that we've combined BOTH into a radical new offering. Introducing Bittersweets® -...

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Clinical depression linked to abnormal emotional brain circuits

Aug. 15, 2007by Jill SakaiIn what may be the first study to use brain imaging to look at the neural circuits involved in emotional control in patients with depression, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that brains of people with clinical depression react very differently than those of healthy people when trying to cope with negative situations.The study appears in the August 15 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. According to the World Health Organization, clinical depression is one of the leading causes of disability and lost productivity in the world. Understanding the root cause of depression, however, has proved difficult. "It's normal for people to have negative emotions in certain circumstances," says lead...

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Ferguson Speaks From The Heart

Craig Ferguson speaks on his past problems as an alcoholic and why he will not ridicule Britney Spears and her shaved head crisis. Must watch!read more | digg st...

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15 Can’t-Miss Ways to Declutter Your Mind

You can declutter your mind with simple actions, things we’ve discussed here before, but things that are almost guaranteed to have a positive effect. Little things that can make a big difference, especially when used in combination. Choose a few to try out, and see if they work for you.read more | digg st...

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A new plague facing women

Three graphic new books about depression by women writers will cast new light on Britain's hidden epidemic. Stephanie Merritt, herself a sufferer, recalls her own experience and argues for greater openness about a subject that still remains largely tabooread more | digg st...

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Make that 34 ...

The things you find while surfing, much too late, on a Saturday night.Found this amazing poem here: http://33namesofgrace.blogspot.com/2005/12/33-names-of-grace.htmlThis is WONDERFUL. New Year's Assignment for the Universe - everyone try to write their own, personal version of this.33 Names of Grace1.Two women in front of the mantle weeping public promises in a crowded room.2.The son in your arms not born of your body.3.The son in your arms not expected from your body.4.The second marriage.5.The first warm breeze.6.The cat on your chest at 5 AM,even though she is just cold.7.The words that wait until you are ready.8. The God who waits until you are ready.9.Colombian coffee with cream.10.The notes of the song he wooed you withRising from the basement at midnight.11.Ancient words, known roteSuddenly...

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Waiting ...

"I hope you'll hear what I'm about to tell you. I hope you'll hear it all the way down to your toes. When you're waiting, you're not doing nothing. You're doing the most important something there is. You're allowing your soul to grow up. If you can't be still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be." "When the Heart Waits" by Sue Monk Kidd ~*~ Topic of the Week - Learning to Wait~*~ I received an email this week from a woman who was anxiously waiting to hear about whether or not she was chosen for a job that felt like the perfect fit for her soul. Like so many job searches that seem to take forever, this poor woman had been waiting for two months. Although she had been warned that the process would take a while, it felt frustrating and scary. She asked for my help in learning...

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