So i still have depression and im constantly bored, i feel like a loser who cant do anything right. I want to let my creativeness out, make something i can share with the world or family, but im probably dreaming too big. I cant stand being depressed and bored, it stinks, everyone tells me to work out but i lack the motivation to do so.
i usually just watch youtube all day while complaining to family members that have no idea what to do about me.
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Hiking.
I cannot stress this enough.
One of the biggest loops of depression is feeling anhedonic and drained of energy, which keeps you from doing stuff, which keeps you anhedonic and drained of energy.
Go for a hike literally every single day for a whole month. Rate your depression on a scale of 1-10 every day a week before you start, every single day during, and then every day for a week after. You’ll see the trend, and hiking will be your new antidepressant.
It’s easy. It’s walking. It’s not competitive, you can go hilariously slowly and still accomplish your goal. You can add hobbies to this hobby, like photography or bird watching. You’re probably not getting enough exercise, and being depressed all the time blows.
If you’re nerdy and depressed, you may have heard about EMDR, where you sway your eyes back and forth rhythmically while you think about trauma. The doctor who came up with the treatment (that’s showing crazy good results) went down the rabbit hole they went down because they noticed walking in the woods helping their depression. They currently think the mechanism has something to do with bilateral stimulation (walking) and constant reframing of your perspective (tree on my right, tree on my left, rock on my right, rock on my left).
Other physical activities are great too, but hiking seems literally taylor made for the depressed.
Do you struggle with anxiety and destructive ruminative thought patterns? Guess what you won’t have the energy to do when you’re panting for air?
Hiking is a legit way to maintain depression indefinitely. Don’t get cozy, though. take a break and your brain will find its way back to it’s old antics.
Walking, or running, is good for your brain in almost every way. My depression was/is coupled with social anxiety so it was hard to get myself to do it but things like walking to the grocery store instead of biking/car helped me change that into ‘I’ll take a detour’.
The worst hobbies for me are the ones that are done sitting still, or anything that ‘creates’ a different ‘reality/world’. For me that was anything behind my pc. Woodworking is better for me and allows me not to worry about social stuff but walking is definitely better for my brain.
Damn I don’t even have the energy to get out of bed, how am I supposed to go hiking?
Start with a walk around the block 😊
Real talk though? Google “no zero days”. It’s a reddit post from like 10 years ago. That guys post still helping people get away from where you’re at. Helped me back in 2012.
In case Reddit goes down, the account/comment gets deleted, or you just don’t want to click the link:
/u/ryans01: Ouch. Sounds like you’re having a tough time max. That sucks. I’ve been there, so I kinda know what you’re talking about. I’ve been in the ever circling vortex of self doubt, frustration, and loathing. It’s no bueno. I know. If you don’t mind lemme tell you a couple things. You can read em if you want, read em again later if you feel like it. But honestly man, if I spend all this time typing this out to you and you don’t let it be a little tinder for your fire, well, you’re just letting us both down. And you don’t HAVE to do that. You don’t HAVE to do anything. But you get to choose.
(Who am I? My name’s Ryan and I live in Canada. Just moved to a new city for a dream job that I got because of the rules below. I owe a lot of my success to people much cooler, kinder, more loving and greater than me. When I get the chance to maybe let a little bit of help out, it’s a way of thanking them. )
Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What’s a zero day? A zero day is when you don’t do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I’m not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that’s not the point. The point I’m trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt’ do anything all fucking day and it’s 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you’re in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that’s what you’re used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn’t happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That’s rule number one. Do not forget.
La deuxieme regle - yeah i learnt french. its a canadian thing. please excuse the lack of accent graves, but lemme get into rule number 2. BE GRATEFUL TO THE 3 YOU’S. Uh what? 3 me’s? That sounds like mumbo jumbo bullshit. News flash, there are three you’s homeslice. There’s the past you, the present you, and the future you. If you wanna love someone and have someone love you back, you gotta learn to love yourself, and the 3 you’s are the key. Be GRATEFUL to the past you for the positive things you’ve done. And do favours for the future you like you would for your best bro. Feeling like shit today? Stop a second, think of a good decision you made yesterday. Salad and tuna instead of Big Mac? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Was yesterday a nonzero day because you wrote 200 words (hey, that’s all you could muster)? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Saved up some coin over time to buy that sweet thing you wanted? THANK YOU. Second part of the 3 me’s is you gotta do your future self a favour, just like you would for your best fucking friend (no best friend? you do now. You got 2. It’s future and past you). Tired as hell and can’t get off reddit/videogames/interwebs? fuck you present self, this one’s for future me, i’m gonna rock out p90x Ab Ripper X for 17 minutes. I’m doing this one for future me. Alarm clock goes off and bed is too comfy? fuck you present self, this one’s for my best friend, the future me. I’m up and going for a 5 km run (or 25 meter run, it’s gotta be non zero). MAKE SURE YOU THANK YOUR OLD SELF for rocking out at the end of every.single.thing. that makes your life better. The cycle of doing something for someone else (future you) and thanking someone for the good in your life (past you) is key to building gratitude and productivity. Do not doubt me. Over time you should spread the gratitude to others who help you on your path.
Rule number 3- don’t worry i’m gonna too long didnt’ read this bad boy at the bottom (get a pencil and piece of paper to write it down. seriously. you physically need to scratch marks on paper) FORGIVE YOURSELF. I mean it. Maybe you got all the know-how, money, ability, strength and talent to do whatever is you wanna do. But lets say you still didn’t do it. Now you’re giving yourself shit for not doing what you need to, to be who you want to. Heads up champion, being dissapointed in yourself causes you to be less productive. Tried your best to have a nonzero day yesterday and it failed? so what. I forgive you previous self. I forgive you. But today? Today is a nonzero masterpiece to the best of my ability for future self. This one’s for you future homes. Forgiveness man, use it. I forgive you. Say it out loud.
Last rule. Rule number 4, is the easiest and its three words. exercise and books. that’s it. Pretty standard advice but when you exercise daily you actually get smarter. when you exercise you get high from endorphins (thanks body). when you exercise you clear your mind. when you exercise you are doing your future self a huge favour. Exercise is a leg on a three legged stool. Feel me? As for books, almost every fucking thing we’ve all ever thought of, or felt, or gone through, or wanted, or wanted to know how to do, or whatever, has been figured out by someone else. Get some books max. Post to reddit about not caring about yourself? Good first step! (nonzero day, thanks younger me for typing it out) You know what else you could do? Read 7 habits of highly successful people. Read “emotional intelligence”. Read “From good to great”. Read “thinking fast and slow”. Read books that will help you understand. Read the bodyweight fitness reddit and incorporate it into your workouts. (how’s them pullups coming?) Reading is the fucking warp whistle from Super Mario 3. It gets you to the next level that much faster. That’s about it man. There’s so much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days, but that’s not your mission right now. Your mission is nonzero and forgiveness and favours. You got 36 essays due in 24 minutes and its impossible to pull off? Your past self let you down big time, but hey… I forgive you. Do as much as you can in those 24 minutes and then move on.
I hope I helped a little bit max. I could write about this forever, but I promised myself I would go do a 15 minute run while listening to A. Skillz Beats Working Vol. 3. Gotta jet. One last piece of advice though. Regardless of whether or not reading this for the first time helps make your day better, if you wake up tomorrow, and you can’t remember the 4 rules I just laid out, please, please. Read this again. Have an awesome fucking day ☺
tldr; 1. Nonzero days as much as you can. 2. The three you’s, gratitude and favours. 3. Forgiveness 4. Exercise and books (which is a sneaky way of saying self improvement, both physical, emotional and mental)
What a comment! Love it so much. Just trying to do something today - the act of trying is the most important thing
This was an amazing help last year when my wife was had really bad PTSD symptoms from a medical crisis she had. We walked 3+ miles almost every day last fall through January. She started getting better around then, and we started shortening our walks to 1 mile a day throughout the spring.
Now it’s over 100°F every single day and we are stuck inside for at least another month. Luckily she’s doing well these days, but I do miss our walks.
Save up for a hiking trip together 😁
If you want to throw stuff while hiking, Disc Golf is for you. Honestly I owe playing disc golf much appreciation to getting out of a big slump I was in and losing weight. It’s like hiking, but with a mini game built in.
Came here to say this. If you have anyone in your life who would be willing to keep you accountable by being your hiking buddy, that helps me a lot. Before my partner and I got together, she was my friend who liked hiking and got tips from a Facebook group on good locations. Every weekend, she had picked a place for us to go. Since I didn’t want to let her down, I got my ass out the door. I never regretted a single hike because they were all to great nature spots.
I realize this is limited by geography. I’m lucky to live in a place with a lot of great trails. I used to live in a place that was flat and uninteresting, so this depends on having access to nice trails.
I used to hike. Been feeling down lately. This is a great reminder, thank you
Oh wow, I didn’t know the theory behind EMDR, but I’ve had great success treating my anxiety and depression with both EMDR and hiking. Makes a lot of sense!
Little things that make solo hikes even more enjoyable:
- Merlin Bird Sound ID app.
- Bringing one piece of hard candy with you
- If you must listen to something, get earphones with a transparency setting where you can still hear birds and leaves crunching under your feet
- A dog
+1000
Running too. Almost every activity that makes you sweat can trigger the EMDR effect, and of course has a load of knock-on effects too
The key component of EDMR is bilateral asynchronous stimulation.
So not anything that makes you sweat can give you the benefits of EMDR. It must engage your left and right hemispheres over and over.
i.e. bench pressing will make you sweat, is in no way EMDR.
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And if you like to compete with yourself, dish golfing. It’s cheap(at least it can be), and it’s basically competitive hiking :)
Start playing a musical instrument. Works for me
i second this and recommend Piano/Keyboard.
A cheap Keyboard is probably found for 40-50 bucks online and it is a good starting point to also get into the music theory.
Still the skill ceiling is practically endless.
Keyboard is good. I personally would recommend bass guitar if you like rock music. If you can save up $200-300 and buy a used Squire Precision or Squire Jazz bass, it will literally last you years as long as you change the strings regularly and learn how to do an at-home setup.
You can pick up the basics and start jamming with people really fast, but the skill ceiling is deceptively high. Bassists are the hardest to find in any band.
The instrument is fun as hell too.
Same. I’d go crazy without piano / guitar.
Ukulele is a fun starting instrument, and you can get a serviceable one for ~$50.
Tons of YouTube tutorials, too.
Ukulele is such an underrated instrument too! It gets ragged on for no reason at all. I’ve been playing guitar fairly seriously for over two decades and have great guitars, but 90% of the time I find myself with my shitty 10 dollar, plastic-looking (paint) ukulele that has a hole on the back because it was thrown at a wall and writing more songs and still finding new things for playing guitar, just because. My playing transformed once I bought that little thing. I’ve written my best songs on it.
Yeah I’d played steel strings for years, but picked up the uke my kid had (but never played) at the beginning of the pandemic. Played that thing nonstop and then got my own. Also got a nylon string guitar because I loved playing fingerstyle on uke so much. Like you said, it changed how I played guitar.
Plus it’s great to just dump your emotions into as well — especially if you try and learn how to improvise, which is easier than you’d think!
100%
You’ll feel great teaching yourself an instrument. Dive right into it. Look up simple things at first, and practice it. Then look up another thing that you don’t how to do and practice it. The time goes by fast and before you know it you realize you understand it.It’s an amazing feeling.
Exercise is the best cure for depression. Get a bicycle and start exploring new places around you. Endurance exercise is most useful for balancing metabolism and hormones. Do it every day, and only for your well being. You may find it is life altering. It only takes around 2 months of pushing yourself when the routine seems difficult. After the initial startup, it becomes harder and harder to stop the routine over time.
A lot of my advanced curiosities and interests all started from needing to fix stuff like my first car, or putting together junk PC parts to get something to play Doom back in the day when Doom was barely on the trailing edge of gaming. Learn to use FOSS tools on a computer. There is a free way to do everything. If you learn these tools well, it will pay off substantially in life. The entire digital underworld runs on open source software.
I’ve been severely depressed before. I’m not a physical activity person. I don’t like sports overall, and doing some sports makes me feel tired and shitty. I know the idea is to be tired, but that just makes me feel worse. My body hurts and I feel useless because it is so difficult for me to do basic shit. Basically makes depression worse for me.
I’m partially disabled. Like, I am in serious pain right now from spending an hour preparing to cook my one time a week when I make enough to eat all week. This is my whole day. Just cooking. It takes everything I can manage to make it work. I was disabled by a person driving that shouldn’t have even had a license because of cognitive limitations. I’ve been this way since 2014.
As soon as I got home from the ER I got a cheap laptop and started screwing around with Arduinos to give me something to do.
I was already a hardcore roadie when I got hit riding to work. In 2009 I was 350lbs. By 2013 I was 190lbs. I had the advantage of being in awesome shape when I got hit, and 2 months after, I was already back on the bike. I never lost my legs, but my thoracic back (between the shoulder blades) never recovered. The pain never stopped. I don’t care about the pain. I care about the way I deteriorate when I’m holding posture. If it was just pain, I would manage. But it is like muscles physically failing. If I push through it, I will physically give out and wind up laying on the ground. If I do that I will lose my ability to sleep for weeks. I spend 80% of every day laying in a bed.
Places like this are my entire social existence at this point. Still, most evenings, I drag myself out on the bike and ride a 25 mile loop. The part of my back that is messed up is neutral on the bike. After riding, I’m completely useless so I have to ride in the evening. It hurts like hell. I can’t go much farther or I have neck and back problems. I’m definitely not in race shape any more, but I don’t care. Riding keeps me balanced despite being in one of the most depressing possible situations. I get to watch life pass by from the sidelines.
Other people’s life challenges do not change your own. I used to be much less motivated. ADD meds changed that to a large extent. In fact, they are my real pain killers now. I’ll trade pain for overwhelming focus any day. I won’t claim it is easy to get past the start of a physical routine, but it really isn’t as bad as it seems from the other side. There are very few people that lose over 100lbs and manage to keep it off for over a decade. This is how I did it. Everything seems harder for me than other people. It wasn’t natural or something I was born with. I can’t give you the motivation, but I can say, if you lack motivation in a medically dehabilitating way, see a psychiatrist, tell them about it and suggest that you believe Vyvanse would help. The time release amphetamines are not easy to abuse and are much more likely to get prescribed.
I was seeing a psychologist and she recommended me to do sports to concentrate, have less anxiety and maybe relax. But my problem is what I explained above, I’m not physically disabled, but I suck so much and starting to so sports take a long time and so much pain and makes me feel like shit.
I was annoyed that she recommended sports so much instead of giving me actual solutions for what I was talking to her.
And also, it didn’t solve a problem that I have a severe tendency to abandon projects or tasks unless I have someone breathing on my neck, which just increases my anxiety by 1000%. Adding into my routine doing some sports in just another chore and is not exactly helping the problem in my opinion. I think I have ADHD on top of my autism but I don’t have a professional diagnostic on that.
“Do some exercise” is not an universal advice, and I feel like it makes it worse for me. Don’t think that someone can just run for one hour and suddenly feel better and incorporate it in their routine.
I may sound like complaining too much since you have an actual psychical disability and maybe I should be grateful that I can actually run, so I’m actually a piece of shit for complaining that I feel like shit after running when others have it worse, but again, every case is different.
A lot of a diagnosis depends on what you say and a lot of that depends on how you internally reason. We all have a slightly different way in psychology. I happen to be very intuitive; to the point I over rely on it many times when I probably shouldn’t.
When it comes to amphetamine prescriptions, the doctor is trying to place you in one of two groups exclusively. You can not diverge from one or the other or they will not diagnosis you for one or the other. ADHD and ADD are pretty much polar opposite issues. A hyperactive person is someone that is constantly going from one task to the next but never completing any of them. This is on a time scale of less than 1 hour, and is usually just a few minutes at a time.
A person with ADD is entirely the opposite. This is the ultimate procrastinator. It is procrastination to the point where it inhibits a functional life. It might be causing circumstantial depression, but it must be limited to circumstantial depression. Like you need to KNOW it is circumstantial depression. If you say anything that remotely hints that you do not know why you feel depressed or anything that relates emotional state with depression, the doctor is going to diagnose the depression as the problem and try to give you happy pills if anything at all. The main thing that the doctor is looking for with an ADD and really an ADHD diagnosis is untapped potential that the person is not able to access. The inability to access their potential needs to be the thing the patient is unable to solve specifically.
As an example, in school I never did any homework. I could pass any test or exam well enough on there own so that I would pass each coarse but only barely. I could always pay enough attention in class lectures to understand, and I could use my intuition to improve my statistical chances of guessing correctly when I didn’t know the answers.
Later in life I had my own business. I had trouble with procrastination when it came to forcing myself to play different roles. Like I am very good at the work itself and usually enjoy it, but I hate trying to be a salesman and get new work. I hate the emotional rollercoaster of sales. I also had difficulty with getting overwhelmed when I had more work than I felt I could manage on my own for an extended amount of time beyond a few weeks. I thrive on exploring things I find interesting, and forcing me to do a ton of the same repeated task burns me out at a level I have little control over.
I only mention this because these are the circumstances that lead me to an ADD diagnosis is my 20’s when I related them to the doctor. You kinda need to know what is wrong and why going into the situation and explain it specifically. If you generalize or talk about things that fall into different categories, you will not get the diagnosis you are looking for. Also, not everyone will prescribe amphetamines. They are somewhat controversial. It is a complicated story, but like, they are mostly just a North American thing not found in the rest of the world. The meds exist because of the military applications that were prevalent in WW2 and since. I love what they do for me, but they don’t have the same effect on everyone. It really amounts to untapped potential.
Boredom could be because the elevator is already at the top floor of the building. Alternatively, your elevator could be stuck at a level you find frustratingly boring and just needs a bit of help to access a bunch of extra floors. If the doctor believes the elevator is on the top floor, it doesn’t matter how true the diagnosis is, the outcome will be no meds. They are looking to help open up access to a person’s true potential, not to motivate the person to maybe find some with a drug. I’ve seen people get on amphetamines and all it did was make them sleep less. For me, I explore an endless list of interests and curiosity. I am never bored, and always have a list of things I have not taken the time to explore.
Exercise definitely isn’t a fix all. It can help manage and improve anxiety and depression over time, but it isn’t going to accomplish that much the first time you start exercising.
I can definitely see that you have additional challenges as a neurodivergent person in navigating the physical discomfort of exercise as well as creating routines.
If you become open to trying again, I recommend starting a lot smaller so that you find a physical activity that is manageable and sustainable for your activity level. This can look like 10 minutes of extra walking a day. Or this can also look like body weight exercises (eg. 20 seconds of a plank, 5 curl ups, assisted push ups against a wall or table, etc). The best way of making exercise sustainable is to start small and slow. Minimize your physical discomfort (sweatiness and muscle pain). This is still more effective than doing nothing at all. You don’t want to push yourself so hard that you get completely turned off to the idea of exercising.
Thank you, also do you have any foss tool recommendations?
There’s are open source communities here! If you search for them, there’s several and they are all good. “Opensource” has a megathread somewhere that will give you an idea.
Get a bicycle and start exploring new places around you.
Especially during the sun rise. It totally starts your day bit fresh if that could help you a bit.
Yes I hate waking early but a walk or run at sunrise is one of the most encouraging activities of anything I have ever done. Go walk and see the dawning of the day.
All these nerds are saying shit that absolutely isn’t fun if you’re depressed.
Start skateboarding. It’s like self harm but you look sick as hell doing it. And once you’ve spent a few hours on the board and are comfortable, you can just skate places and it’s fun. Skate to the store or McDonald’s.
It’s crazy social and everyone else who skates is friendly and wants to help you learn too if you ever go to a park.
To add to this, if you’re not too coordinated and are struggling with the smaller skateboard and doing tricks… try longboarding! It’s like skating, but without the stigma of being capable of doing tricks.
Plus they’re INFINITELY more comfortable to cruise around on. They even made drop through decks that are designed for long distance cruising
Bonus points for getting into downhill longboarding. Just make sure you’re ready for it/have the proper gear.
It’s like self harm but you look sick as hell doing it.
Above age 25 it’s more like assisted suicide rather than self harm lol.
Running!
I was clinically depressed from 2002 to 2017. In 2017 I lost coverage and was forced to stop taking my medication.
The medication was wellbutrin. It really helped. I hated that I couldn’t get access to it, but I had to face life without it.
After having ramped down off the stuff, I was okay for a couple of weeks then the darkness started to come in.
In my research I found that exercise does the same thing as my medication (it increases hippocampal volume). So I switched from running about 1 mile per week to about 25 miles per week.
And my depression was gone. The medication managed it, allowed me to live my life. The running destroyed my depression.
IMO depression is caused by brain atrophy, which is caused by lack of moving one’s body. We evolved to be moving so much more, and just like your muscles will atrophy if you’re bedridden, your brain will atrophy if you don’t exert your body. Shrinking brain means life sucks hard.
I’m glad running has worked for you, but the perspective that depression is a caused by a lack of movement seems dangerous. It implies fit and active people can’t be depressed because they are active. That’s just not true.
Activity can help lift someone out of depression, but it’s not a cure all barrier between you and the world of mental health.
Okay, fair enough. That’s a good point to bring up. I think that’s one stable path to depression and I think that if a person has never been in good shape that should be their first thing to try after they’re stabilized from any acute danger. (Meaning if the shit’s bad enough just take meds to get out of the hole and be able to operate).
Maybe their brains are atrophied, maybe those regions are losing processing power, or for some other reason signaling freeze-inducing threat.
I think the most proximal cause of my depression, at least, is a feeling of overwhelm and hopelessness, that’s so chronic it just suppressed me across the board. And for me, that overwhelm came from normal life, being fed through a hippocampus without enough processing power to plot a path through it all. I couldn’t be sure, so I slowed down across the board, ie became avoidant and unmotivated.
So what I tell myself is that the growth of the hippocampus allowed me to just handle more complexity before it sent the overwhelm signal to the rest of my brain and caused a shutdown. Instead I got to operate more freely with more confidence that I was on solid ground, because I could see better.
But the prediction and seeing wasn’t the most proximal cause. Being able to see better made me more confident, lowered my stress response, lowered my physiological alert level.
But for someone else it could be their hippocampus shrank for some other reason. Or it’s inflammation cause by a food, and that cuts the processing power down. Or unconscious or conscious mental conflict, sapping processing power.
And it doesn’t even have to be the hippocampus. That’s just one input into the emotional system. Presence of abuse or enemies, presence of hopeless circumstances, straight up cell malfunction with neurotransmitters, all sorts of shit can go wrong.
I do think hippocampal atrophy is one of many possible paths to developing depression, and I don’t want to give the impression that what I said was a totally complete model.
It’s my model of how it happened to me, and I think it applies to a large fraction, possibly even half, of the root of people’s depression.
And I’m basing it on three things:
- How completely and utterly it worked. Better, more complete eradication than the meds had ever accomplished. (though I’m thankful for the years they helped me and the first moments they lifted me from the muck)
- How totally ignorant I, and apparently all my practitioners too, had been of that effect
- How drastically little activity I was doing, as a result of exerting myself in exercise maybe once every couple of weeks. I’d do it as a quick pick me up from time to time, not as an ongoing habit.
You have lots of good answers posted but here is the trick…You have to START.
You don’t need to sign up at the gym today and build a schedule to work out. That’s way too much commitment. Instead just go outside.
That’s it. Just put down the phone and go outside. Spend 5 or 10 mins out there. You didn’t run a marathon, but you’ve done something today. Maybe later today you can go outside again. Tomorrow so the same thing. Put the phone down and go outside for a short time.
You gotta start somewhere, so make it easy and start small. Eventually you’ll spend more time outside and less time doing nothing. Maybe you see cool plants and start getting into gardening. Maybe you find that walking isn’t so bad and you find a park with a nice trail and work into jogging? Maybe the kid down the street wrecks his minibike in front of your house while you’re outside and you stop to help and think the tiny motorcycle is cool and get inspired to start riding.
tldr- Don’t just pick someone else’s hobby. Put down the phone and go experience life outside your home. The hobby will likely find you when you start paying attention instead of distracting yourself.
When I felt severe depression, I struggled so much with feeling good about what I did. I thought it had to be significant to be worthy of enjoying.
It took me a very long time to start celebrating any tiny thing that I did. Sometimes it was doing something frivolous and feeling good about it for its own sake. Sometimes it was doing some productive and feeling good about achievement. They had one thing in common: I gave myself permission to feel satisfied with even tiny steps.
First and foremost I want to second anyone who brought up cooking. Learning to cook a meal perfectly to your tasted is both accomplishing and sharable.
For the geekier stuff, I have taken up Gundam model kits in the last year. You can start off with simply building them straight from the box. There are also a ton of ways to customize them such as repainting, adding decals, create “weathering” effects and “kit bashing” (mixing models together to make your own new model). It has been a very nice outlet whenever I want to be crafty.
I second Gunpla, it’s incredibly mindful to just crank some tunes and clip runners, sand nubs, and slowly watch something come together that seemed impossible from flat plastic. Then you see the articulation and and even more blown away by the engineering of it all.
I’m going to need you to elaborate on the Gundam model kits. Sounds cool as hell. Any good resources for getting started? Any recommended kits for beginners? Is it an expensive hobby?
There are lots of guides on YouTube but this should suffice.
Costs are sort of just down to how into it you want to get. Kits range from $10-$300. I usually build ones in the $30-$80 range. You can get lots of fancy tools but really, just get a decent pair of sidecutters and a hobby knife (exacto or other brand) and maybe a sanding stick. I actually started with a nail polishing block that you can get at any store that has nailpolish.
Kit wise, really just start with a HG (High Grade) or EG (Entry Grade) that looks cool to you. If you find you enjoy the process more than the end product you can get into RG (real grade) or MG (Master Grade). All but MG are a 1/144 scale while MG is 1/100 scale. MG and RG are much more intricate.
As a last word of caution, the earlier RGs were not designed very well, each kit has a number, currently their are ~40 of them with the last 10 or so just being tiny MGs. The earlier ones can be great but need a bit more love to get right.
My personal favorite kit I have built is the RG Hi-Nu Gundam
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/Idm7mt98enM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Knitting, crocheting, embroidery, cross stitch, etc. The work is meditative, and you get in a groove waiting to see what the next row or stitches will look like. Producing an object feels productive, and gives a feeling of accomplishment.
Choose bright colors and fun patterns, and it’s a lot of fun. There are patterns for all interests, so don’t think this is the realm of only little old ladies. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
There are also a lot of kits that include most of what you’ll need (especially for cross stitch). It can be a really convenient way to start and most kits come with really good instructions on how to cross stitch too.
I had a conversation with a coworker recently and we got to the topic of working out, and he told he’s working out two times a day. He goes to the gym before and after work.
I asked him why the hell he would go twice, like that’s just ridiculous and he said well he was depressed, and started working out. Everyone said it’d help with the depression, but it helped only a bit. So he figured well maybe he has to go even more.
It’s absolutely ridiculous imo, but… whatever helps one I guess
The endorphins from working out do absolutely help a ton. Though 2x a day is certainly excessive lol.
If one of the two sessions is cardio, then it’s not too bad. But yeah, lifting weights twice a day would be extremely difficult to recover from.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
I describe it as “playfighting for adults”. It’s a ground-based, grappling combat sport where your aim is to submit your opponent via joint locks and chokes.
It sounds simple enough, but there is a surprising amount of skill to it. A black belt takes roughly ten years to get, and unlike martial arts where you see 12 year old black belts, all black belts are adults, and you’ll almost never see a black belt that doesn’t have the skill to back it up.
A lot of people find that it really helps them with depression and socialising. While it’s absolutely NOT a replacement for therapy, you hear countless stories of people in a bad place mentally and physically, finding solace and meaning in BJJ.
I always described BJJ as chess with full contact. Lots of thinking and strategy.
Making food, either baking or cooking. They focus you on the here and now and you eat well to boot.
A hobby that has helped me a lot is knitting. It’s simple to learn and it’s another truly mindful thing to do for you.
I second cooking!
Yes! I struggle to motivate myself to stick with hobbies. I love photography, making art, writing - but often the motivation is just lacking. But cooking? I’m biologically motivated to cook (most days) so it’s easy to keep up with. All I have to do is save recipes and plan ahead just a little
Hiking. It costs nothing and you can create your own meaning from it. You can do the same trail over and over and know the place intimately, or you can make it a goal to do as many as possible and keep track of them all with souvenirs or art or whatever you want. The benchmark for success is what you define. And it’s got a bonus of being good for your body.
I’d also suggest traditional music, but maybe keep it simple and cheap… ukulele, didgeridoo, or tin whistle. It’s a low bar for entry and it’s inherently social, all about jamming and being inclusive. Didgeridoo is more solitary, if that’s what you prefer. These instruments have almost no ongoing costs and are great for learning the basics of music.
Instruments arr both humbling and also affirming. You can make noticeable progress and, again, define your own success. All my best friendships came through playing music. It’s an endless source of joy for me. I generally tend toward depression but music keeps The Big Sad at bay
I’ve only known the hike “as many different trails as possible” method but am intrigued by the “make one trail your own” method.
I do both. I do lots normal public trails, but theres also a secret spot that I’ve found and been back like 40 times over 10 years. I feel like i know every tree, rock, and stump, but each time, I find something new and interesting. Its a 1sq km area of granite, forest, and stream. So peaceful. Its about 1km off an overgrown, uninteresting logging track, nobody ever goes there but me. In fact Im going back again on sunday, hoping to photograph some rock dragons.
For me getting back into LEGO really helped, it’s a nice and relaxing activity. Also depending on your interests a hobby like flying FPV quadcopters can be a lot of fun. Forces you to go outside too which is always good :-)
I just picked up a DJI avata, while not the fastest pov, it is a really fun experience.
I also got into Legos when I was depressed. In general, working with your hands helps with depression.
Photography.
You can set up a little studio area in your house and start with still life pictures. Search for Danish Still Life Paintings for some ideas - I’m sure there’s plenty of YouTube rabbit holes for more ideas. Or, just take up painting!
Photography is also a great excuse to get out of the house and walk around. Whether it’s street photography or landscape or close up nature photography, there’s always something to take pictures of. Give yourself little assignments - just circles today, just signs, just shadows, etc.
Either way, this is a creative outlet that you can share with others as you progress and get better. Who knows, you might start printing your images and have a gallery showing at a cafe!
Anything where you get to be physically active or mentally creative.
Passively consuming content is extremely unhealthy in large doses: TV, youtube, even reading is not healthy after a certain point. Humans were meant to be physically active creatures above all, not meant to stare at screens for long periods of time like many of us are doing now.
The best de-stressers are things like playing a musical instrument, painting, knitting / crocheting, hiking / going for walks / runs, exercising, meditating. I would go completely bonkers if I didn’t have piano and weight-lifting.
Oh also, maintaining a regular cardio / activity regimen with something like PAI, will also help you live a lot longer too. With a cheap smartwatch that supports it, you can kind of game-ify your cardio health.
I used to have a watch with PAI built in and it was a great way to see how I’ve been doing over the last week. My current watch doesn’t support it and I almost didn’t get it because of that.
I honestly don’t think I could switch to one without it. I’m weak and these gamification methods work on me.
Plus its just a simple single number that encompasses your overall cardio health. The trend with a lot of watches now seems to be to throw an overwhelming amount of un-actionable metrics at you.
