Using antidepressants are not the only way give relief to mild from moderate depression. Dr. Weil has four suggestions, I’ve written about 10.  Here’s how a little walk with Rumi can help relieve the blues.

BEFORE I go amend a post I wrote a while back suggesting some actions to help alleviate depression (or the moody blues), I want to more fully explore a simple but wonderful act with you right here.

Late last November, I wrote a post I named,  A Little Depressed? 10 Actions That Help Me. As I wrote it, I knew that over time I’d keep adding to it as new “acts” arose in my life that I found were worthwhile behaviors that can clearly shifts one’s (or at least my) mind set.

It all began with finding the iPod that I thought was lost forever.  Not one to listen much to music on iPods, I was, nevertheless, so pleased to find it that I affixed the ear plugs, grabbed my walking shoes and went for a jaunt.

I wasn’t in a foul mood at all, but it soon occurred to me that the walking combined with the music – a particular kind (in fact, not music per se at all) – carried me to a place that cradled me with sweet endorphins that swept all my cares away.

Now, readers of my various posts on depression, such as Dr. Weil’s Four Alternatives to Antidepressant Drugs (great pod cast interview there with Dr. Weil), know that I believe (as does Dr. Weil) that many people with mild to moderate depression may be able to control it without antidepressants (go to the above link for more on this).

Dr. Weil has his “four alternatives” and I have my “10 (now 11) actions”, and if you throw them in a shaker jar and shake, shake, shake… just maybe those antidepressant pills can be shaken from the pill box into the garbage.

A Music Recommendation (not quite)

Yeah, whatever moves you, whatever can shift you to a better mental state… that’s the recommendation. But for me today, the music itself was a minor, background harp plucking here and there.  What was front and center, and largely responsible for my shift in consciousness, was Rumi.

For those of you who don’t know, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī was a brilliant and revolutionary Persian Sufi, mystic, poet and philosopher of the 13th Century.  He’s considered one of the best poets of all time.

It was Rumi’s poetry, as translated and spoken by the wonderfully erudite Coleman Barks, that made that walk great, and inspired this post.

Check it out.  Go here and you can listen to the Coleman Barks album, What Was Said to the Rose. Start with the first selection, What Was Told and keep going till you’re mesmerized.  For your own happy walk, download What Was Said to the Rose on whatever device will play it and go outside and take a walk, particularly the next time you’re blue.

P.S.  I’d really enjoy it if you’d share your favorite poem in the Comments section below.

Related posts:

1. A Little Depressed? 10 Actions That Help Me
2. The “Miracle” Supplement for Depression, Arthritis and Liver Health
3. Dr. Weil’s Four Alternatives to Antidepressant Drugs

HERE WE are… the last day of 2010, and if you’re like me (at least me this year-end), you’re still pondering which of the half-baked New Year’s Eve festivities you will attend.

More importantly, perhaps — as this day has approached, you’ve been wondering about those darn illusive (in terms of achieving) New Year’s Resolutions.

Good news… I’m armed with some experts, and we’re here to help!

In this post, I present four experts who discuss the “ins and outs” of the resolution game.  If you’re gonna make them, read on to get a grasp on how to make them happen.

But for those of you who are tripping your way forward as you crane your neck back, always ruminating about whatever isn’t ever seeming to get resolved… well, there’s something for you, too.  Read the last summary and resolve not to ruminate no more!

Resolutions You Can Keep

The top two most common New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight and exercise more often, says Psychology Today.  More often than not, neither happens.  Why?  Maybe because such goals need to be concrete and clear, not lofty and vague.  Rather than setting yourself up for potential disappointment, start 2011 off on the right foot by making a healthy New Year’s resolution that you can actually keep.

In a Her Campus article, Hannah Orenstein writes about the “7 Healthy Changes You Can Actually Make in 2011”.  Each “healthy change” she offers comes with suggested steps to make it happen.  For instance,  change #1 is “Try a  New Class”,  and the simple suggestion to make it happen is to commit the dates to a calendar.  I might add that it will increase the probability of success if you recruit a buddy to go along.

Hannah’s other six suggestions are to eat five servings of fruits and veggies, exercise even when not in a gym, recruit a buddy for workouts, get at least seven hours of sleep, drink water instead of sugar water, and get comfortable in your own clothes.

Read the specifics on how to get this done here.

More on Making Resolutions You Can Keep

Sliding right along, let’s next turn to Dr. David Katz’s suggestions about how to make your New Year’s Resolution stick.

The good doctor says that most sources suggest that fewer than half of New Year’s Resolutions survive past February, and at least one study suggests that less than 20 percent have a lifespan of two years or more.  Seem familiar?

You can read his post to discover why Dr. Katz thinks that resolutions fail for most of us most of the time, but suffice to say when applying the tools of behavior modification science to weight loss, he suggests three things that need to converge to enable lasting change to occur:

1. You need to be psychologically/emotionally ready for the change;
2. You need to know (be educated) about what to do; and
3. You need to perspire, as in, really work at it.

Not everybody is ready to make those New Year’s resolutions all at the same time come midnight on January 1.  Timing, as the saying goes, is everything.

Resolve to Get More Empowered

Turning from the science-infused practical to the sublime, let’s next consider some suggestions inspired by the Kabbalah as interpreted by Tai Chi and Kabbalah teacher, Levi Ben-Shmuel.

Here we get into qualitative stuff as opposed to that which is easily measured, like pounds lost.  Levi’s talking expressing more loving-kindness, compassion and commitment making.

Personally, I think he’s on the right track, because paying this type of attention to our inner world is a clear track to getting to what we all want in the end anyway – to be happy.  Read more about “10 Questions to Empower You in 2011” here.

Looking Back Rather Than Forward

With three summaries of “Resolutions” for this New Year, I’d like to finish with some thoughts aimed at those who – rather than looking ahead – spend this New Year’s looking back… ruminating.  My expert for this exploration is Robert Leahy, PhD, Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy.

First, what is meant here by “ruminating”?  It is to “repeat negative thoughts over and over, dwelling on something either in the past or the present — but do nothing to change anything. Ruminating is like spinning your wheels in the mud.”

The proposition is that ruminating leads to no productive, beneficial change.  In effect, it’s energy misspent, and it comes with a price tag.

People who spend a lot of time ruminating can become disconnected from others and become depressed.  (Think of Sisyphus who toils forever without achieving anything.)  If by ruminating you do not produce answers, do something different.

As Dr. Leahy suggests, that something different can include focusing on goals that you can and are willing to accomplish, and learning to accept the world so you can live in it.

To read his other suggestions to put ruminating behind you, read “Is Dwelling on the Negative Hurting You? The Cognitive Costs of Rumination?”

Well now you have plenty of good ideas to think about… resolutions, if you will… so let’s get cracking. Oh, if you have any good tips about how to make and keep your New Year’s Resolutions, please put them in the Comments section below.

Have a great New Year’s!

Related posts:

1. Six Tools To Make Your New Year Resolutions Come True
2. Dr. Oz’s New Year’s Prescription: 3 “Revolution Resolutions”
3. Addicted to the Past?

Knowing where your thoughts come from and how they influence you is a powerful leg-up for personal transformation.

I RECENTLY left a comment on a blog post written by David Nichtern which proposed that many of our thoughts are not our own. Mr. Nichtern is a Buddhist teacher, and as you might expect, his insights were… well… insightful.

Given the forum (the comments section), my comment to his post was short, but it got me thinking that this topic is worth exploring here.

Why is there value in exploring the source of our thoughts?

For the same reason that there’s value in knowing what is and is not you. If you truly differentiate which thoughts appear as random noise, seemingly broadcast from something external to you — NotYou — as opposed to those which emanate from that deep part of you not conditional upon outside factors… then you gain control. Self control.

Much of this blog is about change. Figuring out what supports the best in you, the healthiest mind, body, emotions, sprit — and then putting it into motion. Till you get it, and you have it, and it’s you.

The first step to change something — to get to somewhere else — is to know where you’re starting from, and how you got there to begin with.

So, what thoughts have entwined with emotion and then settled in to create the attitudes that form what you believe yourself to be?

The idea is that many of our thoughts appear in our mind as if emanating from outside us, which makes some sense, because they often are. Think of yourself as the dot in the center with concentric circles around you, like what a pebble forms on the surface of a pond when tossed in a pond.

Each circle represents an influence, the closest circle being the most influential, such as parents or siblings. The next circle encompassing the rest represents perhaps teachers, relatives, friends, and the next country, culture, education, socio-economics and the like.

All these influences not only shape us but give birth to thoughts that are not “our” own. Literally, such thoughts have been shaped by exogenous factors, and are not really our own in the truest, and purist sense.

How to know what thoughts are yours?

You must observe your thoughts dispassionately, as opposed to genuflecting in a robotic reaction. Any thought that demeans you typically triggers an avalanche of similarly negative thoughts. Very soon you get pulled down into a swirling vortex of negativity. You go way down. And it started with one thought that probably isn’t even true.

Sure, maybe the thought is that your overweight and, indeed, the mirror proves it. But if you can be the observer, not the reactor, you get to the still space to consider why this thought exits, where it comes from, what it suggests that you should do, if anything.

Being the non-prejudicial observer takes practice. It’s more natural, it seems, to react to it, rather than watch it. Use your breathe. Sit down and concentrate on your breathe, in hold, out – hold, repeat. Close your mouth. Breathe through your nose.

If you have the opportunity, take a meditation class. Learn to be the observer. It might wind up being the truest form of you.