IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Notes from the Coach - What's YOUR personal Theory of Depression?
2. Depression Antidote No. - Take a long, relaxing, nurturing bath
3. Alternative Approach - Yoga
4. Resources
5. Just for Fun - Why did the Chicken cross the Road?

***WELCOME to everyone who joined the Depression Antidotes list in April or May. THANK YOU to all of you for hanging in there with no word from me for a while. The focus and challenge of writing this newsletter is an important part of my recovery and I value your patience and enthusiasm.***

1. Notes from the Coach

I am just emerging from a short (but certainly not sweet) depressive episode and I wanted to share my musings with you.

Things have probably been going downhill for the last couple of months but recently they came to a point where, I would say, I was clinically depressed again. This is the first episode I've had since beginning this newsletter last November and, despite all I've said over the past months, I was surprised at how severe my destructive thoughts and feelings were.

My worst days were spent in bed, reading a novel. I desperately needed to escape myself. Every time I stopped reading I experienced huge amounts of anxiety about nothing in particular. And as I neared the end of the book I panicked about what I would do when it was finished. I couldn't identify what thoughts I was thinking and I didn’t question my feelings too closely. I just knew I was depressed. Everything was hopeless again. I was defective and It/I was never going to change.

When I was out of bed I knew things were really serious by the concern in my mother's voice. (She is one of the few people in my life - perhaps because she has suffered with depression herself - who can tell when I'm faking coping with life and am really in the Pit). She wondered whether I should go back to the doctor. Going to the doctor seemed pointless to me because - "what could she do except prescribe me more Prozac and who wants to be on drugs all their life and why bother anyway if I was always going to end up feeling like this etc.etc."?

I listened patiently to my mother's suggestions (whilst silently dismissing them) restraining myself from speaking aloud the "yes, buts" tape that was playing in my head - "I've tried that before but it didn't work", "that might work for you but it won't for me", "it's not that simple", "you don't understand how serious this is", "it's too hard" etc. etc.

But here I am. Back to "normal". So what changed? How did I get out of the Pit?

My mother's suggestion to go to the doctor got me thinking about Prozac and I realised that I had been taking the medication somewhat erratically the last couple of months. When I'd missed a dose I hadn't bothered to make it up, thinking that it was probably time to wean myself off anyway.

I started taking the drug consistently and felt better within a couple of days.

Now what I find really interesting is how did my recovery occur? Was it due to Prozac, due to my mind-set, due to something else or all/none of these things? A couple of weeks have passed since I was at the bottom of the Pit and I find it hard to believe that Prozac has made so dramatic a change so quickly. (Although, this was certainly my belief for the first few days of the climb out of depression.) Perhaps the thought that Prozac was doing it was enough.

The whole relationship of genes, biochemicals, thoughts and depression fascinates me (when I'm not feeling depressed, of course!). Which comes first - the thought or the biochemical? Am I responsible for my feelings or am I at the mercy of my genes and brain chemistry. The more I consciously experience depression the more I believe that it is a combination of these things.

This is my working theory of Depression at the moment.

Due to my genetic make-up I have a predisposition to depression. Earlier in my life my environment supported my having depressive thoughts. These thoughts created a chemical imbalance in my brain that further predisposed me towards depression. Consequently, I noticed the things in my environment that made me depressed, thought depressive thoughts and further increased the chemical imbalance. The cycle of depression was initiated.

Sometimes the cycle of depression is broken by chance - something in the environment picks me up, my thoughts change (and probably the chemical balance) and I feel better. This happens less frequently the more depressive episodes I experience because the chemical imbalance is more exaggerated and harder to alter.
All of us have a theory of depressive illness. Whether it's conscious or not. And what that theory is will effect our beliefs about, for example:

- how/if we recover permanently
- whether or not we need to take drugs
- whether or not we are responsible for the way we feel

Whatever theory you are working with will have implications for your recovery. My theory, for example, suggests

I need to alter the chemical balance in my brain in order to maintain my recovery from depression. At the moment I am doing this, primarily, by taking a drug. In the long term I hope to have changed my habits sufficiently that I will be able to stop taking the drug and control my brain chemicals through my thoughts and behaviour.

What are your beliefs about the nature of your illness? Do you even see it as an illness? Are you taking responsibility for your recovery or are you blaming yourself for being depressed? Take some time to examine your personal theory of depression. What implications does it have for your life?

I know you can create the life your really want to be living. Do you believe this?

Look after yourselves and know that you can enjoy your life. Pay attention, learn and be especially kind to yourselves when you're feeling down.

Educate Yourself about your Personal Depression is Step 5 in the:

which can be found in this Self Help for Depression eBook

2. Depression Antidote No. 11

Make some time to take a special bath. Organise things so you won’t be disturbed. Take the phone off the hook, tell you're family the bathroom's a no-go zone and sink into a luxurious and life-enhancing experience. Light candles, play soothing music and put some essential oils into the water. Let the warmth and stillness support you and just relax into the present moment. Make this a special time for you to just be. Suspend judgement, let yourself off the hook and give yourself the gift of peace.

3. Alternative Approach

Yoga is probably the most renowned and most practised form of mind/body therapy. There are several forms and schools of yoga available in the West, including Ashtanga, Iyengar, kriya, Kundalini, Sivananda, and Tantra. Each emphasises a different aspect of the body/mind relationship.

Yoga, which has its roots in India, is an holistic health care system which uses exercises (asanas) to relax and tone the muscles and to massage the organs, breathing techniques (pranayama) to regulate the body's energy levels, meditations to calm the mind, and relaxation postures to reduce and eliminate stress and anxiety.

Patanjali first put down the theoretical abstracts of yoga in writing in the second century B.C. in the Yoga Sutras. The word yoga means "union," a union between mind and body. It increases strength, flexibility, balance, relaxation, and maintains musculature.

According to yoga theory and practice, the inner life energy is prana, the power and essence of the body. Supposedly, prana circulates throughout the body in a system of 72,000 subtle nerves or nadis. Pranayama exercises are designed to remove blockages in the nadis that prevent the proper flow of prana throughout the body. Stress, improper diet, or toxins can bring on blockages in the nadis. Yoga believes that when the flow of prana is interrupted, one's mental, physical, and emotional health are affected.

Amara Jyoti, a sufferer of manic-depression and teacher of yoga, conducted a study on yoga and mental Illness. She reports "I taught Yoga to people with depression (and anxiety, and panic) for about nine months in a day centre of a psychiatric hospital. I found it a powerful experience and patients found the techniques personally empowering. Obviously the ones on less heavy drugs gained most benefit as they had the ability to practice daily, but most of the patients (students) gained from the practices - one being able to overcome her panic attacks and gain strength to change aspects of her life which she had not been able to do before.

(Thanks to Depression Antidotes reader Lisa Bryan for recommending this alternative approach. She says "(Yoga) not only tones and stretches the body, but also calms the mind and nourishes the spirit."

4. Resources

**http://www.answeringmachine.co.uk/**
The site gives you a choice of movie, TV, comedy, musical, adult, serious, famous people and weird themes messages for your answer machine. Even if you don't use them they are guaranteed to make you chuckle!

5. Just for Fun

KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side.

PLATO: For the greater good.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.

TIMOTHY LEARY: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

JACK NICHOLSON: 'cause it XXXXX wanted to. That's the XXXXX reason.

RONALD REAGAN: I forget.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

MOSES: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

JERRY SEINFELD: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?"

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

BUDDHA: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON: The chicken did not cross the road ...it transcended it.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.

COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?

BUSINESS CONSULTANT: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Business Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), the consultant helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Business Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Business consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Business Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

Have a wonder-filled week

Nancy

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