Challenging Depression & Despair: A Medication-Free, Self-Help Programme That Will Change Your Life (19 page)

SWIM

If you are disabled or injured, your base level of fitness doesn’t
have
to be low at all. Go on the website of the
Battle Back
organisation and look at those terribly wounded soldiers getting flushed doing their downhill racing and adventure activities. Watch the Paralympians strutting their stuff, with the sheen of sweat glistening on their foreheads and their heads held high with pride. If you are disabled or injured and your base level
is
low, the best way to move yourself may be swimming. If you can get to a pool, hydrotherapy is a most gentle and thorough way of exercising because it places no stress (in the engineering sense) on your joints. Do it regularly and watch the difference both in your fitness and your moods.

SLIM

Comfort eaters

Depressed people tend to ‘comfort eat’. They also pour toxic liquids down their throats that depress their central nervous systems and make them act stupidly. A
lot of them suck nicotine delivery devices. So comfort-eaters get overweight, unfit and slouchy, feel half asleep half the time and look like death warmed over. This feeds into their despair. How to break this vicious cycle?

Kind foods and cruel foods

This is really ‘slimming made easy’. I’m not going to ask you to go on a diet. Diets tend to be too technical and complex for depressed people to handle. They get discouraged, give up and feel even worse than they did before they started. So I’m just going to explain a very simple new way of looking at what you eat and drink. It is so simple that when you prepare meals you can easily remember it, and when you shop it will make choosing foods child’s play. If you are responsible for feeding other people, you will have it shining there in your head like a little beacon. This is it.

Kind foods

Kind foods are low in fat (less than 3%), low in sugar and low in salt. Kind foods are very good for depressed people because they treat your body with respect. After you’ve eaten them they reward you and support you and give you the energy to face life. If you suffer from despair, kind foods will steadily build up your reserves of energy and fitness, and help your brain marshal its powers to help you. Kind foods will make you stronger and slimmer. They will give you back your self-respect and confidence. Kind foods include lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, wholegrain cereals and pulses and are natural and easy to prepare. You can find recipes anywhere to make them delicious as well as nourishing, so long as you don’t cover them with fat when you are cooking and turn them into something else.

Cruel foods

Cruel foods are high in fat, sugar or salt. They seem gorgeous and adorable when you are eating them but once they get inside you, they betray you and hurt you like a soap opera love-rat. They promise you comfort only to deceive you and bring you down. After you’ve had them – or rather they’ve had you – you feel fat, low and lousy.

Cruel foods don’t fulfil their delicious promise. That’s just a front. They really mean to destroy you. If you are in despair, you are especially vulnerable to cruel foods and their evil charms. Yes, they give you a little lift, but only so that they can bring you down after you’ve let them into your body. They’ve hurt you so many times before, yet you haven’t realised what they are. They seem so nice at the time, but leave you feeling guilty and miserable. If you give cruel foods to those you love, just watch them swell up in front of you and start behaving badly. They can’t help it. You’ve given them cruel foods. Kings used to have ‘tasters’ that tried their food first in case somebody was trying to poison them. Your family doesn’t have a taster. They have you.
 

Cigarettes and alcohol are cruel too. You think you’re sucking them, but really they are sucking you. They interfere with your brain so it finds it difficult to work for you. They are literally chemical depressants, promising highs and delivering lows. What else would you call such things, other than cruel?

SLOWLY DOES IT

You won’t be able to change from cruel foods to kind foods overnight, but one by one I want you to start switching from a cruel food to a kind one. Introduce more kind foods into your diet and look for them when you shop. Cruel foods are everywhere in the supermarket and at the checkout, and every time you resist one, it says sucks to them all, and cheers to you. Gradually switching is the easiest way. The change in your moods, your health and your looks will also be gradual – this isn’t a case of ‘one leap and he was free’. But slowly and surely you will feel fitter, stronger, healthier and less depressed. Take the fitness challenge. Walk, flex and stretch, and switch foods. Try it – you’ll like it.

WHAT PANEL MEMBERS THOUGHT

Vaz

‘This interests me because I’ve always mixed with a lot of fairly unhealthy people at work and it makes sense that I let myself skid. Look, I’ve even bought a pair of trainers! I don’t mind walking as I can still talk on the phone. Shit, I’m only 33 – a
lot of people are a lot older than that and manage to drag themselves out, don’t they. I thought the advice about food was a bit girlie but OK, if that’s what it takes.’

Maggie

‘I find it quite difficult to walk as I get out of breath, but I know exactly what you mean. When I can get out in a field or a forest somewhere, I do feel so very much better inside. I’m aiming to try this challenge as soon as I’m physically able to. The diet advice I think is absolutely true and absolutely right.’

Susanna

‘This chapter was written for me! I love the “Kind and Cruel Food” idea. If you think about it, this is what they are doing to your body. They make you fat so you get more depressed. I’ve actually stopped myself buying the automatic bag of treats. If I don’t stuff them they can’t stuff me. I want to look better than this. The walking is really a struggle, but when you come back things don’t look quite so bad. Ten minutes is my lot at the moment, but it’s a start.’

Philip

‘The last thing I want to do after a sleepless night is go for a walk, but when I did, I felt less tired rather than more tired. They say it helps you sleep, so I’ll probably keep going with this.’

15

Three: the task challenge

Which of the following do you think will be more likely to raise your morale?

1
Finding the courage to face up to problems.

2
Hiding in the airing cupboard.

If you think maybe the first, this chapter is for you. The task challenge is designed to turn you around to face the front. Without necessarily realising it, you may not be facing forwards at the moment. You may be trying to recapture your lost youth. You may be trying to regress to a past life as an Indian chieftain. You may even
be
hiding in the airing cupboard. So let’s start with some simple, practical strategies to help you.

Some psychologists think that you shouldn’t call problems ‘problems’: you should call them ‘projects’. I prefer to call a spade ‘a spade’. We are not doing semantic exercises here: we are changing lives. And right now you may imagine that your problems are worse than anybody else’s problems. A lot of depressed people do, and this is why they are depressed. So try this.

PROBLEM-SOLVING GRIDS

Take a blank sheet and divide it into three columns (or you can use the grid I’ve drawn up for you overleaf ). Head one column ‘M’ for Moderate and the second column ‘S’ for Serious. List your problems in one column or the other, according to how you perceive them. Yes, of course it’s subjective – your perception is crucially important. For each moderate problem score 1 and for each serious problem score 3. In the last column, if you already
know
the solution or adjustment (some problems like ‘ageing’ have no solution, but require an adjustment) you score
minus
1 on that row. Fill in the grid as honestly as you can, and then total your problem quota at the bottom. If you do the exercise again next week, your score may well change. My trainees did this exercise with remarkable results.

SCORING

You score 1 point for every M and 3 points for every S. If you
know
the solution/adjustment to your problem, deduct 1 point for each solution.

MY PROBLEM QUOTA (this week anyway) is ..................

When the results were read out, those carrying the highest scores were not necessarily those who were depressed or felt they could not cope or ‘face life any more’. Some people scored high on what they admitted were relatively modest problems that worried them unduly, simply because they could not (or in some cases would not) cope with them. On the other hand, ‘survivors’ with good coping skills who were grappling with major problems like homelessness, huge debts and bereavement felt that they could manage and problem-solve
even though
their scores were high.

Strangest of all, some who scored low were actually people in despair who preferred not to think about their problems at all. Because they never addressed or admitted their problems, they had no idea how to solve them. They also had a vague sense of anxiety and dread that things were somehow out of control and that the best solution was to bury their heads in the sand.

They were incorrect.

Setting out your problems in grids helps you to
externalise
and
organise
your thoughts. You can examine problems this way and keep a note of progress. It also gives you a sense of proportion.

Another problem-solving exercise: draw a 7 × 8 grid or use the one overleaf. Enter your problems one by one in the boxes along the top. If you have lots more than seven, just make the grid bigger. Use your initiative! Then down the side, list each action you are taking to try to solve that particular problem. Add to the Action list over time until you find the one that works. That Problem column then ends. You can add any new ones that occur to you.