Rethink Major Depression

Malfunction of your functioning mind

Your brain is the hardware of your whole being.

If you want to be what you really want to be, you must make your brain work for you, not against you, as in the case of major depression. Your brain plays a pivotal role in your personality, feelings, and behavior because it is the seat of your perception and experience.

Your brain creates your own world - how you live your life, and how happy you are.

Deep limbic system (near the center of your brain)

Your behavior is not primarily the result of environmental stress or conditioning. That is to say, people and events do not necessarily cause your moodiness, irritability, negative thinking, decreased motivation, loss of appetite, and insomnia (common symptoms of major depression).

Your deep limbic system may be the culprit. How? Your deficiency of neurotransmitters may increase metabolism or inflammation in your deep limbic system, leading to its malfunctioning.

Overactive deep limbic system

An overactive deep limbic system may make you do the following

You look back at the past, and you feel regret.
You look at the future, and you feel anxiety.
You look at the present, and you feel dissatisfaction.

These thoughts are known as automatic negative thoughts (ANT).

Healing your deep limbic system

Of course, antidepressants can improve your deep limbic system functioning by enhancing your neurotransmitters. But they all come with a price - adverse side effects that may offset the benefits.

The only way to heal your deep limbic system is: change your moment-to-moment thought patterns.

Learn to rethink your thinking. Change your thought patterns. Yes, you can do it! Everybody can!

Rethink your thinking of your thinking mind.

Steps in rethinking your thoughts:

Step 1

Understand that your thoughts are real. They are not imaginary, but as real as life.

·   You have a thought.
·   Your thought sends electrical signals to your brain.
·   Your brain releases chemicals.
·   You become aware of your own thinking.

No matter what you think, your thoughts are real to you, and must be treated as real.

Step 2

Be aware of your body’s reactions to the chemicals released by your brain.

For example, if you are angry, notice how your muscles tense up and how your heart beats faster; if you are happy, notice how your body responds with a smile or a feeling of euphoria.

Train yourself to notice the differences in your deep limbic system when your thoughts are happy and when they are sad, and notice the reactions of your body to these different thoughts.

Step 3

Think of negative thoughts as bad. Talk back to your negative thoughts.

Remember, that your automatic negative thoughts (ANT) come to your brain involuntarily and spontaneously. But they are NOT correct, and they do not tell the WHOLE truth.

Change your thoughts, and do not believe them. Learn how to train your mind to change your thoughts, and accordingly change your feelings.

Step 4

Given that your automatic negative thoughts (ANT) are incorrect, challenge them, and talk back to them repeatedly.

This is how:

Write down your automatic negative thoughts (ANT). Do not use sweeping words (“always”, “never”, “no one”, “nobody”, “everyone”, “every time”, “every thing”), such as “I am always a failure” or “Nobody likes me.” Look at what you have written down, and talk back to them.

·   Do not focus on the negative side of all your thoughts.

·   Do not predict the future. Man is not supposed to know his fate, and he will never know.

·   Do not read into someone else’s mind. Do not try to figure out what someone else is thinking about you or anything. You have enough trouble reading your own.

·   Do not think with your feelings. Remember, your feelings are often based on powerful memories from the past, but they may “lie” to you. Do not say: “I feel hopeless” or “I feel inadequate.”

·   Do not cherish the feeling of guilt, which is often a bad and negative emotion. Remove these from your vocabulary: “could have”, “should have” and “ought to have.”

·   Do not label anyone or anything with words, such as “arrogant”, “dishonest”, “a liar.” In other words, do not judge. Labeling prevents you from getting a clear picture of someone or a situation.

·   Do not explain someone else’s action or intention. Do not attribute any reason to why things happen. Avoid using “he or she must be…”

·   Do not play the “blame game.” Stop blaming anyone or anything. YOU are responsible for your feelings, and no one else!

The above are all common patterns of thoughts that come to you naturally simply because you permit them. They all upset your deep limbic system. Learn to talk back to them whenever they surface in your mind.

Other ways to banish negative thoughts:

Exercise can help you banish negative thoughts:

·   It increases your energy output.

·   It accelerates your bodily metabolism.

·   It normalizes your melatonin production to induce restful sleep.

·   It improves your mood by providing your brain with more of the natural amino acid tryptophan.

Nutrition can help your deep limbic system to function optimally. Essentially, your deep limbic system needs fat, specifically, omega-3 fatty acids. According to the American Journal of Psychiatry, men who had the highest suicide rates had the lowest cholesterol levels.

Your body needs proteins, which are building blocks of brain neurotransmitters.

Balanced meals with complex carbohydrates, milk, meat, and eggs boost up the levels of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, which are implicated in major depression.

Social skills can help you deal with everyday issues and situations. Always assume the best about the other person, and notice only the good. Also, surround yourself with people who are positive.

Rethink your thinking of dealing with automatic negative thoughts.

Zen practice

Zen is NOT a religious belief. Despite having its origin from Buddha, Zen is not the foundation of Buddhism. Zen is an enlightened mental state focusing on the present moment.

According to Zen, there is no such a disease as "depression." Zen does not label an individual as "sick" or "mentally ill." According to Zen, sickness is just a human condition, and any "labeling" only compounds the problem of sickness. Forbid yourself ever using the word “depression.”

Many individuals suffering from depression have a distorted perception of self-worth. Instead of accepting who they are, they want to be what they wish they would like to become. Their hunger for the verisimilitude of realty often fosters delusions and a host of other mental problems, such as confusion and fantasy.

Zen focuses on who you are, rather than your "desire" to be somebody else. Zen purges the mind of any low self-esteem.

Rethink your thinking of wanting to be someone, and not being with who you are.

Longing for something you cannot have creates pain. In life, pain occurs when your expectations are not met or fulfilled. In Zen, every moment remains with only that very moment. For this reason, everything is changing, and impermanent. To desire or crave permanence from something impermanent is a disease of the mind. This is the real cause of major depression.

Also, your mind changes continuously, and your mind can be changed only by yourself. Change the way you think about yourself. Positive affirmations can have a positive therapeutic effect on your mental conditions.

Rethink your thinking of desiring impermanent things.

It is human instinct to avoid pain. By avoiding pain, you subconsciously create more problems requiring more solutions. Unlike modern psychiatry, the way of Zen is not to question, analyze, or dwell upon pain. If you do, you are in fact creating the setting for suffering. However, Zen is not passive submission to fate; it is positive acceptance of the realities of life. According to Zen, you must accept the good as well as the bad in life; in other words, pain is natural. Just learn how to receive it.

Pain is not avoidable in life, but suffering is. If you dwell upon pain, you perpetuate the suffering.

Once the pain is created, an individual (or the psychiatrist) begins to seek analysis and explanation of the pain, hoping to find a solution to the problem. According to Zen, life is never a problem to be solved. Life never has a problem, and if there is a problem, that is because you have created it for yourself. Once you have created a problem, you need a solution to the problem. In attempting to solve the problem, you begin to analyze the problem and examine the options available to solve the problem, thus generating stress, which only intensifies the problem. Compounding problems triggers major depression in an individual.

Rethink your thinking of pain in your life.

Zen practice is about having time for yourself in a special way. When you take time off to go for a walk or a drive, this is certainly having time for yourself, and is important. But Zen practice goes beyond that: it enables you to do some soul-searching to fathom some beautiful things hidden deep within you.

Where and when to practice Zen

Practice sitting meditation everyday. It is best to do it in a set place, at a set time. All other aspects of Zen grow out of this daily routine.

What is meditation?

Meditation is the search for inner consciousness or wakefulness without the constant influx of thoughts and feelings until you find your bliss in your consciousness.

According to Buddha, the human mind is basically calm, but it is troubled by everyday anxieties, thoughts, memories, and worries. The arts, music, exercise and sports and laughter are all medicines that help the perturbed mind. But the most potent one is meditation, because it goes inwards into the deepest of your soul where you come in contact with the innate silence and peace of your soul

When you meditate regularly, you are performing duties with your mind, giving it calm and peace it rightfully deserves.

Through the profound experience of meditation, you learn the following:

·   How to relax (not becoming lethargic)

·   How to manage your stress (not avoiding it)

·   How to enjoy life (not being afraid of death)

·   How to become conscious of the world you are living in (not withdrawing into your own world)

How to meditate

·   Sit down comfortably, with your back straight and your spine erect. If you cannot sit in the lotus posture, then on a chair.

·   Close your eyes (shutting out external distractions).

·   Observe and notice your thoughts as they come and go. Do not attach any feelings to them; that is, they become neutral, making you neither happy nor sad.

·   Initially, you may find some thoughts good or bad. Just let them come and go. Do not deliberately dismiss them.

·   Meanwhile, breathe and notice the rhythms of your breathing.

·   Let your mind drift further into a state of consciousness, but without forcing it to happen.

·   Your mind may still generate thoughts. Let them come and go. Meanwhile, continue to notice your breathing and its rhythms.

·   If negative thoughts still come up, dismiss and dispel them with positive images.

Do not worry if you fall asleep (your mind may have become calm and relaxed). Meditation will happen by itself if your mind continues to be relaxed and purged of thoughts

Benefits of meditation

·   You become aware of the close relationship between your mind and body; that is, how your mind can affect your body, and how you can control your body through controlling your mind.

·   Your mind becomes completely relaxed, purged of negative thoughts and feelings.

·   You feel more caring and loving as your basic human virtues begin to surface in the wake of emptying unwanted negative feelings.

Deepak Chopra:

The path of meditation leads inwards.
In prayer, you are talking to God;
In meditation, God is talking to you.

Rethink your thinking of meditation - it works!

Even the corporate world is now beginning to turn to meditation as a strategy for:

·   Stress management
·   Better productivity
·   Improved interpersonal relations

Indeed, research has shown that during meditation, your heart slows down, your blood pressure drops, your levels of anxiety and tension declines. In fact, the EEG even shows correlation between the brain nerves in the right and left of the brain, which is conducive to better mood stability.

To sum up, meditation is beneficial to your mental health. In the deep recesses of your mind, ignorance gives way to awakening, and stress dissipates to make way for peace and harmony.

Buddhist philosophy

According to Buddha, depression is an illness not just of the body and mind, but also of the heart. The heart, the spirit, is where the key to healing lies.

If your life does not have a purpose, the worldliness of life becomes like quicksand sucking you into a spiritual vacuum, which can only be filled by depressive thoughts. When that happens, you are not living, merely staying alive.

Buddhism generally approaches depression from a quite different viewpoint than modern Western psychology. The Buddhist perspective is that an underlying selfishness or egotism is often the basic cause of major depression. However, that doe not mean that you are to be blamed for being depressed.

Buddhism focuses on compassion and loving-kindness.to remedy your dysfuntional mental conditions. But the prerequisite for compassion and loving-kindness is to first empty the self of attachment to any thing (what is known as non-attachment), including self-obsessive thoughts of your own problems. When you become selfless (what is known as no-self), you begin to know intuitively what your true self really is. Emptying the self makes room for compassion and loving-kindness to develop.

According to Buddha, desire is the root of human miseries. Only when you have emptied your mind of your desire, then you will experience contentment, which gives peace to your soul, and negative thoughts, a slow poison of the mind, will dissipate. With an enlightened mind, you experience a deep yearning for compassion and loving-kindness.

What is compassion and loving-kindness?

Compassion and loving-kindness is wanting others to be free from suffering, just as you wish it on yourself. It is the highest level of motivation in living.

To generate genuine compassion, you need to realize that you are suffering, too, just like everybody else. You want to free others of suffering in order to free yourself of your own suffering. Your life will never be the same - there will be no spiritual vacuum in your life to be filled by depressive thoughts, and each day of your life will become useful and meaningful. This is the power of compassion and loving-kindness of Buddha.

Essentially, compassion and loving-kindness embodies a warm heart, helping and serving other, respecting others for who they are, and being less selfish.

True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason. Because of this firm foundation, a truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if the response is negtive. That is, your compassion has not ulterior motive: you do not express your loving-kindness to make yourself feel good; you feel good because you are compassionate - even if do not like the recipient. Genuine compassion is based not on your own projections and expectations of the outcome of an act of love, but rather on the needs of others, irrespective of who they are and what they are.

Rethink compassion and love as the nectar of life - not just others' but yours as well

According to Buddha, everything you are is a result of your thoughts. The only way to change your thoughts is through deep meditation, in which you empty your negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones.

Rethink your thinking

Major depression is deep internal pain initiated by disturbed thinking, which may or may not be due to chemical imbalance of the mind. At any rate, your deeply felt emotions may have caused the imbalance in the first place.

Meditation is the way to change your thoughts or to rethink your thinking. It is only in the deep calm of your mind that your can discover who you really are, and what you want out of your life. No one can help you on that score. After all, it is your life, and your mental health is in your hands, or rather in your mind. You are what you think you are.

Your thoughts influence your behaviors, which direct affect people around you, who may react positively or negatively to your behaviors, precipitating in emotions responsible for your mental well-being.

Rethink meditation - use it to regain your zest for life, which is healing itself.

Jesus says: Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.

Yes, the cure is all within you - within your mind!

In Managing Your Mind, Dr. Gillian Butler and Dr. Tony Hope have pointed out out one possible advantage of having depression::

. . . it could get you out of facing some of the things you are frightened about. Being depressed can save you from facing responsibilities which frighten you; it can save you from carrying out duties which you find stressful; it can block your need to make important changes - for examle, in a relationship or at work. Your depression becomes the reason for not doing things that, for one reason or another, you do not want to do.

But in the long term, it causes more problems than it solves.

Rethink your thinking - get out of your cocoon!

It is your mind that can embrace the right attitudes to your depression or disorder.

It is your mind that can initiate the changes in your diet and lifestyle.

It is your mind that can contemplate your behavioral problems responsible for your emotional pain.

It is your mind that can upset your brain chemicals in spite of your medications.

It is your mind that can make you forget the past, have no fear of the future, and live the present to the fullest. Dead to the past and alive to the future, you become aware of the present moment such that you are truly alive and truly living in the present moment, the most precious moment of your life.

Since major depression is all in the mind. Let your mind work for you, not against you. Just rethink your thinking.

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Return from Rethink Your Thinking back to the Home Page.