Fight The Work Depression

According to scientific research, the sequence of small failures can cause a stronger depression when compared with each high-stress factor taken separately. Since we spend about a half of life at work, where fails often happen, let’s see what we can do to lift the spirits at work, using nothing but the chemistry of our mood.

Recently, I’ve talked to my friend complaining about his bad mood at work. He told me about vain attempts to google for some tips and trying to follow given advice. Why were they vain? I asked him what the advice was, and some pieces were something like that:

• “Don’t set yourself up for expecting perfection.”
• “Start in the middle.”
• “Get in a routine.”

Blah-blah-blah…

As you see, all the tips are

• vague;
• complicated.

Yeah, you may say these tips come along with explanations, and this makes sense. However, they still leave much room for our subjective perception; so, it appears that the authors of that advice do nothing but try guessing the reasons of your depression. Fact: Nobody knows what’s there in your head, and that is why writers refer to abstract concepts and techniques. (I swear I won’t!) Funny thing, but probability theory works in favour of such “gurus”, leaving you two options:

• If you started feeling better, an article helped you.
• If not, it means you did something wrong.

And it’s difficult to prove you followed all the tips right. Why do such vague tips prosper?

1. We are lazy. Reading some tips on the Internet is much easier than trying to analyze real-life problems. Even if those tips don’t help, a little distraction will postpone negative thoughts. People even ask Siri to help with depression!
2. We enjoy feeling special and hard nuts to crack.

What is depression?

This term was first used by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin who characterized depression as the triad of symptoms:

• affective inhibition
• motoric inhibition
• ideational inhibition

In plain English, we feel sad, we think hard, and we poke along when depressed. You see, our inhibited functions are not unique: animals also go depressive, which is characterized by the same criteria; and it gives scientists the ability to analyze the depression phenomenon much more efficiently. Numerous scientific experiments show us that:

• depression is an ancient disorder;
• it works similarly for humans, cats, dogs, rats, and even birds;
• mechanisms used to beat depression are common, too.

Any examples needed? Let’s take a dog that has a depression-like state. It’s obvious that this dog can’t “set itself up for expecting perfection.” But, it’s scientifically proven that animals, as well as humans, have natural mechanisms for coping with depression. For example, a dog starts licking its hair to feel better. Simple as that! D’you want to find out how it works and if you can get in on the dog’s act of dealing with depression? Take a look at the infographic!

Reprinted with permission from Emily Johnson (Omni Papers)