Feeling happy about leaves. Seriously.
After our October story Rise Above Depression, I was inspired to read Stephen Ilardi's The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression Without Drugs, which I recommend for its concise explanations of what fish oil can do for us and why it's so hard for an ordinary human being to just get off her duff and exercise.
One of the culprits Ilardi mentions is ruminative thinking—sitting with the same stupid thoughts over and over, like a cow chewing her neurotic cud. Which seems obvious enough and something I was sure I already knew, until I got to the part where Ilardi writes about paying attention to the times when one is most likely to ruminate, and for many people, it's the commute.
And I realized all I do is ruminate every day on the three-quarter-mile walk from the subway to the office (walking is dandy, Ilardi says, because it ups our "brain-derived neurotrophic factor"). I usually spend the entire 15 minutes chewing the cud about how bad my sleep was the night before, how much I have to do that day, are my tights bunching around my ankles?
So for the last couple of days I've been doing a little brain distraction. You know how your cat will be thinking about jumping onto the couch, and then you wave your hand in front of her face and she completely forgets where she is and what she was doing? It's much like that. I tried spending the entire 15 minutes listings things I was grateful for. It's kind of surprising how hard it is to keep this going for 15 minutes, so I'd alternate big things (friends I've had since elementary school) and little ones (caffeine). Also: Caramelized onions, the right to vote, guys who stand and jingle the change in their pockets.
People, this works! Dorky, but true.
