My Way of Managing Stress and Depression

Just observe a water pool with still and calm water. If you will observe it keenly you can find small rippling inside it. A small stroke of wind can create disturbances in it. A large rippling you can observe if someone throws a pebble into it. I think our mind is just like this. You could able to maintain a sound state of your mind. But you could not assure yourself that, it will be maintained forever. Our mind is subjected to a plethora of stimuli from the surrounding. And the stimuli do not seek your permission to disturb your mind and to make you fall into depression. So we must understand that, stress and depression is inevitable to us. So we should learn how to combat the stress and depression.

It is a Trial And Error method of learning to develop own way to fight with the stress and depression. Meanwhile someone may explore a number effective ways to follow and a number of wrong ways to avoid. Very unlikely I also faced a number of wrong ways. After knowing the result I started switch on to other methods. And also I found out a number of highly effective ways.

First of all I want to share about the wrong ways I have explored, which may help you to fabricate your own protocol to fight with your stress and depression.

DONT'S

1.     Keep on saying about the problem

Sometimes our mind takes a long time understand a simple concept. When I completed my Post Graduation and joined in my first job, I was very immature in handling the tiny job related perturbations. One of my senior colleagues tried to console me and advised not to keep on focusing on the problems only and try to explore the solution. And also he advised to avoid sharing the

personal issues with all. But at that time I could not understand why not to share the personal issues with others. Hoping they might have some solutions, I kept on doing so. Once I read a post in the Face book by one of my Facebook friend. It was in Hindi. It was “Do not show your wounds everywhere. Because the ointment is not available in each house, but everybody has salt.” After realizing it I stopped sharing my personal issues with everybody.

If someone will keep on sharing the personal issues with everybody repeatedly, his mind cannot find a way to the solution to his personal issue. You can share your issues who can really want to help you and to show you a path of solution.

 
2.       Sharing the personal issues in the social media

You have to keep it in your mind that, your personal issue is not a social issue at all. So, avoid posting it in your social media account. Another thing you should always keep it in mind that, your issues may be your weakness. As a large number of people will be in your friendship list of your account, one may take advantages of your weakness instead solving your issues. By sharing your personal issues will not drag any positives rather it will keep you on focusing on the problems.

Once I have posted one of my personal issues in my account. The same colleague of mine offered a cup of tea in the canteen and advised me to not to post the personal issues in the social media.

Stressful situation is so much prevailing that it does not allow a good thought to come into the mind. Still we have to make our mind too strong to prevail over the stressful situation by finding a way of solution. I have been practicing my own discovered ideas, which I am sharing below.

DO'S

1.        Be in the crowd and be alone

Stress, frustration and depression comes into play when there will be a long gap between expectation and fulfillment. When I left my first job and joined in the second job with a great expectation of learning and good salary but failed to achieve it due to the nature of the job and issues with terms and conditions of salary. Even I had to do overtime at the initial phase of the job. At that time I fail into a tremendous stress. Meanwhile unknowingly I learnt a habit to combat it. After the duty hour I used to sit either in front of the hospital or on the metro plat form. At that time I was simply observing the activities of the crowd. People are returning from job with both smiling or sad faces, patients and their care takers dwelling in front of the hospital simply waiting their appointments for consultation and the arraival and departure of the metro trains.

Unknowingly I enjoyed this and felt refreshing after sitting and observing the movement of life. After a few days I came to know that, by this way I have learnt a beautiful idea to reduce the stress level. Even while sitting in the platform I started writing the poems by observing the activities of the travelers. Later I came to know that, one of my friends also adapts the same idea. He sits in the railway station and observes the arrival and departure of the trains and the travelers and enjoys the movement of lives. All the travelers have their purposes. So they move from one place to another. This habit inspires to have some purpose and to progress towards it by overcoming the stress.

2.       Keep on reading Motivational books

In the initial period of my first job I was so much disturbed as recently I left my family and I had to adjust with a new ambiance. I used to travel by bus which used to take one hour to reach at my work place. I utilized the travelling time by reading the motivational books. In a year I completed almost 20 books. It was my daily routine. Somewhere I read that, “We take regular bath to keep ourselves clean, and to keep our mind clean we should expose it to good thoughts regularly.” Being inspired by this quotation I keep on reading inspirational literature. 

This habit relieves me from undue stress and rejuvenates my mind. The books like ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’, ‘The Alchemist’ ‘Life’s Amazing Secrets’ and ‘Oh, Mind Relax Please’ have awesome impact on my mind and boosted my confidence. Keep on reading and keep your mind away from stressful thoughts.

3.       Praise yourself for your productive works

The works we do are both productive and non-productive. Productive works lead us to satisfaction, peace of mind, productivity and prosperity.

But the non-productive works drags us into the misfortune, non-productiveness, stress and depression. So, always try to do some productive works. As an example try to read some pages of a good book instead of wasting time in your mobile phone. Before going to the bed assess your works and praise yourself for your productive works to keep you motivated. I always do so to keep me motivated.

4.       Feel the power of words

I can remember my post graduation days. Once I was so much upset due to certain reason. After completing the OPD I was washing my hands on the basin. An internee was waiting behind me to wash his hands. He read a quote of Swami Vivekananda written on a poster, which was stocked on the wall of the OPD. The quote was “Strength is life, weakness is death”. Although I have seen the poster several times before he uttered it. But his voice infused a tremendous vitality into my mind.

There is a term ‘Nada Brahma’ in Sanskrit, which means ‘Sound is God’. There after I realized the power of sound. I learnt to listen the speeches of the motivational speakers like Swami Sukhobodhananda, Sri Gaur Gopal Das and Sandeep Maheswari etc. Believe me you will feel a stress free life ahead after a regular practicing this habit.

5.       Ignore which is not under your control

I was under a tremendous stress during my second job. During that time I had no options to switch into. So I became so much worried. Once I was listening to one of the speeches of Sri Gaur Gopal Das while travelling by the metro train. From that speech I learnt, “If you are under stress and you have no other options, then why to worry? If you have some options then also, why to worry?”

That means, if you are not satisfied with certain ambiance and you have no other options to change it then don’t worry and wait for a better opportunity. And if you have some better options, then do not worry, just change it and enjoy the new one. Sometimes we become unhappy on our job and keep on worrying about the same situation. So in this situation we have to ignore the things which are not under our control.

Conclusion

I have completed the world famous book ‘Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life’ three months ago. In that book I found stress as a necessary evil. Always we should have a small amount of stress in our mind. It boosts our working capacity and productivity. But when it grows more and more it may become lethal to us. Remedy should be found out. There might be more advance methods of relieving stress. But you have to find out your own comfortable way to combat it.