Mild Depression Quotes

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of fed up with realism. After all, there's enough reality already; why make more of it? Why not leave realism for the memoirs of drug addicts, the histories of salt, the biographies of porn stars? Why must we continue to read about the travails of divorced people or mildly depressed Canadians when we could be contemplating the shopping habits of zombies, or the difficulties that ensue when living and dead people marry each other? We should be demanding more stories about faery handbags and pyjamas inscribed with the diaries of strange women. We should not rest until someone writes about a television show that features the Free People's World-Tree Library, with its elaborate waterfalls and Forbidden Books and Pirate-Magicians. We should be pining for a house haunted by rabbits. (from the review of Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners in The Guardian)

In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience- one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devistation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.

The atypically depressed are more likely to be the walking wounded, people like me who are quite functional, whose lives proceed almost as usual, except that their depressed all the time, almost constantly embroiled in thoughts of suicide even as they go through their paces. Atypical depression is not just a mild malaise...but one that is quite severe and yet still somehow allows an appearance of normalcy because it becomes, over time, a part of life. The trouble is that as the years pass, if untreated, atypical depression gets worse and worse, and its sufferers are likely to commit suicide out of sheer frustration with living a life that is simultaneously productive and clouded by constant despair. It is the cognitive dissonance that is deadly. Because atypical depression doesn’t have a peak- or, more accurately, a nadir, like normal depression, because it follows no logical curve but instead accumulates over time, it an drive its victim to dismal despair so suddenly that one might not have bothered to attend to treatment until the patient has already, and seemingly very abruptly, committed suicide.

I believe that it may be normal, healthy, and even productive to experience mild to moderate depression from time to time as part of the variable emotional spectrum, either as an appropriate response to situations or as a way of turning inward and mentally chewing over problems to find solutions.

If you are reading this book and you feel that way too then you are not alone. I understand how you feel. I think that anyone who has suffered from even mild depression understands how it feels. Yet we forget that others understand our suffering. We withdraw, isolate or shut down completely. We lose ourselves in our selves, and in the illness. It doesn’t have to be that way. If we connect with even one other human being who understands, we take one step out of the illness. Life is about connection. There is nothing else. Depression is the opposite; it is an illness defined by alienation. So I offer this book by way of connection. I offer it, too, as a source of hope. I hope that by sharing what I was like, what happened and what I am like now, that it may bring someone else comfort.

I found it mildly depressing that the height of color in Washokey came from the seasonal produce shipped from other states.

Much of the population was in a mild stupor, depressed, congregating in small unstable groups, and prone to rumors of doom. But I don’t know. That’s pretty much every day here.

Studies have shown that exercising can treat mild to moderate depression as effectively as antidepressants.

We perceive women suffering from mental illness with a sort of paradoxical double-sidedness; both victims and monsters, simultaneously infantilized and feared. A certain level of dysfunction is accepted—after all, women who are suffering mild depression and starving themselves aren’t going to leave their husbands or start revolutions, which is very practical indeed.

The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come -- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow.

Just start somewhere," Dr. Marshall had said to me as I ground a banana-pineapple one to bits between my teeth. "It doesn't have to be at the beginning." She'd pulled her legs up, Indian-style, letting the legal pad she'd been holding drop to the floor. "I thought everything always had to start at the beginning," I said. "Not in this room," she said easily. "Go ahead, Caitlin. Just tell me one thing. It gets easier, I promise. The first thing is always the hardest." I looked down at my hands, stained mildly red from the particularly sticky watermelon Rancher. "Okay," I said, reaching forward to take another one out of the bowl, just in case. She was already sitting back in her chair, readying herself for whatever glimpse I would give her into the mess I'd become. "What was the name of Pygmalion's sister?" She blinked, twice, obviously surprised. "Ummm," she said, keeping her eyes on me. "I don't know." "Rogerson did," I told her. "Rogerson knew everything.

his mild cynicism morphed into depression.

I was deeply depressed. I felt my brain slipping out of its casing and down my neck, like an egg sliding on a frying pan. So

They were wrong about the sun. It does not go down into the underworld at night. The sun leaves merely and the underworld emerges. It can happen at any moment. It can happen in the morning, you in the kitchen going through your mild routines. Plate, cup, knife. All at once there’s no blue, no green, no warning.

Did you know those who are mildly depressed see the world more accurately? Yet they don’t live as long as optimists. Aren’t as successful. It turns out that being able to perceive actual reality has very little long-term benefit.

let's do something cheerful all your designs are about captivity, it depresses me. Geryon watched the top of Herakles' head and felt his limits returning. Nothing to say. He looked at this fact in mild surprise. Once in childhood his ice cream had been eaten by a dog. Just an empty con in a small dramatic red fist. Herakles stood up. No? Let's go then. On the way home they tried "Joy To The World" but were too tired. It seemed a long drive.

This effect occurs relatively quickly, unlike the requirement to build up levels in the bloodstream that accompanies some prescription drugs for depression. It is, therefore, an effective, natural, and quick-acting treatment for mild depression. Human trials have also shown benefits for strengthening the liver and for relief from osteoarthritis.

Sometimes the depression is mild enough that I mistake it for the flu or mono.

Gerald Middleton was a man of mildly but persistently depressive temperament. Such men are not at their best at breakfast, nor is the week before Christmas their happiest time.

There was more to her than a flat line of mild to moderate depression, spiced up with occasional flourishes of despair.

A 2020 study of more than 300 women whose average age was 55, published in BMC Psychiatry, reported that 55 percent had mild to severe depression and nearly 84 percent had mild to severe anxiety. Poor body image was strongly connected to both.

Guilt is not merely a concern with the past; it is a present-moment immobilization about a past event. And the degree of immobilization can run from mild upset to severe depression. If you are simply learning from your past, and vowing to avoid the repetition of some specific behavior, this is not guilt. You experience guilt only when you are prevented from taking action now as a result of having behaved in a certain way previously. Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it’s futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything.

I couldn't motivate myself. I was subject to occasional depression, relatively mild, certainly not suicidal, and not long episodes so much as passing moments like this, when meaning and purpose and all prospect of pleasure drained away and left me briefly catatonic. For minutes on end I couldn't remember what kept me going. As I stared at the litter of cups and pot and jug in front of me, I thought it was unlikely I would ever get out of my wretched little flat. The two boxes I called rooms, the stained ceilings walls and floors would contain me to the end. There was a lot like me in the neighbourhood, but thirty or forty years older. I had seen them in Simon's shop, reaching for the quality journals from the top shelf. I noted the men especially and their shabby clothes. They had swept past some crucial junction in their lives many years back - a poor career choice, a bad marriage, the unwritten book, the illness that never went away. Now there options were closed, they managed to keep themselves going with some shred of intellectual longing or curiosity. But their boat was sunk.

Of course people still feel gnawing anxiety, depression and despair. But these do not trigger religiousness, being increasingly dealt with by 24/7 distraction provided by the mass media, interpersonal communication and quick transportation; any dysphoria (mild depression or otherwise unpleasant feelings) is dealt with by mass medication with tranquillizers and emotionnumbing ‘antidepressants’, ‘antipsychotics’ or ‘mood stabilizers’ (these words are placed in ‘scare quotes’ because they are all marketing terms with negligible scientific or clinical rationale).

During her time at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington she had often become depressed and was hobbled by fatigue. In 1887, when she was twenty, she wrote in her diary, “Tears come without any provocation. Headache all day.” The school’s headmistress and founder, Sarah Porter, offered therapeutic counsel. “Cheer up,” she told Theodate. “Always be happy.” It did not work. The next year, in March 1888, her parents sent her to Philadelphia, to be examined and cared for by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, a physician famous for treating patients, mainly women, suffering from neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion. Mitchell’s solution for Theodate was his then-famous “Rest Cure,” a period of forced inactivity lasting up to two months. “At first, and in some cases for four or five weeks, I do not permit the patient to sit up or to sew or write or read,” Mitchell wrote, in his book Fat and Blood. “The only action allowed is that needed to clean the teeth.” He forbade some patients from rolling over on their own, insisting they do so only with the help of a nurse. “In such cases I arrange to have the bowels and water passed while lying down, and the patient is lifted on to a lounge at bedtime and sponged, and then lifted back again into the newly-made bed.” For stubborn cases, he reserved mild electrical shock, delivered while the patient was in a filled bathtub. His method reflected his own dim view of women. In his book Wear and Tear; or, Hints for the Overworked, he wrote that women “would do far better if the brain were very lightly tasked.

Optimists Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person—you already feel fortunate. An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything. If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality. Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders—not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge. They are probably optimistic by temperament; a survey of founders of small businesses concluded that entrepreneurs are more sanguine than midlevel managers about life in general. Their experiences of success have confirmed their faith in their judgment and in their ability to control events. Their self-confidence is reinforced by the admiration of others. This reasoning leads to a hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.

We thought of the poor, at that time, as quite divorced from us, who were not poor. By the exercise of one’s charity, life could be made all right. You would always have the poor with you, they were the unfortunate, and you made donations. You could handle them. It was mildly unpleasant, but not fundamentally upsetting. Now, for the first time, we face the dreadful reality that we are not separated. They are us. They are something we have made. There is no conceivable way today to say: Fish, and you’ll be all right. In hurt, in anguish, in shock, we are becoming aware that it is ourselves, who have to be found wanting, not the poor.

S-adenosyl-methionine (SAMe) is a natural derivative of an amino acid normally produced by the body, and it plays a role in methylation (see Chapter 5). Levels of SAMe in the body often become depleted by middle age. Multiple clinical trials have shown that SAMe provides substantial benefit for patients with depression. This effect occurs relatively quickly, unlike the requirement to build up levels in the bloodstream that accompanies some prescription drugs for depression. It is, therefore, an effective, natural, and quick-acting treatment for mild depression. Human trials have also shown benefits for strengthening the liver and for relief from osteoarthritis.

Mild depression is a gradual and sometimes permanent thing that undermines people the way rust weakens iron. It is too much grief at too slight a cause, pain that takes over from the other emotions and crowds them out. Such depression takes up bodily occupancy in the eyelids and in the muscles that keep the spine erect. It hurts your heart and lungs, making the contraction of involuntary muscles harder than it needs to be. Like physical pain that becomes chronic, it is miserable not so much because it is intolerable in the moment as because it is intolerable to have known it in the moments gone and to look forward only to knowing it in the moments to come. The present tense of mild depression envisages no alleviation because it feels like knowledge.

A book is open in front of me and this is what it has to say about the symptoms of morphine withdrawal: '... morbid anxiety, a nervous depressed condition, irritability, weakening of the memory, occasional hallucinations and a mild impairment of consciousness ...' I have not experienced any hallucinations, but I can only say that the rest of this description is dull, pedestrian and totally inadequate. 'Depressed condition' indeed! Having suffered from this appalling malady, I hereby enjoin all doctors to be more compassionate toward their patients. What overtakes the addict deprived of morphine for a mere hour or two is not a 'depressed condition': it is slow death. Air is insubstantial, gulping it down is useless ... there is not a cell in one's body that does not crave ... but crave what? This is something which defies analysis and explanation. In short, the individual ceases to exist: he is eliminated. The body which moves, agonises and suffers is a corpse. It wants nothing, can think of nothing but morphine. To die of thirst is a heavenly, blissful death compared with the craving for morphine. The feeling must be something like that of a man buried alive, clawing at the skin on his chest in the effort to catch the last tiny bubbles of air in his coffin, or of a heretic at the stake, groaning and writhing as the first tongues of flame lick at his feet. Death. A dry, slow death. That is what lurks behind that clinical, academic phrase 'a depressed condition'.

Psychologist J.P. Guilford, who carried out a long series of systematic psychological studies into the nature of creativity, found that several factors were involved in creative thinking; many of these, as we shall see, relate directly to the cognitive changes that take place during mild manias as well. Fluency of thinking, as defined by Guilford, is made up of several related and empirically derived concepts, measured by specific tasks: word fluency, the ability to produce words each, for example, containing a specific letter or combination of letters; associational fluency, the production of as many synonyms as possible for a given word in a limited amount of time; expressional fluency, the production and rapid juxtaposition of phrases or sentences; and ideational fluency, the ability to produce ideas to fulfill certain requirements in a limited amount of time. In addition to fluency of thinking, Guilford developed two other important concepts for the study of creative thought: spontaneous flexibility, the ability and disposition to produce a great variety of ideas, with freedom to switch from category to category; and adaptive flexibility, the ability to come up with unusual types of solutions to set problems.

In 2005, Dr. Ronald Kessler and colleagues reported the results of the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a household survey that included a diagnostic interview of more than nine thousand representative people across the United States.16 Overall, 26 percent of people surveyed met criteria for a mental disorder in the last twelve months—that’s one in four Americans! Of those disorders, 22 percent were serious, 37 percent were moderate, and 40 percent were mild. Anxiety disorders were most common, followed by mood disorders, then impulse control disorders, which include diagnoses like ADHD. Of note, 55 percent of people had only one diagnosis, 22 percent had two diagnoses, and the rest had three or more psychiatric diagnoses. That means almost half the people met criteria for more than one disorder.

What no tourist bumf will tell you is that this inlet is suffused with an atmosphere of ineffable sadness. Partly a trick of the light and climatic factors, partly also the lingering residue of an historical tragedy which still resonates through rock and water down seven generations of fretful commemorative attempts and dissonant historical hermeneutics. Now think of grey shading towards gunmetal across an achromatic spectrum; think also of turbid cumulus clouds pouring down five centimeters of rainfall above the national average and you have some idea of the light reflected within the walls of this inlet. This is the type of light which lends itself to vitamin D deficiency, baseline serotonin levels, spluttering neurotransmitters and mild but by no means notional depression. It is the type of light wherein ghosts go their rounds at all hours of the day.

There are two gradations of cold that are always acceptable: Mild Frost, which is preferable for reading and writing and any other activity done indoors, and Absolute Zero, which is the only temperature suitable for sleep. There is nothing more delicious than being swathed in a cocoon of blankets and awaking with a nose frosted over with rime, and once I do achieve vampiric heights and fall asleep with the mastery of a corpse lately dead, I am best left alone until I wake up at my usual time. I do tend to bite when rattled out of my flocculent coffin, and everyone in my building knows never to disturb me during the early morning hours. Authors, being crepuscular creatures, should never be roused before 11am: the creative mind is never turned off; it only dies momentarily and its revived by the scent of coffee at the proper time. Bacon is also an acceptable restorative.

If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality.

We sit here and we talk about sports. We talk about our home improvement projects. We gossip about family members we don’t care about. We self-victimize and complain about petty problems we've created ourselves. We work like dogs to keep up with the Joneses but have no time to enjoy the things we work for. We work purposeless jobs that keep us mildly happy, never really enjoying what we do, but we also never get the balls to leave the job. We drink on the weekends to numb the pain but it never really cures it. We criticize anyone who tries to break away from the rat race, because the idea that there is a way out scares us more than dying in the state we’re in. We only give to causes that affect us personally, only follow religions that suit us, only listen to people who agree with us, and worst of all,” he paused, and in a sad, defeated finale to his rant, he said, “We lie to ourselves.

There was still the same unknowability about her life ahead. And yet, everything was different. And it was different because she no longer felt she was there simply to serve the dreams of other people. She no longer felt like she had to find sole fulfilment as some imaginary perfect daughter or sister or partner or wife or mother or employee or anything other than a human being, orbiting her own purpose, and answerable to herself. And it was different because she was alive, when she had so nearly been dead. And because that had been her choice. A choice to live. Because she had touched the vastness of life and within that vastness she had seen the possibility not only of what she could do, but also feel. There were other scales and other tunes. There was more to her than a flat line of mild to moderate depression, spiced up with occasional flourishes of despair. And that gave her hope, and even the sheer sentimental gratitude of being able to be here, knowing she had the potential to enjoy watching radiant skies and mediocre Ryan Bailey comedies and be happy listening to music

We can all be "sad" or "blue" at times in our lives. We have all seen movies about the madman and his crime spree, with the underlying cause of mental illness. We sometimes even make jokes about people being crazy or nuts, even though we know that we shouldn't. We have all had some exposure to mental illness, but do we really understand it or know what it is? Many of our preconceptions are incorrect. A mental illness can be defined as a health condition that changes a person's thinking, feelings, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning. As with many diseases, mental illness is severe in some cases and mild in others. Individuals who have a mental illness don't necessarily look like they are sick, especially if their illness is mild. Other individuals may show more explicit symptoms such as confusion, agitation, or withdrawal. There are many different mental illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each illness alters a person's thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors in distinct ways. But in all this struggles, Consummo Plus has proven to be the most effective herbal way of treating mental illness no matter the root cause. The treatment will be in three stages. First is activating detoxification, which includes flushing any insoluble toxins from the body. The medicine and the supplement then proceed to activate all cells in the body, it receives signals from the brain and goes to repair very damaged cells, tissues, or organs of the body wherever such is found. The second treatment comes in liquid form, tackles the psychological aspect including hallucination, paranoia, hearing voices, depression, fear, persecutory delusion, or religious delusion. The supplement also tackles the Behavioral, Mood, and Cognitive aspects including aggression or anger, thought disorder, self-harm, or lack of restraint, anxiety, apathy, fatigue, feeling detached, false belief of superiority or inferiority, and amnesia. The third treatment is called mental restorer, and this consists of the spiritual brain restorer, a system of healing which “assumes the presence of a supernatural power to restore the natural brain order. With this approach, you will get back your loving boyfriend and he will live a better and fulfilled life, like realize his full potential, work productively, make a meaningful contribution to his community, and handle all the stress that comes with life. It will give him a new lease of life, a new strength, and new vigor. The Healing & Recovery process is Gradual, Comprehensive, Holistic, and very Effective. www . curetoschizophrenia . blogspot . com E-mail: rodwenhill@gmail. com

Bipolar II disorder is a highly misunderstood form of bipolar illness. By its very designation as type II, clinicians, patients, and the public often assume it is less impairing than bipolar I, “the real thing.” When we examine the diagnostic criteria for bipolar II, they sound very mild. Who doesn’t get sad and happy? Who doesn’t have mood swings? Why would a four-day period of excess energy, which does not affect the ability to function, be of any clinical importance? Several longitudinal studies have found that bipolar II is far more impairing than we once thought. It is characterized by lengthy and recurrent periods of depression, comorbid anxiety disorders, and high rates of substance and alcohol misuse. The occasional hypomanias of bipolar II—in which people experience elation and irritability, exuberance, increased energy, and reduced need to sleep—are not as impairing as the full manic episodes of bipolar I, but they can certainly have a negative impact on family members and friends. Moreover, for the person with the disorder, these high periods are often short-lived, and they do little to alleviate the suffering caused by depressive phases. The hypomanic periods may even overlap with the low phases, resulting in an agitated, anxiety-ridden, and highly distressing period of depression. People with bipolar II often have difficulty maintaining jobs and relationships, and, like people with bipolar I, they are at high risk for suicide.

Central to any understanding of stress, health and disease is the concept of adaptiveness. Adaptiveness is the capacity to respond to external stressors without rigidity, with flexibility and creativity, without excessive anxiety and without being overwhelmed by emotion. People who are not adaptive may seem to function well as long as nothing is disturbing them, but they will react with various levels of frustration and helplessness when confronted by loss or by difficulty. They will blame themselves or blame others. A person’s adaptiveness depends very much on the degree of differentiation and adaptiveness of previous generations in his family and also on what external stressors may have acted on the family. The Great Depression, for example, was a difficult time for millions of people. The multigenerational history of particular families enabled some to adapt and cope, while other families, facing the same economic scarcities, were psychologically devastated. “Highly adaptive people and families, on the average, have fewer physical illnesses, and those illnesses that do occur tend to be mild to moderate in severity,” writes Dr. Michael Kerr. Since one important variable in the development of physical illness is the degree of adaptiveness of an individual, and since the degree of adaptiveness is determined by the multigenerational emotional process, physical illness, like emotional illness, is a symptom of a relationship process that extends beyond the boundaries of the individual “patient.” Physical illness, in other words, is a disorder of the family emotional system [which includes] present and past generations. Children who become their parents’ caregivers are prepared for a lifetime of repression. And these roles children are assigned have to do with the parents’ own unmet childhood needs — and so on down the generations. “Children do not need to be beaten to be compromised,” researchers at McGill University have pointed out. Inappropriate symbiosis between parent and child is the source of much pathology.

New research in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that gay, lesbian and bisexual young adults from very rejecting families (as opposed to families who were neutral or mildly rejecting) are nearly six times more likely to have major depression and three to five times more likely to use illegal drugs or have unprotected sex,” the article reported.

I felt chronically unwell, with low energy and mild depression. I felt as though my efforts to get well were extreme, time-consuming, tiring, and expensive, yet the results were so minimal.

Theo awoke to a weight of vague unease, not heavy enough to be called anxiety, but a mild unfocused depression, like the last tatters of an unremembered but disagreeable dream.

If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality.

May I sit down, please?” she asked mildly. “I’m tired of standing.” “There’s no place to sit.” “Yes there is.” Breaking away from him, Daisy went to the four-poster bed and tried to climb onto it. Unfortunately the bed was an antique Sheraton, built high to avoid winter drafts and allow for a trundle below. The top of the mattress was level with her breasts. Hoisting herself upward, she tried to lever her hips onto the mattress. Gravity defeated her. “Usually,” Daisy said, struggling and squirming with her feet dangling, “there’s a stair-step provided—” She grabbed handfuls of the counterpane. “— for beds this tall.” Straining to hook a knee over the edge of the mattress, she continued, “Good God… if someone fell out of this bed at night… it would be fatal.” She felt Matthew’s hands clamp around her waist. “The bed’s not that tall,” he said. Picking her up as if she were a child, he deposited her on the mattress. “It’s just that you’re short.” “I’m not short. I’m… vertically disadvantaged.” “Fine. Sit up.” His weight depressed the mattress behind her and his hands returned to the back of her dress.

And it was different because she no longer felt she was there simply to serve the dreams of other people. She no longer felt like she had to find sole fulfilment as some imaginary perfect daughter or sister or partner or wife or mother or employee or anything other than a human being, orbiting her own purpose, and answerable to herself. And it was different because she was alive, when she had so nearly been dead. And because that had been her choice. A choice to live. Because she had touched the vastness of life and within that vastness she had seen the possibility not only of what she could do, but also feel. There were other scales and other tunes. There was more to her than a flat line of mild to moderate depression, spiced up with occasional flourishes of despair. And that gave her hope, and even the sheer sentimental gratitude of being able to be here, knowing she had the potential to enjoy watching radiant skies and mediocre Ryan Bailey comedies and be happy listening to music and conversation and the beat of her own heart.

K320’s issuance is designed to go on in perpetuity with a mild inflationary bias. That means that, after an initial ramped-up release over eight years, the supply of coins will eventually slot into a steady increase of 3.2 percent per year. This is deliberately just above the 2 percent rate of increase that most central banks target for their countries’ consumer price indexes. The K320 team is aiming for a balance that’s not too deflationary (which can result in hoarding crises like the Great Depression) and not too inflationary (when no one wants to hold the currency, as occurred during Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1920s).

One of the first studies to demonstrate this benefit recruited patients with major depressive disorder who had been taking antidepressants but were not responding. The patients provided a blood sample so researchers could determine how inflamed they were. Then, the patients were assigned to one of two exercise interventions: high-frequency exercise or low-frequency exercise.29 The high-frequency group completed (or exceeded) the recommended physical activity guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise each week, for a total workload of 16 kcal/kg body weight/week. The low-frequency group completed only a quarter of the recommended physical activity guidelines each week, for a total workload of 4 kcal/kg body weight/week. Workouts were done on a treadmill or stationary bike at a self-selected intensity for 12 weeks, and depressive symptoms were assessed at the end of each week. By the end of the 12 weeks, everyone benefited from the exercise, but the inflamed patients benefited the most. Exercise not only reduced their depression symptoms, but it also downgraded the symptoms from moderate to mild — a clinically significant change in symptom severity that was similar to the relief that responders get from antidepressants.30 The best part? Both the high- and low-frequency exercisers benefited equally.

Here I spent the best months of my life. In a few days my high-lows leveled out, my depression-exaltation melded into a serene skimming watchfulness. My terror-rage—cowardly lionheartedness and lionhearted cowardice—fused into a mild steady resolve.

Women who had often done little more than manifest behaviours that were out of feminine bounds (such as having a libido) were incarcerated for years in asylums. They were given hysterectomies and clitoridectomies. Women were locked up for having even mild post-natal depression: the grandmother of a friend of mine spent her life in an asylum after throwing a scourer at her mother-in-law. At least one US psychiatric textbook, still widely in use during the 1970s, recommended lobotomies for women in abusive relationships.62

Tired and mildly depressed, Robin’s thoughts lingered on Morris as the Tube sped her back towards Earl’s Court. Was he so used to women responding readily to his undeniable handsomeness that he took it for granted he was eliciting a positive response? Or did the fault lie in Robin herself, who, for the sake of politeness, for the cohesion of the team, because she didn’t want to make trouble when the agency was so busy, continued to smile at his stupid jokes and chose not to say, loudly and clearly, ‘I don’t like you. We’re never going to date.

Aggressive direct-to-consumer marketing of these drugs certainly accounts for much of their popularity. Big Pharma has convinced many people that ordinary states of sadness represent imbalances in brain chemistry that antidepressant medications can correct. But a growing body of data suggests that for mild to moderate depression, the drugs are no more effective than placebos.

We perceive women suffering from mental illness with a sort of paradoxical double-sidedness; both victims and monsters, simultaneously infantilized and feared. A certain level of dysfunction is accepted—after all, women who are suffering mild depression and starving themselves aren’t going to leave their husbands or start revolutions, which is very practical indeed. But beyond a certain point, it flips. Women are supposed to be gentle, devoted, loving and—above all else—rule-abiding. Undeniable suffering is bad, and anger is worse. A woman suffering from severe anxiety or untreated mania isn’t going to have dinner on the table by 6 o’clock. No longer is she fulfilling that crucial, limited role she’s expected to fulfill. No longer can she be a dutiful daughter, a picture-perfect wife, a devoted mother. Throughout history, women suffering from mental illness have been hidden away, burned at the stake, lobotomized, and sterilized.

David Kent’s story shows that regular exercising improves, not only your physical well-being, but also your mood. Studies have shown that exercising can treat mild to moderate depression as effectively as antidepressants. In one study, James Blumenthal, a clinical psychologist at Duke University, assigned sedentary adults with major depressive disorders to one of four groups: supervised exercise, home-based exercise, antidepressant therapy, or a placebo pill. After four months Blumenthal found that patients in the exercise and antidepressant group had the highest rates of remission. In his conclusions, he stated that exercise has more or less the same effect as antidepressants.

I of course understand that the widespread revulsion inspired even now, and perhaps forever, by the word Communism is a sane response to the cruelties and stupidities of the dictators of the USSR, who called themselves, hey presto, Communists, just as Hitler called himself, hey presto, a Christian. To children of the Great Depression, however, it still seems a mild shame to outlaw from polite thought, because of the crimes of tyrants, a word that in the beginning described for us nothing more than a possibly reasonable alternative to the Wall Street crapshoot.

As Winnicott remarks, social existence, though obviously indispensable for organized human communities, can induce us to regard the world primarily “as something to be fitted in with or demanding adaptation.” For Winnicott, this type of social compliance is a form of psychic illness, which suggests that the vast majority of us are unwell much of the time. As he claims, “social health is mildly depressive— except for holidays.

Drudgery is not simply about being bored, though it can include that. Roles that lead us into drudgery deplete far more energy than they give to us; they often involve difficult, intractable people or problems; they make us feel restricted, unappreciated, or disrespected. Drudgery sounds mild, but it can have immensely serious consequences, including burnout and depression. The most objectively meaningful role in the world can still sap us of our joy and energy if it does not match who we are and what we can give.

It is difficult to know exactly how many women become unwell in the period before and after becoming a mother. In the UK, where I live, it was previously thought that 10–15 per cent of women develop a mental health problem in pregnancy or the first year of new motherhood – including mild and moderate to severe depression, anxiety, PTSD, psychosis – but more recent figures suggest it could be as many as 20 per cent of women. This means over 100,000 women a year in the UK become mentally unwell in matrescence. Globally, the prevalence of postnatal depression is 17 per cent. With two billion mothers in the world, this means over 350 million women experience perinatal mental health problems.

all my people that have mild depression or severe dont worry because! theres someone that loves u! and hes a rapper with gold teeth

I have mild postpartum depression like lots of other new mothers. It doesn’t mean I harmed my baby. I want nothing more than to get her back.

How will it work when everyone is exactly equal?” my mother wanted to know. “Is there enough, really, to go around?” I was appalled by this sentiment, so chauvinist, racist, survivalist. I railed at her about the capitalist racket, the smallness of her Depression-era mindset (“But I don’t have a mindset,” she protested. “I have questions”). She was a good sport about it, really, mild-mannered in the face of my patronizing. But she persisted: Wouldn’t there always be some way people sorted themselves? If it wasn’t race or gender or class, would it be intelligence? Physical strength? Blood type? Weren’t there always bound to be haves and have-nots on account of finite resources? The constraints of weather and geography, for instance? Who got the high ground with fertile soil versus who got the desert? I think she honestly wanted to discuss this, but to me she sounded like a social Darwinist. I could see things only in oppositional terms. Today I’d love to have this conversation with her. I have an answer: The process of working toward greater equality is the point. The medium is the message. The journey is the destination. Something like that. It’s the effort to make life more equal, more bearable for everyone, that counts. And if we don’t try, what are we left with? A lifetime of showing off our most selfish instincts, protecting our own little slice of whatever it is we want—power, money, resources, the best seats on the bus. Life may be filled with struggle but what you struggle for is what matters. And if it’s only your own survival, you’re no better than the dinosaurs.

If the results you are getting are lousy - anxiety at a simmer, mild depression, high levels of stress, chronic emotional burnout, little to no sense of the presence of God, an inability to focus your mind on the things that make for life, etc. - then the odds are very good that something about the system that is your life is off kilter. The way you've organized your morning (or evening) routine, your schedule, your budget, your relationship to your phone; how you manage your resources of time, money, and attention, etc. - something is out of whack.

Being a free-spirited, strong-willed, independent young woman (to put it mildly), with a manic-depressive, woman-hating father was exhausting (to put it mildly).

A PRACTICE FOR MINDFUL EATING When you do anything consciously, including eating, you override the brain’s default setting and communicate directly with the higher brain, which is responsible for conscious thoughts and actions. Very often we eat unconsciously, without thinking or weighing the consequences of what we’re doing. You can change the situation with a simple mindfulness practice. The next time you eat anything, whether as a meal or a snack, do the following: Step 1: Pause before you eat the first bite and take a deep breath. Step 2: Ask yourself, “Why am I eating this?” Step 3: Whatever answer you get, take note of it. Better yet, write it down—you might even start a mindful eating journal. Step 4: Make a conscious choice to eat or not eat. There is nothing more to do, but this simple practice can lead to major benefits. Your goal is to return to a normal biorhythm of hunger and satiation. When you pause to make a choice, your reason for eating should therefore be “I’m hungry.” But there are a host of other reasons we reach for food, like the following: “I’m bored.” “I can’t resist.” “I need comforting.” “There’s no use letting all this food go to waste.” “I’m stressed out.” “I feel a craving.” “I’m depressed.” “I’m anxious.” “I don’t know why.” “I’m lonely.” “I’m sick of dieting.” “The other people I’m with are eating.” “There’s not much left. I might as well finish the package.” “I feel like celebrating.” When you ask yourself why you are eating, it’s likely that some of these reasons will come into play. Don’t judge against them, and don’t force yourself to reject the food out of guilt. Mindfulness is a conscious state, nothing more or less. In this state you are self-aware, and that’s the key. When you are self-aware, change comes with less effort than in any other state. The end of unconscious eating is often enough to turn around a person’s weight problems, especially if they are mild to moderate. As you can see, there is hope beyond dieting, a way forward for people who moan “I’ve tried everything. Nothing works.” A whole-system approach to weight loss ends the struggle; no longer is your body the enemy and you its victim.

But such subtle things that you could basically read it into any normal person’s behaviour – mild depression, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue. All of which I had, by the way.’‘What were the more specific signs?’‘There was one that always stuck in my mind. It was a bit like a Rorschach blot, only with words. The person was asked to name the similarities between an apple and a banana. A healthy person would say they were both fruit, but in people prone to psychosis, they wouldn’t say the obvious . They’d say something like “They both have skin”.

He was a mild-voiced man with the face of a depressed St. Bernard dog who gave the impression of having wandered into the proceedings by mistake.

However, I should also point out, that for mild to moderate cases of depression, drugs don’t perform any better than placebo.  Interestingly, the most effective treatment for mild to moderate depression is also one of the potent anti-agers mentioned earlier - cardiovascular exercise.  In Jump Start - An introduction to the science of exercise therapy for anxiety & depression, Benjamin Kramer says “Study after study has clearly shown that cardiovascular exercise and/or weight training works just as well as antidepressant medication, but with one key advantage - Those subjects who treat their anxiety and depression with exercise tend to stay well, whereas those who treat their depression with medication have a significantly higher relapse rate”.

The most serious adverse effects of the benzodiazepines occur when other sedative substances, such as alcohol, are taken concurrently. These combinations can result in marked drowsiness, disinhibition, or even respiratory depression. Infrequently, benzodiazepine receptor agonists cause mild cognitive deficits that may impair job performance. Persons taking benzodiazepine receptor agonists should be advised to exercise additional caution when driving or operating dangerous machinery.

Depression cannot be described in terms of 'normal psychology'; only the somewhat general term of "depressedness" can be understood in the sense of this anergic (i.e. incomprehensible by normal mentality) mood. In mild cases, the patients appear almost more apathetic than actually depressive; in severe cases, however, deep suffering develops.

Even mild depression and anxiety, if left unmanaged, can lead to an estimated 20 percent increase in risk of death from all causes except cancer (which is generally associated with high levels of psychological distress).14

Eli Lilly had decided not to sell in Japan in the 80's because of a lack of demand, but with the introduction of the new diagnosis kokoro no kaze (which translates to "your soul has a cold"), mild depression became a "real" illness, treatable with medication.

Attacks characterised by little more than malaise are likely to be regarded as mild viral illnesses. Attacks characterised by alteration of affect and consciousness—mild drowsiness or depression—may be taken for purely emotional reactions. Both

Perhaps all of us walk around in a more needy and vulnerable state than we think, ready to be undone by jarring losses. People can also have a subtle sense of being "emptied out," which feels more like low mood or mild depression. They find themselves inexplicably and powerfully moved by someone when they least expect it. Only in retrospect do they piece together how depleted they felt sometimes for years without knowing it. On the other end of the spectrum a manic mood can also induce lovesickness. A risky new business venture or a sudden success can catapult people into unexpected infatuations. Psychologically both depressive and manic moods alter our relationship to loss and limits...Both immoderate gratification and immoderate loss can deplete us in different ways making our high mental functions and our contact with the big picture harder to access.

Beforehand, many people with depressive illness persist at a mildly depressed baseline, not so severe as to diagnose a clinical “major” depressive episode, but also not completely well. Afterward, once the severe episode is over, some people have mild leftover depression, and they can become even more insightful about their lives.

Yet there are lessons for us all in the lives of those whose depression (sometimes aided by mania) spurred them onward to a realistic sense of the world’s hazards, empathic concern for others, creative approaches to problems, and the resilience to survive and thrive. Our normal mild self-illusion often serves us well in the course of our daily lives. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, we need to aim slightly above if we wish to hit the mark. But such normal illusion also hides important realities. When the crises of daily life come, we realize that we had been living a forgetful life, unaware of some basic truths. Then some depression may help us see what has happened and what we must do. And then we might be able to meet the challenges of life, and maybe even attain some happiness in the process. Quite a paradox it is: being open to some depression may allow us, ultimately, to be less depressed.

These are the risk factors: chronic depression; eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia); family history of a first-degree relative with osteoporosis; in men, delayed puberty, diminished libido, erectile dysfunction, low testosterone; in women, late menarche, loss of or irregular menstrual periods, or early menopause (estrogen deficiency); low body weight (less than 127 pounds); maternal history of hip fracture; personal history of fracture related to mild-to-moderate trauma as an adult; poor health; chronic disease of the kidneys, gastrointestinal system, or lungs; sedentary lifestyle; and unhealthy lifestyle (tobacco smoke, excessive alcohol, or poor eating habits).

Finishing large projects can result in a mild or severe thud of depression. The scariest part about completing any demanding project is that irrespective of how exhausting the labor might be the work also arrests a person’s attention. Working passionately is akin to a person consenting to a kidnaping. A person engaged in performing a princely task feels whisked away on a captivating voyage of undetermined final destination. At times, I wondered if the only thing that actually kept me going is the work of crafting sentences. Writing sentences is contagious. Finishing a sentence infects a person with a desire to write another sentence. The feverish rash of writing spread until it consumed all my resources. Once I stop writing, I will need to find a new reason to awaken each day.

In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions—they are both décadence religions—but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way. For the fact that he is able to compare them at all the critic of Christianity is indebted to the scholars of India.—Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity—it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept, “god,” was already disposed of before it appeared. Buddhism is the only genuinely positive religion to be encountered in history, and this applies even to its epistemology (which is a strict phenomenalism). It does not speak of a “struggle with sin,” but, yielding to reality, of the “struggle with suffering.” Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it; it is, in my phrase, beyond good and evil.—The two physiological facts upon which it grounds itself and upon which it bestows its chief attention are: first, an excessive sensitiveness to sensation, which manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, and secondly, an extraordinary spirituality, a too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under the influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the “impersonal.” (—Both of these states will be familiar to a few of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me). These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one’s own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer—he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism. There is no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is always possible to leave—). These things would have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment (—“enmity never brings an end to enmity”: the moving refrain of all Buddhism....) And in all this he was right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main regiminal purpose, are unhealthful. The mental fatigue that he observes, already plainly displayed in too much “objectivity” (that is, in the individual’s loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and of “egoism”), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha’s teaching egoism is a duty. The “one thing needful,” the question “how can you be delivered from suffering,” regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet. (—Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon pure “scientificality,” to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to the estate of a morality). The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of great gentleness and liberality, and no militarism; moreover, it must get its start among the higher and better educated classes. Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata, and they are attained. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal.—

present tense of mild depression envisages no alleviation because it feels like knowledge.

In addition to increasing empathy, neurobiological research proves that reading fiction changes the biology of the brain, making it more receptive and connected. Reading novels also makes you more creative and open-minded, gives you psychological courage, and keeps your brain active and healthy. The therapeutic value of reading novels is so profound that it has birthed something called bibliotherapy, in which clients are matched with a literary fiction designed to address what is ailing them, from mild depression to a troubled intimate relationship to a desire to find a work/ family balance. Anyone who belongs to a book club has likely experienced a version of fiction's healing powers. The value of reading is even more significant if you're a writer. Imagine being a chef who eats only chicken nuggets, a carpenter who refuses to look at buildings, or an orchestra conductor who doesn't listen to anything but commercial jingles. Such is the problem for a writer who doesn't read regularly and widely.

There’s actually lots of ways to “infect” a rat with depression, though some are more efficient than others. A frequently cited 1992 paper2 reviewing the best methods concludes that you don’t actually want to traumatize or terrify your rats, like Selye accidentally did. The closest approximation of the depression that plagues modern humans can be achieved by bombarding lab rats with mild but chronic, random, and inescapable stress. You don’t have to terrify them—just remove predictability and control from their lives, and they’ll eventually lose interest in pleasurable things. When they do, you’re ready to test whether your experimental antidepressant will get them interested again. “Losing interest in pleasure” so perfectly described my own gray years that it was kind of surreal to read it in the sterile, clinical context of a scientific paper about rats. I found the characterization of the best stressors as “mild” to be oddly affecting, too—I put off going to a doctor much longer than I should have because I didn’t think I’d really “earned” the right to have PTSD or depression, a feeling that’s apparently very common. I wasn’t a soldier or a refugee—nothing that bad had happened to me. But trauma isn’t the best method of creating a model of depression. All you have to do is remove control and predictability—the exact things low-wage workers have been forced to sacrifice in the name of corporate efficiency and flexibility. Is it any surprise that it feels like the country’s losing its collective mind? It would be more surprising if we weren’t.

Depression Depression often brings feelings of fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and a lack of enjoyment of things you normally find pleasurable. Mild depression keeps you from functioning well and feeling your best, but with treatment, symptoms usually subside. If depression persists despite natural treatments, seek professional help immediately. DIFFUSE CLARY SAGE Clary sage essential oil aids in boosting one’s mental outlook, relieving stress, and alleviating tension. It has a calming effect on the nerves and emotions, providing balance and encouraging you to enjoy a more positive take on life in general. Diffuse clary sage essential oil in the area where you spend the most time, or use it with an aromatherapy pendant. This remedy may be used daily and is particularly effective when diffused in the morning while getting ready for the day. DIFFUSE JASMINE With its lovely, exotic fragrance, jasmine essential oil soothes the nerves while producing feelings of optimism and confidence. It also has a wonderful restorative effect that helps revive tired senses in a gentle, relaxed manner. Diffuse jasmine essential oil in the area where you spend the most time, or use it with an aromatherapy pendant. A few drops can be added to your bath or to a washcloth placed on the floor of your shower, if desired.

It is this acute awareness of transience and limitation that constitutes mild depression.

I love my sister. But I also know her faults as thoroughly as I know my own. When she’s feeling despondent or rejected, nothing cheers her up faster than discouraging someone else. I’m not sure if she does it purposefully or unconsciously, but it holds true every time. Once she passes on some mildly upsetting bit of news or a depressing piece of information, her spirits immediately rise, as if she has handed some of her sadness over to them.

Atypical depression is not just a mild malaise—which is known diagnostically as dysthymia—but one that is quite severe and yet still somehow allows an appearance of normalcy because it becomes, over time, a part of life. The trouble is that as the years pass, if untreated, atypical depression gets worse and worse, and its sufferers are likely to commit suicide out of sheer frustration with living a life that is simultaneously productive and clouded by constant despair.