The Hindu Business Line : Joyful mindspace

Once the dynamo of her office and life of the party, Surekha began to change. She had to force herself to get out of the house and go to work. She overate desperately as if filling a void inside. Then she resigned from her job and stayed home feeling increasingly low, lazy, and indifferent to everything yet gnawed by fear about making both ends meet. By the time she consulted her doctors, she had gained 8 kg. Tests showed she had hypothyroidism for which she was put on a three-month medicinal course. She was also diagnosed as suffering from depression.

"I don't like to think of myself as a `depressive'," she protests. That's the first positive step to take — not to believe the label. Depression is the direct result of habitually condemning yourself. You feel you did not measure up to some event in the past. You condemn yourself for `not doing enough'. You fear you won't cope in the future. Such self-negative thoughts when constantly repeated, slow down the brain's messengers — the neurotransmitters. When the signals slow down, the endocrine system — that is, the hypothalamus, pancreas, thyroid, and the adrenal, pituitary and reproductive glands — weakens, imbalances, and goes off-sync. That's why you feel a general malaise, hopelessness, persistent fear, and unease. If your diet is deficient, the endocrine system gets further derailed. You can get thyroid disorders, adrenal fatigue, weight gain/loss, infertility and depression. The next positive step is to snap out of depression. Exit the past. Decide you are good, strong, and unlimited in your present. Be disciplined, be assertive, work on your body and mind.

Don't give up — you are worth going miles for. Mix with the spiritually strong. Stand in the present without a memory from the past, without a thought for the future. When you do this, you will feel your true inner strength. To feel a sense of doing something concrete, start physical training. Training makes you feel like a physical and mental colossus. Training boosts muscle and self-esteem. Training releases pressure healthily.

My advice: make training your stabiliser, your anchor. Instead of helping yourself to a pastry, pouring yourself a cocktail or lighting up a weed, get on to your stationary bike, help yourself to a dumbbell, pour yourself a glass of sparkling fresh water. Training fosters great feelings and great habits. You feel grounded, centred and secure because training transmutes the physiologically destructive catabolic process to a strong constructive anabolic upsurge. This emboldens, empowers, greatly cheers. Training sets in motion the beautiful process of giving and receiving. Give one hour to exercising and receive an entire day of high-spirited, greatly energised way of being, as also an entire night of sound sleep.

Training makes you taste the higher quality of life and turns your attention to the foods you eat. Some items you can add to your taste buds:

Brown rice, whole wheat roti/bread with green leafy vegetable curries, washed down with orange juice provide folate and complex carbos that comfort, as also iron and choline that improve concentration.

A banana with milk boosts the calmative chemical serotonin in the brain, provides calcium that regulates the functioning of the brain's neurotransmitters, and folate that promotes S-adenosylmethionine, a natural antidepressant in the brain. (Folate is a member of the vitamin B family.)

Add flaxseeds (alsi) to ground curries, chutneys, dals or rotis. Their omega-3 content restores the nutrient balance in the brain that has been upset by excess omega-6 (from safflower or sunflower oil) in the diet. Simultaneously, cut down cooking oils to reduce the omega-6 effect. Normally, exercise and diet are sufficient to pull you out of the doldrums. However, if you feel you need that extra boost, join a group that chants or sings. Or do it solo. While chanting sit comfortably on a chair, keep your eyes closed and your head slightly elevated. The chanting painlessly disconnects the mind from its old groove of thoughts, which have caused the depression. At this time, it is important to give your mind a helping hand. Don't give in to any negative thoughts. In fact, stop judging altogether. Think and talk health, happiness, love and peace. Listen to others non-defensively. Don't crowd your mind space. In time, you will discover what this space contains — a quiet joy.

(The writer is co-author of the book `Fitness for Life'.)

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