Love & Connection: The Antidote to Mend Depression?

I originally wrote the article below for the Mountain Mirror. http://www.mountainmirror.com/

Perhaps we remember being roughly eight years old and experiencing the joy of decorating a shoe box to be used for all the valentine cards we were going to receive in class on Valentine’s Day. As a school child in the 80’s I received cards featuring many cartoon characters including: Barbie, Superman, Snoopy, Garfield, She-Ra, and my personal favorite, the Smurfs. Recently, I came across an old card from the 1980’s that said, “You’ve been smurfed by someone who smurfs you!”  As children Valentine’s Day is not about romantic love, but instead it is about the importance of celebrating our loving connections with friends, teachers, parents, and grandparents. But even as we grow older, Valentine’s Day can be an important time to celebrate and foster the connections in our lives. This time of year can be an opportunity to think about the power of love and how important it is to love others, ourselves, and the world around us.

In my work as a counselor, when I meet with a client for the very first time, an important part of my initial assessment is to find out about my client’s spiritual and social connections. As I evaluate a person’s level of connectedness, I am able to gain some insight into their mental health. I believe our level of connectedness to the Divine, others, our physical body, hobbies, nature, pets, and our view of our self can provide a good indicator of our overall emotional well-being. The more isolated we are from life-giving activities and from one another, the more depressed we will be. Allostatic load, is a psychological term that was coined in the 1980s, describing the wear and tear the body experiences physiologically when we are exposed to chronic stress. In their book, The End of Stress as We Know It (2002), Dr. McEwen and Dr. Lasley argue, “For decades scientific research has shown that we can guard against the ravages of stress by following advice our grandmothers could have given us: restful, plentiful sleep, a good diet, and regular exercise, as well as the support of family, friends, religious organizations, and community (isolation is one of the chief contributors to allostatic load), and a sense of control over and contribution to one’s life-often noticeably absent from those who suffer heart attacks or depression.” And so my role as a counselor is to help people lessen the allostatic load, by reconnecting to others and to parts of themselves that have become dim and are no longer shining with light.

I once had a client in a nursing home and she had one hand that was mangled because of arthritis. This client had once been a piano teacher and she shared with me that playing the piano was the greatest love of her life. Her face lit up as she spoke about her affection for music and her expression was equally grief stricken as she admitted to me how painful it was to no longer be able to play. She acknowledged that occasionally she would go to the activities room in her nursing facility and would play the piano with her one working hand. I encouraged her to do more of this, because it was obvious that playing the piano kept her connected to life and lifted her spirits. It was important for this client to talk to me about her love of piano, so she could express to me that this was an integral part of who she is and how she finds meaning and purpose. I also needed to affirm her grief over the fact that she could no longer play to the extent she once had played her beloved instrument. The early Catholic Saint Irenaeus once said, “The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.” For this client, in order to stay as alive as possible, she learned she needed to still play the piano, even if only with one garbled hand. These moments of playing the piano with just one hand, gave my client great joy, in the final year of her life.

When we seek out meaningful connections, such as going out with a friend or attending a spin class at the gym, these experiences can engender feel good chemicals in the brain that create results similar to anti-depressants. The problem is that the very nature of depression prevents us from taking measures to connect, and instead it steals our motivation and leaves us exhausted. Often at the time in our lives when we need connection the most, depression can cause us to fall into the abyss of darkness, despair, and hopelessness. We must do everything in our power during melancholy seasons to stay connected, and often we can seek help by seeing a counselor, medical doctor, or clergy person. Sometimes we need an outside perspective to offer empathy and encourage us to make some changes in our lives.

Mahatma Ghandi one said, “Where there is love, there is life.” I’ve noticed that my own mood is brighter the more connected I am with friends, family, and hobbies. Unfortunately, we currently live in world where we are very disconnected from life and one another. We find superficial connections via facebook and email, but we are now lonelier than ever. I believe the answer to this loneliness is to seek out many forms of connection in our lives. My own unique ways of connecting includes: engaging in a job I love, prayer, yoga, holding my cat, hiking, time with friends and family, playing with my niece and nephew, writing, traveling with my husband, and antiquing. What are your ways of connecting to life? In my work as a therapist, I invite people to consider if they are neglecting hobbies that have been important to their emotional health in the past. Our connections can be life-giving and can combat depression and anxiety.

In this season of celebrating love, can we remember that if we choose love it will bring us life? Where are the places in our life that we need to reconnect? The joy we felt on Valentine’s Day as a child opening our cards can be captured again, because we were simply plugging into the gift of love and life, which can be ours anytime we seek out loving connections. Oscar Wilde reminds us, “The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” If we are experiencing depression, seeking out social and spiritual connections, is one of the most important ways we can combat feeling down in the dumps.  So during February, this month full of hearts and love, let’s decrease our allostatic load by tending to ourselves and one another, caring for our bodies through good sleep, healthy eating and exercise, staying connected to life-sustaining hobbies, and maintaining our spiritual connections. Love truly is the most efficacious antidote to mend depression, because the more sources of connection there are in our world, the more life and joy we will experience.

Let’s stay connected,

Christy