In a recent article on the Telegraph, apparently coffee is good for lowering the risk of developing depression. 

50,000 women were followed. Those that drank the most coffee suffered the least from depression. This was purely an observational study though and doesn’t actually ”prove that caffeine or caffeinated coffee reduces the risk of depression but only suggests the possibility of such a protective effect”.

There may be something in this as I have never been a big coffee drinker and developed depression! I enjoy a very occasional Starbucks but have always been more of an old-fashioned British tea drinker. I find tea to be a great comfort.

Are you a regular coffee drinker who developed depression?

I truly believe that people who become depressed are very emotionally intelligent people. What I mean by this is that many people just feel unhappy, get stuck in a rut and are not sure what to do about it so they do nothing, years tick by and they stay the same. Depression is more than just unhappiness. It needs you to actively do something about it to get out of it. Depression is a sign that something needs to change in our lives. When we notice we are depressed, we can harness it and start slowly making the changes necessary to improve our situation. Depression can be a lesson.

My upcoming e-book will help show you how to begin making these changes very gently. When we have overcome depression once, we can do it again should it ever start to reoccur. We notice our own alarm bells and do something about it this time in advance. We’ve learnt the tools necessary – the knowledge and experience. If we’ve already beaten it once, it’s much easier to beat it again.

We come out the other side feeling a much more wise and balanced person.

Getting your thoughts out of your mind onto paper is really helpful for many people. It’s almost as good as talking out loud about how you feel. Your diary/journal can almost become like a friend.

The famous J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, first began writing when she became depressed after her marriage broke down and she had convinced herself something was going to happen to her two-year-old daughter.

Tears began to flow as she walked into the small lounge room where she first put pen to paper.

She said: “This is really where I turned my life around completely. My life changed so much in this flat. I feel I really became myself here. Everything was stripped away. I’d made such a mess of things.

“I just thought I want to write so I wrote the book. What was the worst that could happen? It could get turned down by every publisher in Britain. Big deal.”

You can write anything. It doesn’t need to be a story. It just so happened that is what worked for J.K. Rowling.

Begin writing down what words come into your mind. For example “I don’t know what to write about, so I’m just going to start writing and see what happens…. today I feel…” and go from there.

Music is powerful. It has the ability to influence mood enormously. I only realised how much of an impact music has on me when I was suffering from depression. I had a playlist I created on my ipod made up of feel good “power tunes” I used to play on my way to work when I needed some inner strength building up on the journey – just to get myself there. It was heavily made up of female singers and ‘feel good’ tunes.

This playlist served two purposes.

• The first was it helped with my mood. It made me feel like I could do it.
• The second was it provided a sense of routine. Having the same songs, in the same order daily, somehow gave me a sense of security. I knew what I was getting and it helped.

Of course occasionally I would get a bit bored of the same playlist. But when I needed to know where I stood on a morning it was there for me. If I was feeling particularly fed up I knew these tunes would cheer me up and remind me of how I could feel. In a way it was just a habit of triggering a better mood for me.

I couldn’t stand the radio. I still can’t stand radio 1 (in the UK) but maybe that’s my age now! Loud DJs being upbeat and daft irritates the hell out of me and used to make me feel worse. I needed to be within myself, calm, reflective.

So why not turn the radio off and create your own playlist of music that can help you feel a little better? For the moment I’m not going to share what was on my playlist because I don’t want you to be influenced by my choices. Everyone is completely unique, and you will have your own tastes.

If you need help creating a playlist for an ipod/iphone check out this link to ipod help. Feel free to get in contact with me I would be happy to help with creating your own playlist.

Hi I’m Zoe! Find out more on my about page.

So this is my first post! Very excited to be launching depressionhelpbook.com. If you are reading this early on, then I have lots coming up on this site. Information, advice, free stuff, and I will be making it a highly worthwhile place to visit.

I look forward to interacting with you and hope that you enjoy visiting!