Working at Home on Your Computer, Your Health, and How to Fight Depression Before it Happens

My rant today is about how to fight depression with preventive measures when you are a person that works at home and work too much.  Internet marketers who work at home are at risk of poor health if they have no boundaries between “work” life and “home” life.

I have always struggled with this.  I could be sitting and watching TV and say to myself, “This is boring.  There’s nothing on TV worth watching.  I’m going to go get my laptop.”  I get started writing an article.  I get fired up.  I end up staying up later than I should because I am not winding down.  I’m letting work intrude on an evening that is supposed to be “time off.”

“What’s wrong with that?” you ask.   Good question, especially since you can be really productive ( in the short term) when you work insane hours.  I suppose that when a psychologist uses the words “insane hours” it could have another meaning, but I just mean working too much.

The point in all of this is that if you have an internet business and work at home, you have to impose some strict routines on yourself for exercise, rest, eating, socializing (NOT on the web), running errands, and … (drum roll, please) going to the doctor at least once a year to have an annual physical exam.  Doing this is not only a good habit for good health, but it helps cope with one of the occupational hazards of the internet marketing crowd:  depression.  Getting regular “well” visits to your physician is how to fight depression before it becomes and issue.

Self-Care, How to Fight Depression, and Learning from History

In the 1980s I worked as a software engineer for a major computer company.  At that time, it was a common joke in the office to point out the super-hero programmers who worked ridiculous hours and always came in on Saturday.  Not that I knew first hand that they worked all day Saturday.  By had friends who told me these things.  These were the serious engineering techies that experienced a deep thrill when a new C++ compiler would be released for the Mac.  Today we might call them nerds.

One of the prevalent sayings at the time was, “Real Programmers Don’t Eat Quiche.”  Instead, the stereotypical image of a “real” programmer was an unshaven, brilliant, 20 or 30 something man with vending machine wrappers littered around his desk and computer terminal.  He rarely went out for lunch with everyone. No, he was important.  He had important tasks to finish.  World peace depended on it.  Besides. real programmer don’t go out to lunch and they don’t eat quiche.  Quiz question for you:  Do you think these real programmers went to their doctor once per year for annual physical?

So after all this long rambling I am finally getting to the point of this article:  Go to your doctor for a physical exam once per year whether you think you need it or not.  And when you are feeling burnt out, discouraged, or frustrated for more than a few weeks, then go see the doctor right away.  You could be experiencing the signs and symptoms of depression without thinking of it in that way.

Six Questions to Ask Your Doctor

The first thing to do is to schedule an appointment with the family doctor for a complete physical.  This is important because there are many possible physical conditions that can generate the signs and symptoms of depression.  A strenuous learning curve for how to fight depression may not be necessary if the signs and symptoms of depression that you are experiencing are caused by a hormone deficiency, for example.

How Sad When the Computer is Down!

There are specific questions you need to ask your doctor.

QUESTION 1:  During the examination, say to the physician,  “I’m wondering if I have the symptoms of depression.  What do you think?”  This will ensure that part of the physician’s time will be spent having a simple discussion with you about what you are experiencing and discuss how to fight depression in a clear, straightforward manner.

It’s useful to understand a little about the purpose of lab work.  A standard part of an annual physical examination is to send a sample of your blood to the lab for various tests.   There are always scores of different tests that the doctor does NOT order the lab to do because of the added expense (for the insurance company or for you) and because many conditions represented by those added tests are relatively rare.

TIP: it’s best to ask the  question about depression near the beginning of the exam, especially before the doctor orders the routine lab tests. The reason for this is simple.  There are various conditions such a anemia or low thyroid that can produce depression symptoms.

Asking about depression near the beginning of the exam allows your doctor to order additional tests on the blood sample that is drawn from you. When you are thinking about how to fight depression, take one of the easier steps right away and ask for a photocopy of the actual numbers of your lab results.

Once it has been diagnosed, the challenge of how to fight depression becomes easier to map out.  This naturally leads to the next question to ask your doctor during your physical examination.  QUESTION 2:  Ask the doctor, “Do you know of a good psychologist or therapist that I could meet with for an evaluation?”   TIP:  although clinical depression is a medical condition, it can be caused by non medical factors that can easily escape the notice of someone lacking specialized training.

QUESTIONS 3:  Additionally, ask the doctor, “Can you explain which antidepressant medications seem to work the best for your patients?”  QUESTION 4:  “If medication is what your patients choose for how to fight depression, what have you found are the pros and cons of the main antidepressants?”  TIP:  ask this followup question, mentioning specific medications by name.  For example, “Can you explain to me the benefits and side-effects of Zoloft, Lexapro, and Cymbalta?

Mentioning the medications by name is important if you are in an HMO insurance plan because doctors are sometimes restricted from telling you about the more expensive medications unless you specifically ask. Also, keep in mind that when someone starts a course of treatment with medication, it will take some time (at least a few weeks) to start feeling the positive effects of the medication.

QUESTION 5:  Also ask, “Are you comfortable prescribing these medications?”  This is important because not all general practitioners have as much training as they would like in order to monitor medication for depression.

TIP:  Before you actually meet with your physician for the exam, make a short list of these questions and others.  Depression makes concentration and memory temporarily less reliable and more frustrating.  A simple list will ensure that you ask all the questions you had been thinking about beforehand.

A final question can be asked just before you leave.  QUESTION 6:  “Is there anything else you can tell me about how to fight depression?”  If you ask these six questions you will have made a good start in learning how to fight depression and as well as acting on what you have learned.  Also, additional tips on how to fight depression can be found at a more specialized website.

Discouragement in an occupational hazard of any business endeavor, but starting and operating an internet business from home has a particular risk for becoming demoralized.  This risk can extend even to the point of causing your better half to comment on the signs and symptoms of depression that you are showing.  What are the characteristics of internet marketing or working from home that are conducive to the sprouting of the full array of signs and symptoms of  depression?  There are actually more than a few ways that working at home raises the risk for depression  for most people, but there are at least 3 major factors that deserve attention because they allow the signs and symptoms of depression or discouragement to grow like weeds:

1. “You don’t get out much, do you?“  The first aspect of  a work-at-home internet business that naturally leads to depression is the social isolation.  We are social creatures and simply function better and are happier if we have more time staring at two human eyes than we do staring at the big eye of our computer monitor.
2. Work hard, feel like a failure. The second aspect has to do with the difficulty of measuring progress.  Yes, I know that you can watch the numbers:  traffic statistics, the money in your paypal account, or number of sales.  But in the earlier stages of your amazing career as an internet entrepreneur,  there may not be a lot of numbers to look at.  This means that on numerous occasions you work hard all day long, but have no way of knowing if you really accomplished anything.  Sure, you set up another blog today, but we all know that the old adage, “If you build it they will come,” just ain’t so.
3. “I love working at home and being my own boss. Now I can work 24-7!“  The third aspect of a work-at-home internet business that nudges you toward depression is something shared with other enterprises in which a sole proprietor is self-employed.   When is the work ever done?  Now I am a psychologist and I see patients at my office a few miles from my home.  I am self-employed, but at least I can leave the physical location of my office and say to myself, “Greg, the day is over.  Give it a rest…”  But my internet business is something I do from home.  Consider this:  it’s 8:30pm on a Tuesday evening.  My wife is watching TV and I’m, well, uh…, well, uh….sitting here writing an article!  See what I mean? The line between work and home life can easily become blurred.

So, what can be done about this?  Well, I plan to write more about that very question.  In the meantime, the first step is to learn some basic facts about depression so that you can recognize the signs and symptoms of depression in yourself.

In another article, I briefly discussed how operating an internet business from home has a particular risk for becoming demoralized and even depressed.  But that article doesn’t explain what depression is.  In this article, I would like to offer a little primer in understanding the signs and symptoms of depression.  No, it’s not as fun as learning about a new little wordpress plugin that serves you coffee and tea, but it’s probably more important to learn about in the long run.

A Little Vocabulary Lesson

Learning how to fight depression involves getting a crystal-clear picture of the battle lines.  While there are many types and varieties of depression,  they all fall into one of two large categories.  The first kind of depression is what most people mean when they say something like, “I was so depressed yesterday…I got stopped for speeding.”  Feeling sad or blue is a normal part of life.  It is also normal to bounce back relatively quickly.  The second type of depression is a medical condition because the brain actually undergoes a change in which it loses the ability to bounce back quickly.  This is sometimes referred to as clinical depression or major depressive disorder.  If you are reading this and wonder how to fight depression, you are most likely concerned about the second type.  It’s important to be clear about which kind of depression you are targeting.  In this article the word depression refers to the various types of depression that fall into the second large category.

How to Fight Depression by Dividing the Signs and Symptoms of Depression into 3 Main Groups

The first order of business in learning how to fight depression is to learn how clinical depression operates.  This begins with learning to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression.  There are two important questions to ask.  First, what are the signs and symptoms of depression?  Second, when do the signs and symptoms of depression become a clinical condition that needs medical treatment and/or therapy?

So one of the first steps in learning how to fight depression is to have a list of the signs and symptoms of depression and to understand what they mean.  The list has 9 symptoms.  The first five are the obvious physical signs and symptoms of depression:  (1) Significant change in weight not due to dieting (weight gain or loss of more than 5% of body weight in a month); (2) Sleep problems nearly every day (excessive sleeping or insomnia); (3) Agitation (irritable attitude and physical tension) or marked slowing of one’s thoughts and actions (e.g., much more difficulty getting started on something than usual); (4) Fatigue or loss of energy every day; (5) Diminished ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness, nearly every day.

The second set of signs and symptoms of depression have more to do with a person’s subjective experience.  They are: (6) Feelings of worthlessness or excessive (or inappropriate) guilt nearly every day; (7) Sad mood most of the day, nearly every day; (8) Noticeable loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities most of every day.  This set of symptoms poses the frustrating challenge of how to fight depression when it is something so vague as a mood and difficult to measure.

One of the Signs and Symptoms of Depression Requires Special Handling

The third group is really just one symptom in a class of it’s own.  If a person is having thoughts about death that keep returning, this is almost certainly an indicator of clinical depression, whether or not the person can recognize any other signs and symptoms of depression.  But what does mean to have thoughts about death?  Recurrent thoughts and images of death (not just fear of dying), recurring thoughts about suicide, or a suicidal gesture (deliberate carelessness in dangerous situations) or an attempt, or specific plans.  While this is the most dangerous of the signs and symptoms of depression, it’s often one of the first to disappear as soon as a person catches a vision of genuine hope for the future.

How to Fight Depression When Self Help is Not the Answer

If you have recurring thoughts about death it’s important that you consult with a mental health professional and not try to go the self help route by yourself. Why?  Think of it this way.  Your wouldn’t be having suicidal thoughts if your weren’t truly stuck in some way.  Now, think about it.  If you are stuck enough to have recurring thoughts about death, what are the odds that you are going to “unstuck” enough to pull yourself out simply by your own effort?  It has nothing to do with how strong you are as a person.  If fact, I often find that the strongest people have real trouble with this concept because they can’t stand the feeling of being helpless. Also, we all have a tendency to become overly attached to our expectations about how life must be.  I can drive around town waiting for the magic day when I will have a lot of time to fix the brakes myself, or I can do the smart thing and contact someone who knows what they are doing.

It’s About Perspective and Not Strength

If self help is not how to fight depression when your are suicidal, and it’s not because of being weak, what is the reason?  It’s really about perspective and not whether or not you are strong or weak.  Depression skews one’s perspective so that you channel what little energy you have in the wrong direction.  It’s as if you’ve fallen in a pit that has a clear path to safety, but you are wearing dark glasses with distorted lenses that simply will not let you see the hope and opportunity that is right in front of you.

How to Fight Depression by Understanding the Degree of Difficulty

While learning how to fight depression is not so much about OUR strength, it is very much about the strength and intensity of the depression.  How many of the signs and symptoms of depression have to be present for it to be considered “clinical.” For the signs and symptoms of depression to be a clinical condition two important criteria must both be true and 5 out of 9 signs and symptoms of depression must be present.  Specifically, Major Depressive Disorder,  is usually defined as a combination of any five of the following signs and symptoms of depression that persist for more than 2 weeks.  For the signs and symptoms of depression to have clinical significance these two important criteria must both be true:  (1) The signs and symptoms of depression last for several days (at least 2 weeks); (2) Depression symptoms become disruptive to major areas of a person’s life;  and depression symptons negatively and noticeably impact relationships, work, or school.

These steps for how to fight depression are simply the starting place.  Once you know your enemy it’s crucial to learn the tools and techniques of attacking depression wisely and armed with the right information about the enemy you are fighting.  If your are interested in exploring more visit my Steps for Change website.

Know Your Blind Spots

Adult children of alcoholic parents are wise to figure out their own blind spots when they become parents themselves. Although you grew up in a home with one or both of your parents being alcoholics, you want to be certain that you provide a better atmosphere for your own children to grow and thrive in. Adult children of alcoholic parents share certain blind spots while parenting their own children. You know the pain of growing up in an alcoholic home and you know the ways you learned to cope with growing up in that situation. You may have become a miniature adult, a caretaker, and a super responsible little person.  Adult children of alcoholic parents often play the role of the “parentified child.”

Or you might have become the troublemaker or clown to compensate. Maybe you were the peacemaker or the one who never made a fuss and just went along with the program. You may have suffered – not only mental and emotional abuse – but also possibly physical or sexual abuse. You might have felt the disappointment of lies and broken promises or been scared of abandonment. You may have avoided getting too close to anyone for fear that they would go away or neglect you. As tough as it was to grow up like this, you know that’s not the way you want your own children to live. Good for you! You’ve committed to giving your kids a better, healthier, happier life. In that case, it’s important for you to seek out alcoholic help for families and to know where your blind spots might be. What might be your stumbling blocks to giving your kids the best life possible? Adult children of alcoholic parents may find it difficult to break their childhood patterns of coping with life. This is something that you’ll need to pay close attention to when dealing with your own children. Adult children of alcoholic parents carry a heavier load as moms and dads, but they can also discover that they have a lot of support in striving to create a better home atmosphere. You need to look at your current patterns of behavior. If you were the clown or the troublemaker, are you still carrying around those characteristics, and if so, are they causing problems?

Mark the Clown

Little Mark as a 4th grader learned to be a clown to diffuse Dad’s anger when he was about to explode. Mark also learned to be hyper alert to changes in Dad’s facial expressions so that he would know when to start entertaining his Dad. People like Mark as adult children of alcoholic parents often find that their coping mechanisms become obsolete or downright dysfunctional when they trying to navigate parenting themselves. A clown can be fun to be around, but are you also irresponsible? A troublemaker who hasn’t learned to stay out of trouble may be leading a life of legal troubles – not a good example to set for your kids, and certainly not nice for them if they can’t see you because you’re incarcerated.

If you’re a perfectionist as a result of being the responsible “parent” in your childhood home, are you demanding too much from your little ones, who are still learning about life through play and fun? Or have you become an adult doormat who just goes along with the program because you don’t want to make waves? None of these methods are terribly healthy for you or your children. Certainly a dose of humor, responsibility and ability to go with the flow is important for everyone. Even raising Cain once in awhile is probably something that everyone does, even the most emotionally healthy people, now and then.

It Helped You Cope Then;  It’s Dysfunctional Now

Your blind spot might come from still being that person that you were as a child of an alcoholic household. That worked for you then, but now, as a parent, it might be more detrimental than anything. If you are an adult child of an alcoholic and you have children yourself, don’t be afraid to get help. Because there are so many adult children of alcoholic parents, it’s usually possible to find resources and help. Making use of help for adult children of alcoholic parents is an important step in recovery in creating a healthy, happy home. Your family is depending on you to do what you can to help yourself deal with your childhood in a way that makes you into a happier, healthier person – for your sake and your family’s.

Moodiness, anger, and arguments happen in all marital relationships. Every couple has arguments and disagreements. Every couple gets angry now and then – sometimes with each other, sometimes with circumstances of life. When anger is due to hypoglycemic symptoms, then eating a snack becomes more important than marriage councelling. Everyone gets moody now and then and may snap at their loved ones.

But what about when anger or marital arguments boil over into something far more serious?  Uncontrollable anger could be a result of hypoglycemic symptoms and if you or your spouse suffers from bouts of uncontrollable anger, or your arguments get out of hand, it’s possible that hypoglycemic symptoms are messing with your relationship.

Hypoglycemia is a condition where the brain isn’t getting enough of its main food – glucose. Glucose is a sugar that’s produced by the liver and is delivered in steady doses to the brain. This enables the brain to function correctly and to oversee the functions of all of your body’s systems. When the brain isn’t getting enough glucose, it can’t handle its many functions well, and you begin to notice hypoglycemic symptoms. They are:

• Dizziness
• Sweating
• Headache
• Hunger
• Shakiness
• Irritability
• Paleness
• Moodiness
• Clumsiness
• Confusion or lack of concentration
• Tingling around the mouth

You’ll notice that irritability and moodiness are two of the hypoglycemic symptoms on the list. If you add a pounding headache and confusion to the mix, you have the perfect breeding ground for anger. Because the brain is already not functioning well, it doesn’t have the capacity to regulate moods and reactions as well as it would if it were getting enough glucose.

You can see how hypoglycemic symptoms may lead to an angry outburst. Over-the-top anger is bad in any situation and can cause damage well beyond just the immediate outburst. In a marriage, if there are severe outbursts of anger and arguments, the outcome could be damage that is simply not repairable.

It’s important to be checked for hypoglycemia if angry outbursts are common. If the diagnosis is positive, treatment is fairly straightforward and fairly easy. Watching for hypoglycemic symptoms is your first step to ending anger and marital arguments that are just too much to take. Ask for a glucose tolerance test if there is suspicion that you or your partner are suffering from hypoglycemic symptoms.

Even if hypoglycemia is diagnosed and treated, you’ll still have times of irritation and some arguments – this is normal in any marriage. But if you treat the hypoglycemia carefully, you’ll find that the worst of the anger and arguments subside, as do the other hypoglycemic symptoms, leading to a happier, healthier life for everyone.

The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud was a ground-breaking book and has had far-reaching influence. However, there are many people who are curious about Freud dream interpretations but don’t want to read Freud’s rather dense prose. If that describes you, then here you will find a Freud Interpretation of Dreams summary.

Freud Interpretations of Dreams: Dreams are the Guardians of Our Sleep

Everyone has dreams when they sleep. Some people don’t remember their dreams, and some of us remember many of them vividly, but we all have them. Throughout history, we’ve asked the question, “Why do we dream?” and even more so, what do our dreams mean?

Sigmund Freud, considered to be the father of psychoanalysis, maintained that we dream as a way to keep us sleeping – according to him, dreams are the guardians of our sleep. When we head off to bed for a night’s rest, we close out as much external stimuli as possible.

Freud Interpretations of Dreams: Why We Dream

We turn the lights off and close the shades. We try to suppress outside noises. We do all of this so that our bodies can go about the business of getting rest without interruption. It’s a way to disconnect from our daily reality.

During sleep, the mind manufactures dreams as a way to protect us from being disturbed by other stimuli, such as noise, but also things like temperature fluctuations, pain, and the worries, fears, desires and mental and emotional distractions of the day.

Freud’s work was mostly with internal stimuli – worries, negative emotions, thoughts and desires that are forbidden and other thoughts that must be censored in some way. If the brain is busy with these at night, they may cause us to wake and not get the rest we need.

So dreams are the mind’s safe way of keeping the person asleep, while allowing the mind to digest and work on all of the internal stimuli that we have rattling around in our heads every day – negative, positive or forbidden.

Freud Dream Interpretations

Sigmund Freud believed that the dream was made up of two distinct parts – the manifest and the latent content. The manifest content is what the dreamer remembers when they wake, and according to Freud has no meaning because it’s a disguised representation of what’s underlying the dream – the latent content.

Latent content is the true meaning of the dream. It’s the forbidden or negative thoughts and the unconscious desires. These are disguised in the manifest content. Dreams, according to Freud, often have a sexual tone to them and use the symbols in manifest content to signify the underlying sexual meaning of our dreams.

In order to discover the underlying meaning of a dream, Sigmund Freud used the free association method. The dream would be described in the most accurate terms possible. Then the dreamer would focus on a specific piece or symbol in the dream and form as many associations to it as possible.

This allowed the dreamer’s mind to wander and discover the possible underlying meaning, the latent content, of the dream. Freud said that dreams are way of fulfilling suppressed wishes.

Freudian Slip or Pajamas?

Instead of being wakened every night by our unfulfilled wishes and desires, which are usually forbidden, the mind weaves dreams about them to allow us to fulfill them in sleep, allowing us a restful night.

Starting your own home business can be daunting.  It can consume so much of our energy that relationships suffer.  Most notably, marriage communication can falter because you are spending so much time on the computer, on the phone, or just thinking about all your exciting ideas.  There are even times when marriage councelling (i.e., marriage counseling…see note below) can help in ways that help your business to be more satisfying, if not more profitable.

There comes a point when communication gets stalled.  Have you stopped asking because you think you already know the answer? Or are you so convinced that you communicate well that you finish your mate’s sentences? Sometimes we forget to communicate because we get in a comfort zone that can kill a marriage.

Do you remember when you first met? If you lived at a distance, chances are you ran up quite a large phone bill (or spent a lot of time chatting online). As a new couple, you could talk for hours about nothing.

But over time, the conversations became shorter and less enjoyable. Here you are with those one word exchanges: “Dinner?” “Sure.” “Burgers or chicken?” “Chicken.” You know how it goes.  To change this monotony, you both have to admit that it’s time to re-start your relationship.  Sometimes marriage counseling can give the jump start this renewal process.

Marriage Satisfaction Skills: Why Not Just Wing-it?

Up until the late 20th century, people didn’t go to  marriage councelling as we know it today. They didn’t read books on marriage or watch Oprah. They didn’t talk about Dr. Phil latest episode or go to marriage seminars. So why all this fuss about learning better communication skills, how to have a better sexual relationship, and knowing when it’s time to get marriage councelling?

One of the main reasons is that the structures in society used to support a married couple staying together. In more recent times, there are numerous social forces and economic forces that pull couples apart. Many of the messages about marriage in the media imply or state that the passion and the electricity can only be experienced as an affair, a fling, or a “long-term relationship.” In many ways the marriage relationship itself is under siege. Consequently, married couples who wish to create and maintain and intact relationship are almost asking for trouble if they don’t give time and attention to actively growing their relationship, their communication, their common vision, and their intimacy.

As we head into the 21st century, couples who want to have a lasting relationship cannot afford NOT to take the  time, energy, and money to work on maintaining and improving the quality of their relationship. Avoiding marriage councelling when communication gets boring is like driving your car year after year without maintenance.  Of course not. In western society today marriages generally don’t rejuvenate themselves naturallywithout effort. There are just too many forces such as stress, fatigue, unrealistic expectations, and temptation that create a kind of entropy within the marriage relationship.

Most couples will not need marriage councelling if they build into their routines specific times to pay attention to what is going on in their relationship and make adjustments. Here is one way to do that: Start planning a few weekends per year to get away for a weekend without kids and without anyone else. Spend most of the time relaxing and or having fun together. For 2 or 3 hours of the weekend (not at one time), have a serious discussion about what is happening in your relationship currently and what are some ways to change it. If this seems too intimidating to do then just read about marriage together and briefly discuss what you have read. Agree ahead of time that you what you discuss may raise issues that cannot be resolved in one weekend.

In marriage councelling, the point is to chip away at one or two issues in some intentional fashion that increases your skill-level. But this can be done without a therapist.  (if you can’t do this without marriage councelling, then what does that tell you.  Start with simply identifying what each of you think the issues are. Then start with the easier ones first. Now I’m going end with an uncomfortable observation: If you cannot do this you may actually need some outside help. Why? Because without maintenance you may be just waiting for a crisis to get your attention as a couple. An overheated engine that stops running is not the way you want to be reminded that you haven’t been servicing your vehicle

The upshot to all of this can be expressed this way:   small repairs with or without marriage councelling can save you a lot of frustration and heartache in the years to come.  Especially if the breakdown happens at a very inconvenient time and place (for example, on the freeway at night when it is raining). It’s easier in the long-run to gradually add to your marriage satisfaction skills.

Author’s note:  the incorrect spelling of marriage counseling as marriage councelling is intentional for web indexing purposes.