April 9, 2025 • 22 mins
We'll dive into some key differences between minor depression and low resilience in this episode. We discuss how low resilience can feel similar to minor depression, with symptoms such as exhaustion, lack of motivation, and brain fog. Practical strategies for boosting resilience and lifting your mood are shared, like identifying factors that deplete your resilience, engaging in tactile and enjoyable activities, moving your body, and having positive social interactions.
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Sources and Notes:
- Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
- Rodríguez, M. R., Nuevo, R., Chatterji, S., & Ayuso-Mateos, J. L. (2012). Definitions and factors associated with subthreshold depressive conditions: a systematic review. BMC psychiatry, 12, 181. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-181
Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.
Please see our terms for more information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast,where we help you uncover and
(00:03):
foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr.Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of
soulful and scientifically sound tools tospark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment withmore joy, combine this podcast with the
full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
(00:27):
Hello, I am Henry Emmonsand welcome to Joy Lab.
And I am Aimee Prasek.
So we are, as you maybe already know,talking about resilience this month.
That is our element of joy hereon the podcast and in the program.
And we are gonna get a little bit morespecific about two things today, a low
(00:47):
resilience tank and minor depression.
And this is gonna be kind ofa theme this month actually.
We'll get into some subtleties aroundwhat may be keeping us stuck in low
resilience or minor depression oranxiety, and we'll get some clear
strategies on how to overcome theseobstacles and boost our resilience.
(01:11):
So today we wanna do that with thosetwo related, but also very different
concepts, resilience and minor depression.
And so just a surface glance atthese they both may feel like a sense
of being exhausted, disconnected,overwhelmed, having brain fog,
(01:32):
lack of motivation, running onfumes, irritated with the world.
I think
we could all, I know it's terrible.
We could all just keep going.
Um, but there's more here to get into.
That'll help us.
So let's, let's separate 'em a bit.
Here's a quick definition of both.
So, resilience is our ability tobounce back when we get knocked down
(01:54):
to bend with stress rather than breakto come back to our homeostasis, our
state of equanimity, natural balancethat we talked about last month.
So a low, uh, level of resilienceis gonna be struggling with those.
And minor depression, also calledsubclinical depression, or sub threshold,
or sub syndromal depression is when wehave depressive symptoms, but not enough
(02:19):
of them, or not severe enough or notfor long enough, to have a diagnosis of
something like major depressive disorder.
But with minor depression, thereare still symptoms and they
are not easy to be stuck in.
Some of them include changes inappetite or weight, sleep problems,
fatigue, lack of energy, motivation,feelings of worthlessness or
(02:42):
guilt, difficulty concentrating
or with decision making, feelingagitated or sluggish, and also
thoughts of, of death or suicide.
Now these may be less frequent or intensethan in major depression, but I think
it's important to know that these canstill be present in minor depression.
And there are estimates that at least20% of US adults are experiencing
(03:07):
minor depression at any one time.
I think it's more, uh, a lowresilience tank, I'd say more adults
are dealing with that than aren't.
It's probably our currentpandemic in the US.
So Henry, do you wanna describemore about how it might feel to have
a low resilience tank and how itmight feel to have minor depression?
(03:29):
Yeah.
Sure.
But let, let me start by sayingsomething about diagnosis.
Just the practice of diagnosis, whichfrankly, I don't think we do a very good
job of in this country in this time.
We don't even do a particularly goodjob of understanding it, I don't think.
(03:50):
So, just as an illustration, if youtalked with a hundred people who
recently were diagnosed with depression,and if you really talk to them and
you kind of dug into their story tounderstand it, I think you'd find that
most of them don't have depression.
Most of them have low resilience.
(04:10):
They, they've lost their resiliencetypically because of too much stress
or too much, too big of a loss.
So the resilience tank is low.
Questionnaires and screeningtools for depression, the sort
you might get at a primary
care visit while helpful, they'remissing a huge element of this, which
(04:36):
is what is really going on, what
is at the root of this?
And without that understanding, wedon't know the best way to approach it.
So these are blunt, blunt instruments,
so to speak.
I also think you're right, Aimee,that this is a modern day epidemic.
(04:59):
Resilience, as I understand it isa natural trait that we all have to
varying degrees, but no matter howbig our tank is, it's not bottomless.
Yeah.
Our reserves are constantly shifting.
Which allows us to adapt toour wildly changing world.
(05:22):
But there's a limit to our adaptability.
Our reserves can be drained andthe world is, we're experiencing
it right now is testing a lotof us in terms of resilience.
.So how do we know if this is a situational, temporary depletion
(05:43):
of our resilience reserves orsomething that is a little deeper,
like a subclinical depression.
Truth is, it can be hard to say forsure, and they can feel so much the
same that if it goes on long enough,you know, resilience depletion can
(06:05):
just basically turn into depression.
In some ways, it's a matterof how long does this last?
But, but here's how Itry to sort this out.
Typically, depression lasts longerand it doesn't lift as easily.
So, for example, I recently went througha time when my res, my reserves were
(06:29):
pretty well drained and my mood tanked.
As soon as I got a break from what wasstressing me, I just bounced back and felt
like my usual self by the very next day.
That is not depression.
Second, depression typically sucks the joyright out of your life, so no matter what
(06:52):
you do, at best, it feels a little flat.
Most of the time when your resilienceis low, you can still enjoy, like even
the simple day-to-day things like agood meal or spending time with a friend
or, or being with a young child, youknow, you can still play and have fun.
(07:13):
And that's usually notthe case with depression.
Even subclinical depression, there's a,a blunting of everything, kind of like
a blanket over your, your experience.
Third, depression is more closely tiedwith your physiology with your body.
There are physical symptoms, so things,for example, like you mentioned, changes
(07:37):
in appetite or energy, or for some peopleit's a physical discomfort, pain or
headaches or stomach pains, and there alsotends to be a stronger genetic connection.
So looking at family history can, canreally help to, to tease this out as
(07:57):
a clinician, when I have my psychiatryhat on, what I'm most interested
in is what can we do about it?
So, in my mind, it really helpsthen to understand the root causes.
And in that sense, there mightnot be a really clean distinction
between having a low resilience tankor subclinical depression, and it
(08:22):
might not even matter all that much.
If there are situational orlifestyle factors that might be
playing into this, and we can dosomething about them, we should,
no matter what label we give to it.
Yeah, I love that.
I think even in this conversation, it'sa opportunity to kind of stretch out
(08:43):
our understanding and definition ofdepression and kind of soften some of the
stigma that I think gets attached to it.
I think oftentimes we think, oh,it's, well, it's not bad enough, so
there's nothing I really need to do.
So maybe the, you know, more hereis understanding that as we have a,
a broader understanding of are wezapped, is our resilience tank empty?
(09:04):
Or you know, is it more on that,that minor depression side?
And if distinguishing doesn'thelp you, but you're not
feeling good, that's fine too.
If you're an overthinker like me and youwanna like have a bit of analysis and
then put a label on it, if that helps you,
great.
We also have a episode on ruminationcoming and that'll be then another
(09:27):
thing that you might wanna,experience with me and Henry.
But yes, if it helps you to...to get a little bit more specific
and then to name it, great.
But if you're not feeling well, that'skind of what you're saying, I think
Henry, like there are things we can dobefore it hits, whatever the, whatever
(09:48):
the diagnostic criteria might be withthe person that you're visiting and how
they perceive it, you have control here.
So like you said, what can we do?
Let's focus on just one or a fewsteps to take that generally can
help to restore your resilienceor, and or help you lift your mood.
(10:08):
So if you're feeling like your resiliencetank is low, if that kind of resonated
with you, Henry, do you wanna give aneasy or a few easy quick steps that
folks can take?
Sure.
So I, I think of this in,in two very different ways.
Like there's, there's twobroad dynamics at play here.
One of them is what's draining yourtank, what's taking it out of you?
(10:34):
And then the other is whatfills your tank back up?
What
brings you back to life?
Understanding, thinking about bothof those things is really helpful.
Often the quickest way to bounceback is to try to put your finger
on one thing that is depletingyou, and then deal with that.
(10:55):
The usual culprits we're allfamiliar with these, are things
like work stress, relationships,
some sort of imbalance in your lifestyle.
Maybe you're not eating very well, notsleeping well, which is a huge one.
Or maybe it isn't just one thing, butsimply that you're doing too much.
(11:16):
You are packing your life too full.
Even if everything isgood, it's just too much.
So don't even worry about tryingto find the most draining thing.
Just identify one thing that'shaving a pretty big impact on you.
Ideally look for something youcan actually do something about.
(11:40):
You know, that, that it, it's, it'swithin your potential realm of control.
That's kind of the tricky part.
You know what, what doI actually do about it?
Really simply put, you onlyhave about three choices.
One, you do nothing.
Just let it be as it is.
(12:01):
Probably not a good choicebecause you're already drained.
Option two, you change it.
Some things are easy, others not.
So to start with, choose an easy one.
For example, all of us can eatbetter, or if we can decide, there's
(12:21):
just one commitment I made this weekthat I can let go of and clear a
little time from my busy schedule.
You know, even if it's somethingfun might be better for you at that
moment to just stay home and rest.
So just find one thing.
It's, it's addition by subtraction.
Oh, love that.
(12:42):
I do too.
I should.
Listen to myself right now.
That's why we're here.
We're all working together.
Let's add by subtracting.
Yes.
Good.
Our third choice is toaccept whatever it is.
To allow it to be there, which doesn'tmean we don't do anything about it,
(13:02):
but simply that we stop resisting it.
That's probably a good topic for anotherepisode, but a really quick summary is
to simply give up on wanting things tobe any different than they actually are.
Hmm.
Yeah, we do a lot of that work here.
(13:25):
And those of you in the program, the JoyLab program, identifying that one thing,
you might find that, if you've doneyour experiment too, you might find an
obstacle in your Resilience Type that'llhelp you focus on like, "Hmm, what's
that one thing it might be in there?"
So if you haven't joined us in theJoy Lab program, do join us as we dive
into these experiments a little bitmore, we get into the meat of this.
(13:49):
Uh, so those are great strategies, Henry.
Thank you.
And I'll speak to minordepression for a moment.
First, I just wanna say, if, you know,again, I think we've, we've got this sort
of, as you said, it's this strict andblunt diagnostic criteria for depression.
And so, you know, it's rigid and it's,it, it, it doesn't fit a lot of us
(14:13):
and we're not saying that, that, weshould be diagnosing more depression.
That's not the the message here.
But it is an invitation to seekout support even if you don't think
you are severe enough, or you'vehit a threshold that looks as bad
as somebody that you know, who'sclinically depressed or something.
So, the first invitation that it, ifyou're not feeling well, seek out support.
(14:37):
gp, a therapist, minor depressiondoes not mean you're weak.
It does not mean you're doing somethingwrong, nor does major depressive disorder.
It does not mean that you're broken.
It is common.
It does mean that you need some support,that your system needs some care.
And so these are little flashinglights to say like, "Hey, I'm
(15:00):
here. Take care of me." That's yoursystem asking you for some love.
And then, you know, something thatyou can do right now, I think that is
really helpful if you resonate here,is to do something, just one thing
that is tactile, that is not relatedto a device and that you enjoy or
(15:20):
that you maybe used to enjoy doing.
So this is sometimes calledbehavioral activation.
We're choosing to do something,a behavior, because it
will activate what we want.
In this case, it will activatesome positive emotions.
So it might be drawing, reading,walking outside, whatever, and
(15:41):
give all of your senses to it.
That's kind of this tactilesensory piece of this.
Something hands-on that you enjoyand that you can really give your
attention to will more effectivelywork to kind of rewire your brain
toward these positive experiences.
Because the thing with minordepression and major depressive
(16:02):
disorder, as you said, Henry, is thatwe often have blunted experiences.
We have blunted positive emotions.
Really, we do not respond as efficientlyto positive stimuli compared to someone
who is not experiencing depression.
Our ears don't perk up as much.
Our eyes don't see it.
We don't smell it or taste it as much.
(16:25):
We really are dulled to the good.
And that kind of sounds abstracteven when I'm saying it.
But this is very literal.
We've talked about this on the pod before,like how our field of vision is limited
amidst depression, there's a muscle orsomething called the postauricular reflex.
I think it is behind the ear thatcan be measured and it's magnitude
(16:48):
if it's a reduced magnitudethat's associated with depression.
Like so maybe some millionsof years ago when our ears
perked up to positive stimuli.
If our ears look differently,like when in depressive states,
we don't perk up as much.
So I think that's wild and evidencethough, that we can, physically
(17:09):
even, if we're not feeling it, makesome changes, we can engage in those
behaviors, those activities thatliterally reawaken our senses, that
expand our vision, that perk up our earsmore, and then we can then expand our
awareness and experience of what's good.
So.
Our system will listen, it'll, it'llwork when we continue to practice it
(17:34):
like any muscle does with practice.
And I wanna say too, even ifyou're not digging it as at first,
if it feels clunky, you feeluncoordinated with it, give it
practice and let your system catch up.
We'll get into this more inthe next several episodes.
You know how literally these practicesand skills work to rewire our body
and brain so that we can feel better.
(17:55):
That we can do that.
We have so much power tocreate that meaningful change.
So Henry, do you have anything more youwanna add or that perked your ears up?
Well, I'll tell you, I lovethe, the ear perking muscle.
I forgot about that.
That postauricular.
Isn't that just, we are amazing humans.
Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna goright to where the money is
(18:17):
'cause there are two things that areproven again and again to lift a low mood,
whether it's from depression or whetherit's loss of resilience that's causing it.
The first is moving your body.
Which does tie in with what youjust said, Aimee, about a tactile
experience and it really, really works.
(18:40):
So it can be anything from aneasy stroll outside to an intense
interval training if you're into.
It actually doesn't much matter, movementand exercise are almost guaranteed to
give you a lift at least temporarily.
Yeah.
The second thing that's proven againand again as a powerful mood lifter is
(19:03):
to have a positive social encounter.
And again, it doesn't
even matter that much what you do.
It can be short or long.
It can be with a stranger inthe grocery store line, or
it can be a lifelong friend.
As long as you perceive it as apositive interaction, it is going
(19:23):
to boost your mood Better yet,put the two of them together.
Go for a walk and talk witha good friend or with a dog.
Yes.
You know what I'm gonna do today?
What
I'm, I'm gonna do this, everybody.
Let's all do this.
Find a dog if you don't have a dog.
(19:44):
I've got two.
We've got an extra one here right now.
Got three.
You can loan one,
Yeah, if anybody, I'm gonna takea walk and with them and I'm
gonna watch, I, I don't know doganatomy, but I guess I would guess
their postauricular reflexes has
to do with when their ears perkup, I'm gonna just like, pay
attention to all of the thingsthat their little ears perk up to.
(20:08):
You know, just as a, like, sensoryawakening, follow their ears,
like dogs follow their noses.
Just kind of like, I wannaexplore the world with them today.
That will get my mood.
It will work.
Everybody else try that walk, walkwith your dog and follow their ears
and their noses and see what happens.
Love
Love it.
Yep.
Uh, well I hope this has beenhelpful, um, with sincerity too.
(20:32):
I mean, like we just talked about kindof a silly thing, but I'm gonna do it and
like whatever gets your creative juicesflowing as well, whatever, whatever feels
good to you to perk your system up today.
Uh, to close our time today, I wantto share some wisdom from Mary Oliver.
These are the last few linesof her poem, wild Geese.
(20:52):
I think we'll probably just quoteMary Oliver throughout our entire
resilience um, episodes thismonth and probably into hope.
God, her connection with nature too.
So,
so good here.
It's "Whoever you are,no matter how lonely.
The world offers itselfto your imagination.
(21:15):
Calls to you like the wild geese, harshand exciting, over and over, announcing
your place in the family of things."
Thank you for listeningto the Joy Lab podcast.
If you enjoy today's show, visitJoyLab.coach to learn more
about the full Joy Lab program.
(21:36):
Be sure to rate and review us whereveryou listen to your favorite podcasts.
Please remember that thiscontent is for informational
and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide medicaladvice and is not a replacement for advice
and treatment from a medical professional.
Please consult your doctor orother qualified health professional
before beginning any diet change,supplement, or lifestyle program.
(22:00):
Please see our terms for more information.
Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast,where we help you uncover and
(00:03):
foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr.Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of
soulful and scientifically sound tools tospark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment withmore joy, combine this podcast with the
full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
(00:27):
Hello, I am Henry Emmonsand welcome to Joy Lab.
And I am Aimee Prasek.
So we are, as you maybe already know,talking about resilience this month.
That is our element of joy hereon the podcast and in the program.
And we are gonna get a little bit morespecific about two things today, a low
(00:47):
resilience tank and minor depression.
And this is gonna be kind ofa theme this month actually.
We'll get into some subtleties aroundwhat may be keeping us stuck in low
resilience or minor depression oranxiety, and we'll get some clear
strategies on how to overcome theseobstacles and boost our resilience.
(01:11):
So today we wanna do that with thosetwo related, but also very different
concepts, resilience and minor depression.
And so just a surface glance atthese they both may feel like a sense
of being exhausted, disconnected,overwhelmed, having brain fog,
(01:32):
lack of motivation, running onfumes, irritated with the world.
I think
we could all, I know it's terrible.
We could all just keep going.
Um, but there's more here to get into.
That'll help us.
So let's, let's separate 'em a bit.
Here's a quick definition of both.
So, resilience is our ability tobounce back when we get knocked down
(01:54):
to bend with stress rather than breakto come back to our homeostasis, our
state of equanimity, natural balancethat we talked about last month.
So a low, uh, level of resilienceis gonna be struggling with those.
And minor depression, also calledsubclinical depression, or sub threshold,
or sub syndromal depression is when wehave depressive symptoms, but not enough
(02:19):
of them, or not severe enough or notfor long enough, to have a diagnosis of
something like major depressive disorder.
But with minor depression, thereare still symptoms and they
are not easy to be stuck in.
Some of them include changes inappetite or weight, sleep problems,
fatigue, lack of energy, motivation,feelings of worthlessness or
(02:42):
guilt, difficulty concentrating
or with decision making, feelingagitated or sluggish, and also
thoughts of, of death or suicide.
Now these may be less frequent or intensethan in major depression, but I think
it's important to know that these canstill be present in minor depression.
And there are estimates that at least20% of US adults are experiencing
(03:07):
minor depression at any one time.
I think it's more, uh, a lowresilience tank, I'd say more adults
are dealing with that than aren't.
It's probably our currentpandemic in the US.
So Henry, do you wanna describemore about how it might feel to have
a low resilience tank and how itmight feel to have minor depression?
(03:29):
Yeah.
Sure.
But let, let me start by sayingsomething about diagnosis.
Just the practice of diagnosis, whichfrankly, I don't think we do a very good
job of in this country in this time.
We don't even do a particularly goodjob of understanding it, I don't think.
(03:50):
So, just as an illustration, if youtalked with a hundred people who
recently were diagnosed with depression,and if you really talk to them and
you kind of dug into their story tounderstand it, I think you'd find that
most of them don't have depression.
Most of them have low resilience.
(04:10):
They, they've lost their resiliencetypically because of too much stress
or too much, too big of a loss.
So the resilience tank is low.
Questionnaires and screeningtools for depression, the sort
you might get at a primary
care visit while helpful, they'remissing a huge element of this, which
(04:36):
is what is really going on, what
is at the root of this?
And without that understanding, wedon't know the best way to approach it.
So these are blunt, blunt instruments,
so to speak.
I also think you're right, Aimee,that this is a modern day epidemic.
(04:59):
Resilience, as I understand it isa natural trait that we all have to
varying degrees, but no matter howbig our tank is, it's not bottomless.
Yeah.
Our reserves are constantly shifting.
Which allows us to adapt toour wildly changing world.
(05:22):
But there's a limit to our adaptability.
Our reserves can be drained andthe world is, we're experiencing
it right now is testing a lotof us in terms of resilience.
.So how do we know if this is a situational, temporary depletion
(05:43):
of our resilience reserves orsomething that is a little deeper,
like a subclinical depression.
Truth is, it can be hard to say forsure, and they can feel so much the
same that if it goes on long enough,you know, resilience depletion can
(06:05):
just basically turn into depression.
In some ways, it's a matterof how long does this last?
But, but here's how Itry to sort this out.
Typically, depression lasts longerand it doesn't lift as easily.
So, for example, I recently went througha time when my res, my reserves were
(06:29):
pretty well drained and my mood tanked.
As soon as I got a break from what wasstressing me, I just bounced back and felt
like my usual self by the very next day.
That is not depression.
Second, depression typically sucks the joyright out of your life, so no matter what
(06:52):
you do, at best, it feels a little flat.
Most of the time when your resilienceis low, you can still enjoy, like even
the simple day-to-day things like agood meal or spending time with a friend
or, or being with a young child, youknow, you can still play and have fun.
(07:13):
And that's usually notthe case with depression.
Even subclinical depression, there's a,a blunting of everything, kind of like
a blanket over your, your experience.
Third, depression is more closely tiedwith your physiology with your body.
There are physical symptoms, so things,for example, like you mentioned, changes
(07:37):
in appetite or energy, or for some peopleit's a physical discomfort, pain or
headaches or stomach pains, and there alsotends to be a stronger genetic connection.
So looking at family history can, canreally help to, to tease this out as
(07:57):
a clinician, when I have my psychiatryhat on, what I'm most interested
in is what can we do about it?
So, in my mind, it really helpsthen to understand the root causes.
And in that sense, there mightnot be a really clean distinction
between having a low resilience tankor subclinical depression, and it
(08:22):
might not even matter all that much.
If there are situational orlifestyle factors that might be
playing into this, and we can dosomething about them, we should,
no matter what label we give to it.
Yeah, I love that.
I think even in this conversation, it'sa opportunity to kind of stretch out
(08:43):
our understanding and definition ofdepression and kind of soften some of the
stigma that I think gets attached to it.
I think oftentimes we think, oh,it's, well, it's not bad enough, so
there's nothing I really need to do.
So maybe the, you know, more hereis understanding that as we have a,
a broader understanding of are wezapped, is our resilience tank empty?
(09:04):
Or you know, is it more on that,that minor depression side?
And if distinguishing doesn'thelp you, but you're not
feeling good, that's fine too.
If you're an overthinker like me and youwanna like have a bit of analysis and
then put a label on it, if that helps you,
great.
We also have a episode on ruminationcoming and that'll be then another
(09:27):
thing that you might wanna,experience with me and Henry.
But yes, if it helps you to...to get a little bit more specific
and then to name it, great.
But if you're not feeling well, that'skind of what you're saying, I think
Henry, like there are things we can dobefore it hits, whatever the, whatever
(09:48):
the diagnostic criteria might be withthe person that you're visiting and how
they perceive it, you have control here.
So like you said, what can we do?
Let's focus on just one or a fewsteps to take that generally can
help to restore your resilienceor, and or help you lift your mood.
(10:08):
So if you're feeling like your resiliencetank is low, if that kind of resonated
with you, Henry, do you wanna give aneasy or a few easy quick steps that
folks can take?
Sure.
So I, I think of this in,in two very different ways.
Like there's, there's twobroad dynamics at play here.
One of them is what's draining yourtank, what's taking it out of you?
(10:34):
And then the other is whatfills your tank back up?
What
brings you back to life?
Understanding, thinking about bothof those things is really helpful.
Often the quickest way to bounceback is to try to put your finger
on one thing that is depletingyou, and then deal with that.
(10:55):
The usual culprits we're allfamiliar with these, are things
like work stress, relationships,
some sort of imbalance in your lifestyle.
Maybe you're not eating very well, notsleeping well, which is a huge one.
Or maybe it isn't just one thing, butsimply that you're doing too much.
(11:16):
You are packing your life too full.
Even if everything isgood, it's just too much.
So don't even worry about tryingto find the most draining thing.
Just identify one thing that'shaving a pretty big impact on you.
Ideally look for something youcan actually do something about.
(11:40):
You know, that, that it, it's, it'swithin your potential realm of control.
That's kind of the tricky part.
You know what, what doI actually do about it?
Really simply put, you onlyhave about three choices.
One, you do nothing.
Just let it be as it is.
(12:01):
Probably not a good choicebecause you're already drained.
Option two, you change it.
Some things are easy, others not.
So to start with, choose an easy one.
For example, all of us can eatbetter, or if we can decide, there's
(12:21):
just one commitment I made this weekthat I can let go of and clear a
little time from my busy schedule.
You know, even if it's somethingfun might be better for you at that
moment to just stay home and rest.
So just find one thing.
It's, it's addition by subtraction.
Oh, love that.
(12:42):
I do too.
I should.
Listen to myself right now.
That's why we're here.
We're all working together.
Let's add by subtracting.
Yes.
Good.
Our third choice is toaccept whatever it is.
To allow it to be there, which doesn'tmean we don't do anything about it,
(13:02):
but simply that we stop resisting it.
That's probably a good topic for anotherepisode, but a really quick summary is
to simply give up on wanting things tobe any different than they actually are.
Hmm.
Yeah, we do a lot of that work here.
(13:25):
And those of you in the program, the JoyLab program, identifying that one thing,
you might find that, if you've doneyour experiment too, you might find an
obstacle in your Resilience Type that'llhelp you focus on like, "Hmm, what's
that one thing it might be in there?"
So if you haven't joined us in theJoy Lab program, do join us as we dive
into these experiments a little bitmore, we get into the meat of this.
(13:49):
Uh, so those are great strategies, Henry.
Thank you.
And I'll speak to minordepression for a moment.
First, I just wanna say, if, you know,again, I think we've, we've got this sort
of, as you said, it's this strict andblunt diagnostic criteria for depression.
And so, you know, it's rigid and it's,it, it, it doesn't fit a lot of us
(14:13):
and we're not saying that, that, weshould be diagnosing more depression.
That's not the the message here.
But it is an invitation to seekout support even if you don't think
you are severe enough, or you'vehit a threshold that looks as bad
as somebody that you know, who'sclinically depressed or something.
So, the first invitation that it, ifyou're not feeling well, seek out support.
(14:37):
gp, a therapist, minor depressiondoes not mean you're weak.
It does not mean you're doing somethingwrong, nor does major depressive disorder.
It does not mean that you're broken.
It is common.
It does mean that you need some support,that your system needs some care.
And so these are little flashinglights to say like, "Hey, I'm
(15:00):
here. Take care of me." That's yoursystem asking you for some love.
And then, you know, something thatyou can do right now, I think that is
really helpful if you resonate here,is to do something, just one thing
that is tactile, that is not relatedto a device and that you enjoy or
(15:20):
that you maybe used to enjoy doing.
So this is sometimes calledbehavioral activation.
We're choosing to do something,a behavior, because it
will activate what we want.
In this case, it will activatesome positive emotions.
So it might be drawing, reading,walking outside, whatever, and
(15:41):
give all of your senses to it.
That's kind of this tactilesensory piece of this.
Something hands-on that you enjoyand that you can really give your
attention to will more effectivelywork to kind of rewire your brain
toward these positive experiences.
Because the thing with minordepression and major depressive
(16:02):
disorder, as you said, Henry, is thatwe often have blunted experiences.
We have blunted positive emotions.
Really, we do not respond as efficientlyto positive stimuli compared to someone
who is not experiencing depression.
Our ears don't perk up as much.
Our eyes don't see it.
We don't smell it or taste it as much.
(16:25):
We really are dulled to the good.
And that kind of sounds abstracteven when I'm saying it.
But this is very literal.
We've talked about this on the pod before,like how our field of vision is limited
amidst depression, there's a muscle orsomething called the postauricular reflex.
I think it is behind the ear thatcan be measured and it's magnitude
(16:48):
if it's a reduced magnitudethat's associated with depression.
Like so maybe some millionsof years ago when our ears
perked up to positive stimuli.
If our ears look differently,like when in depressive states,
we don't perk up as much.
So I think that's wild and evidencethough, that we can, physically
(17:09):
even, if we're not feeling it, makesome changes, we can engage in those
behaviors, those activities thatliterally reawaken our senses, that
expand our vision, that perk up our earsmore, and then we can then expand our
awareness and experience of what's good.
So.
Our system will listen, it'll, it'llwork when we continue to practice it
(17:34):
like any muscle does with practice.
And I wanna say too, even ifyou're not digging it as at first,
if it feels clunky, you feeluncoordinated with it, give it
practice and let your system catch up.
We'll get into this more inthe next several episodes.
You know how literally these practicesand skills work to rewire our body
and brain so that we can feel better.
(17:55):
That we can do that.
We have so much power tocreate that meaningful change.
So Henry, do you have anything more youwanna add or that perked your ears up?
Well, I'll tell you, I lovethe, the ear perking muscle.
I forgot about that.
That postauricular.
Isn't that just, we are amazing humans.
Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna goright to where the money is
(18:17):
'cause there are two things that areproven again and again to lift a low mood,
whether it's from depression or whetherit's loss of resilience that's causing it.
The first is moving your body.
Which does tie in with what youjust said, Aimee, about a tactile
experience and it really, really works.
(18:40):
So it can be anything from aneasy stroll outside to an intense
interval training if you're into.
It actually doesn't much matter, movementand exercise are almost guaranteed to
give you a lift at least temporarily.
Yeah.
The second thing that's proven againand again as a powerful mood lifter is
(19:03):
to have a positive social encounter.
And again, it doesn't
even matter that much what you do.
It can be short or long.
It can be with a stranger inthe grocery store line, or
it can be a lifelong friend.
As long as you perceive it as apositive interaction, it is going
(19:23):
to boost your mood Better yet,put the two of them together.
Go for a walk and talk witha good friend or with a dog.
Yes.
You know what I'm gonna do today?
What
I'm, I'm gonna do this, everybody.
Let's all do this.
Find a dog if you don't have a dog.
(19:44):
I've got two.
We've got an extra one here right now.
Got three.
You can loan one,
Yeah, if anybody, I'm gonna takea walk and with them and I'm
gonna watch, I, I don't know doganatomy, but I guess I would guess
their postauricular reflexes has
to do with when their ears perkup, I'm gonna just like, pay
attention to all of the thingsthat their little ears perk up to.
(20:08):
You know, just as a, like, sensoryawakening, follow their ears,
like dogs follow their noses.
Just kind of like, I wannaexplore the world with them today.
That will get my mood.
It will work.
Everybody else try that walk, walkwith your dog and follow their ears
and their noses and see what happens.
Love
Love it.
Yep.
Uh, well I hope this has beenhelpful, um, with sincerity too.
(20:32):
I mean, like we just talked about kindof a silly thing, but I'm gonna do it and
like whatever gets your creative juicesflowing as well, whatever, whatever feels
good to you to perk your system up today.
Uh, to close our time today, I wantto share some wisdom from Mary Oliver.
These are the last few linesof her poem, wild Geese.
(20:52):
I think we'll probably just quoteMary Oliver throughout our entire
resilience um, episodes thismonth and probably into hope.
God, her connection with nature too.
So,
so good here.
It's "Whoever you are,no matter how lonely.
The world offers itselfto your imagination.
(21:15):
Calls to you like the wild geese, harshand exciting, over and over, announcing
your place in the family of things."
Thank you for listeningto the Joy Lab podcast.
If you enjoy today's show, visitJoyLab.coach to learn more
about the full Joy Lab program.
(21:36):
Be sure to rate and review us whereveryou listen to your favorite podcasts.
Please remember that thiscontent is for informational
and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide medicaladvice and is not a replacement for advice
and treatment from a medical professional.
Please consult your doctor orother qualified health professional
before beginning any diet change,supplement, or lifestyle program.
(22:00):
Please see our terms for more information.
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