If work, concentration, or sleep are impaired, and feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness are part of the picture, then you may be experiencing moderate or severe depression and it is important to talk to your doctor or therapist. This article addresses mild depression, sometimes called situational depression.

What causes depression? Here are a few examples of the influences that can cause or contribute to mild depression:

• increased work stress
• a rough patch with spouse or family
• ongoing financial stress
• a stage of life transition that hits hard (adolescence, marriage, new family, health issues, retirement, etc.)

These are all situations that separately or together can contribute to mild depression.

So what can you do for yourself when you are still functioning well in your life but just can’t shake your case of the blues?

1. Take a breath, catch your breath.  Breathe deeply and slowly. This may seem laughably obvious but under stress we stop breathing well – that is, deeply and calmly. Try this: Think about a big worry and notice what happens to your breath – chances are it gets shallow, tight and speeds up. Now consciously breathe slowly and deeply again. The problem has not changed but your response to it has. Practice slow, deep, gentle breaths often.
2. Name the inner critic. The “inner critic” is that part of ourselves which judges our own behavior. It is that voice inside our head that puts us down, making a negative commentary about our actions or even our thoughts.  You will recognize it when you are berating yourself or dissecting some past interaction for what you did wrong. The internal critic is also there when we feel shame, embarrassment, or inferiority without knowing why. When we get depressed the inner critic gets louder, which makes us more depressed. To turn this around, catch the inner critic in the act. Call it out, and say to yourself, ”That’s the inner critic, that is not the truth.”  When you see the inner critic for what it is it will have less and less power over you. Some people even name the inner critic, “Bleak Bart” or “ Mean Mary,” and as goofy as this sounds injecting humor helps you stop buying into the negative self talk.

   Remember, the inner critic is not the voice of wisdom or truth.  It may start with a kernel of the truth but then twists it to exaggerate the negative. The wise part of ourselves – the part that helps make hard decisions and sort right from wrong – always has a quality of calm. Wisdom looks at situations with reason and balance,  without criticism or shame.

3. Don’t let shame or guilt set up house in your head.  Shame is the fuel of the inner critic. Whereas guilt is remorse about doing something wrong, shame is a sense of being fundamentally flawed or broken:  not just that I did something wrong but that I am something wrong. There is something permanently wrong, inadequate or broken about me. Guilt or shame often arise out of situations over which we have little or no control. While this is not rational, we may have this nagging feeling that these situations are an indication of personal failure and inadequacy. “If only I were different (smarter, tougher or better looking) this bad stuff wouldn’t happen.”  We all rationally know that bad things happen to good people. We just forget to extend this compassion to ourselves.  So it’s important to recognize shame or guilt when it arises. Confront it, name it. Then reality will help you check the difference between what you can and cannot control.  Lastly, make the choice to be kind to yourself.
4. Acknowledge Anger, Channel Anger. Most of us have heard depression defined as anger turned inward, towards ourselves.  Kicking mild depression means acknowledging and expressing what we are frustrated about, what makes us angry. You can make a list or talk to a trusted friend, one who will just listen and whose confidence you trust. Releasing anger in safe and responsible ways usually means moving the body: walking, running, swimming, even dancing. Getting physical allows your body to flush out the stress related chemicals (such as cortisol), and get the endorphins going.
5. Externalize. Don’t stop with anger – many other emotions and thoughts tend to get stuck in a tape loop when we are feeling down. Get these out, too: if you like to write, journal – choose whether you feel more comfortable with stream of consciousness venting or making a list of all your worries. If you are not a writer then choose your own method for getting it out: a bike ride or run, singing along to a song that expresses how you feel, or watching a movie that expresses how you feel.
6. Univeralize. The hardest part about depression is often how alone we feel, and that maybe something is wrong with us for feeling this way (there’s that inner critic again!). Yet most of the events that contribute to mild depression are an unavoidable part of living. Most of us respond with the same feelings you do.  You are not alone. When we are a bit down, we often feel alone – separate – even if we are with our loved ones. Yet most events that contribute to mild depression are not nearly as unique as they seem.  After all, we are all going through this life together. Talk to a trusted friend or seek out a group of people you can relate to and who can relate to you. It is not necessary to feel alone. The load is lighter when it is shared.
7. Discover one small way to exercise choice, your capacity to steer the direction of your own life, and then do it. Sometimes the even the smallest change reminds us we are not victims of circumstance.  We are not talking earth-shaking changes here, just something that reminds you who is in charge of your life. As a guideline: choose something that is about exercising choice in your own life, rather than changing someone else, and plan healthy escapes: a trip to the ballpark or lunch with a friend, for instance.  Choosing drugs, alcohol or compulsive behaviors may feel like an escape but they really just dig you deeper into depression.

If you try one or two of these suggestions and the mild depression continues, seek help from a professional. If none of these ideas sounds good, or if you know they won’t work for you, or if you just don’t have the energy to try them, then you may be more depressed than you have admitted to yourself. Remember depression is treatable:  the prognosis is good, but you may need a little help to overcome it.

Career, finance, and family challenges are all accentuated by the momentum of modern life. Psychology sometimes makes the mistake of looking at relationships as if they existed in a bubble – approaching relationship stress is as if it were only about the personal and relational dynamic between partners, the inner world of intimacy. But what about the outer world? Relationships – just like individuals – are pushed and pulled by the daily demands of living. Sometimes the going gets especially rough. When partners are in survival mode or simply experiencing the daily grind, relationship needs can end up on the bottom of the priority list and lead to conflict and loss of intimacy.

So how do you keep intimacy alive and well in stressful times? Here are three of the most common problems brought to you by these difficult times and some suggestions for what you and your partner can do about them.

1. Not enough “quality time” together. Between long hours at work, chores and bills, and for those with families, the 24/7 demands of parenting, many couples only have relaxed, unstructured time together when they finally crawl into bed at the end of the day. No energy may be left for conversation, let alone intimacy.

   The fix:

   Plan time together on evenings and weekends. To make this possible, you may need to reduce or cut out one or two extracurricular activities. Make this a priority. Think simple and uncomplicated: take a walk, make a meal or watch a movie. Try to eat dinner together, even on workdays, with TV, computer and cell phone off. If you have a family, include the kids but don’t let them dominate the conversation.  Finding nothing to talk about?  Each day, look for something funny or different that happens. File it in your memory, then share it with your partner.

2. Too Much Change, Too Quickly.  Job loss, job change, moving, financial insecurity, getting older, family crises, health problems, new safety concerns… STOP! For many of us the world is changing very fast. We live with more uncertainty than ever. This can make us more anxious, irritable or just numb. The problem with this is that we bring not only the best but also the worst of ourselves to our primary relationship.  Irritability and anxiety can easily play out between partners, and the relationship suffers.

   The fix:

   First, admit to yourself you are experiencing worry, frustration, or a sense of feeling overwhelmed. Now talk about it with your partner, reminding them they don’t need to fix the problem and to just listen.  Name the “elephant in the living room.” Stress from too-rapid change is normal. Just putting it into words will help. Now, if you realize that one or both of you have been irritable, anxious or “checked-out” in the relationship, own it. Don’t beat up on yourself, but do apologize. Now that you recognize that change can can cause stress, you can talk about when it happens.  This will will relieve some pressure and help prevent becoming “The Bickersons.”

3. Crises of Confidence.  Confidence in ourselves and in each other brings tenacity and “spark” to our relationships. It allows us to navigate through rough times and recognize the future will be better. Confidence is also a necessary ingredient for intimacy and libido in a relationship. One of the results of “too much change too quickly” can be a loss of self-confidence. Things don’t make sense, there is too much to absorb and we have the nagging feeling we have somehow failed. Shaken confidence can affect the quality of our primary relationship. Self-doubt can also effect our confidence in each other. This plays out as one or both partners withdrawing a little from each other, feeling listless or more irritable. There can even be a mood of depression or of resentment. When confidence is shaken, we look for someone to blame and this “blame game” can play itself out in the relationship.

   The fix:

   First, a reality check: successful people never lose their confidence, right?  Nope, loss of confidence happens to everyone, sooner or later. And what’s more, most of us emerge from this kind of crisis wiser and more resilient.  So take a deep breath and stop seeing yourself as personally inadequate or uniquely cursed by fate. Remember what you like about yourself, reflecting on those qualities which are not defined by your job or your finances. If you are not used to introspection, this may take some digging. Write down a handful of things you like about yourself and your life that are not diminished by life’s ups and downs, so you can remember them when you get ambushed by loss or uncertainty.  Now talk to your partner about what you have been feeling, in a non-blaming way. Connect it to something positive by talking about what you like about yourself and your life and finally what you appreciate about them.

These challenges and fixes are the beginning, not the end, of the story. While these are just a sampling of stressors, looking at and working on them carefully can help you make sense of the task of having a sane relationship in a sometimes crazy world.

Putting these suggestions into practice can be straightforward but the process may also  highlight other aspects of the relationship that may need attention, such as  communication, intimacy or resentment. This is where couples therapy can have a big impact, working through both inner and outer stress to put your relationship back on track.

But for now, the best way to start may be to choose one of the challenges that most hits home and address it in a calm and non-blaming way. You and your partner will soon be on the way to getting your groove back.