Krystal Quiles

When I first began working at home, I couldn’t believe I was getting away with such a racket.

No one told me what to do or where to be! I could work in my bed, go to the grocery store in the middle of the day, and my clients were none the wiser. Even though I was a freelancer, I was constantly looking over my shoulder and expecting to be reprimanded by someone.

But my elation wore away when I realized I wasn’t quite alone at home: my anxiety was there, too.

Now, I’m an anxious person, even in the best of times. But these days, it seems like we’re all anxious. And anxiety is another ingredient — like Zoom calls, overloaded wifi or howling children or pets — that needs to be factored into your days, your productivity and your time management.

Some days my anxiety drives me to perform at an Olympic level, with no task undone and no email unanswered even if I have to work until midnight. That is overwork — a common way that many of us anxious people deal with our feelings — and I’ll return to it later.

Other days, anxiety creates a background buzz in the form of intrusive thoughts and fears about the future. It can also make us distracted and unable to focus, so another common way of dealing with anxiety is avoidance (more later on this one too). For example, while I was writing this piece, I baked banana bread, made a half-hearted attempt at the exercise bike, fed the cats their pre-lunch snack, and wandered around my house looking for things that needed my attention.

Working from home can be wonderful, but when you’re anxious, it can be difficult to concentrate and stay on task. How do you stay accountable to yourself and get work done without driving yourself to exhaustion?

Here are some tips based on what I have learned from 15 years of managing my anxiety while also working from home:

1. Call off the mental fire drill that occurs whenever you get a Slack or email notification

I know I’m not the only one whose heart rate accelerates when I see a new email in my inbox (or a Slack message). It could be a client, a staffer, my accountant or my mother. My anxiety drives me to want to quickly fix what they’re writing me about so I’ll feel better. But before I do, I often spend time worrying and trying to suss out the “true” meaning of their message (a fool’s errand, since emotional nuance is lost in almost any digital communication). Then I’ll force myself to respond no matter what — even if I’m finally eating lunch at 3PM or doing time-sensitive work.

Don’t blame yourself for leaping to reply to every message — much of modern knowledge work is built on this Pavlovian system of instant feedback and urgent response. With so many of us working from home and without the normal in-person interaction, this past year we’ve gotten trained to crave the feedback of a “ping” or a visual notification.

To start to de-program ourselves from the need to always be on, we need to practice being disconnected for small amounts of time. Begin with a time limit. Pick an after-hours moment when you don’t need to be online, and then turn off or hide your devices for an hour. Gradually work towards doing this during a workday. For that, select an hour when you can purposefully avoid checking updates (set up an “away” or “in a meeting” notification so people won’t wonder why you’re not getting back to them).

See how you feel when you can take a break from checking. When I avoid my phone for an hour, I notice that my neck is looser and so are my shoulders! Immediate benefit.

2. Stop waiting to get permission to log off

When work isn’t a place you leave at the end of the day, it can be incredibly difficult to stop. And let’s face it, when the option is to keep working and feel in control or spend more time on the sofa doom-scrolling or with whining kids, overworking might seem even more attractive. But learning to stop work is a discipline that creates good habits and a necessary step to keeping your energy tank filled.

I am an accomplished professional, but unconsciously I still want someone to tell me, “You did a good job today — you’re done.” Well, you need to learn to give yourself that permission.

Psychologist Alice Boyes changed my life when she suggested setting concrete limits around the amount of time I spend on the tasks that make me anxious and tend to overdo. Such shortcuts and hacks that help calm anxiety are called heuristics.

Here’s how you could come up with a heuristic to set boundaries on your work hours. At the beginning of your day (or the day before), create a reasonable to-do list. The key word is reasonable — no writing up a list based upon an imaginary 240-hour day — and based on experience, you’ll probably know how long most of your tasks will take. And if you have to guess time for any, guess upwards. Structure your day based around this list, and when you’re finished, close your computer. You did good.

3. When you get stuck in a worry spiral, ask: “What’s making me anxious right now?”

The flip side of overwork is avoidance — avoiding deadlines and tasks because you’re anxious. Everyone has their greatest hits of coping mechanisms, from trying to worry the fear away to working it away to diving into a bag of cheese doodles. Our brain does this because it’s trying to help us avoid our bad feelings. To understand the motivations and causes behind your anxiety, it helps to take a pause to feel your feelings and monitor how you react to those feelings.

Start by looking at what’s making you anxious right now and how the anxiety is making you react. Here’s an example from my life. Thinking about money makes me anxious. When the economic news is frightening, I might act out when I’m faced with a work task that has anything to do with money. So if I need to prepare a financial report for my small business, I assume it’s going to reveal negative results, which sends me into a spiral of fear. Cognitive behavioral therapists call this kind of reaction an anxious automatic thought. Consequently, instead of facing the spreadsheet and doing my work, I might avoid it entirely. I might eat that bag of cheese doodles or buy something online that makes me feel good. I’m reacting to my anxiety.

It’s better if I can learn to move from reacting on auto-pilot to knowing what sets me off and then managing how I will respond. I can say to myself: “Looking at my company’s finances is going to set me off right now. Maybe I should ask my business partner to do it. Or maybe I should build in a reward if I face the challenge head on? I could let myself have an extra hour of Netflix if I complete the spreadsheet.” I find that most of the time, doing the work doesn’t feel nearly as bad as what my anxiety anticipates.

4. Follow it up by finding a super-achievable work task and doing it

As you can see from my example above, when you feel anxious, it’s easy to turn a relatively straightforward task into an overwhelming thought exercise that sends your brain into catastrophe mode. When you are mired in anxiety and avoiding your work, the important thing is to do something. Jonathan Baxter, a family therapist, gave me this advice:

“The experience of stress has to do with your body wanting to take action. If there are actions you can take — whether getting some exercise or cleaning the bathroom or teaching your kids something — go ahead and take them. When you take action, give yourself a moment to let yourself feel good about taking a step. Use your mind to give your body the signal that you have agency and are doing what you can. (“There, I did it!”) The goal is to feel active and effective rather than scrambling from one thing to the next.”

I like to take a page from positive psychology and choose a small, meaningful action that will build my motivation for work and to tackle bigger tasks ahead. Have you ever organized a messy spreadsheet and just felt so good? Pick an activity that connects you to your larger purpose and allows you to see yourself as an effective and competent individual, which will ultimately help you move towards doing the thing you’re avoiding.

5. If that seems impossible, pick a non-work task

If tackling work just feels like too much when you’re toiling from home and staring at a messy house or out-of-control kids, pick a non-work action that’s physical and helpful. Since I hunch and clench in my desk chair when I’m stuck, I like to pick a task that gets my body moving and my shoulders open. I might pick a household chore (I like to scrub the bathtub because it’s quick but physically demanding), cook, do some yard work or even run up my stairs a few times. I find that it helps me to get off my screen and into motion.

Notice how you feel after you do your tiny non-work task and whether you’re able to begin the thing you have been avoiding. Then notice: How long can you continue until anxiety hits again? Is there a specific activity that almost always gets you in the mood to tackle a task?

6. Keep adding to your anxiety-taming bag of tricks

Anxiety feels different for everyone. We all have different triggers, and we all react differently. Money, as I mentioned before, is a big anxiety trap for me. When I get unwelcome financial news, my brain immediately goes to a gloomy place: My business will fail, we will go broke, we will lose everything.

As you continue in your career, it’s crucial that you understand specifically what sets you off and how it affects your workday. Once you understand that, you can try to avoid these triggers and — when you can’t avoid them — use specific strategies or tools that can help you move out of anxiety.

Many people I talk to for my podcast “The Anxious Achiever” tell me that they find making to-do lists and detailed schedules helpful, because they help them cut down on ruminating and overwork. Others know that they need to sweat, get outside or run around with their dog to dissolve that knot of anxiety. I like to cook. When I’m anxious and unfocused, I make giant stockpots of broth or chili. Hey … it works for me.

It’s possible for you to create a remote workday that minimizes your anxiety, creates real connection and engagement with your coworkers, allows you to get your work done, and lets you feel OK about unplugging at night. But like all skills, learning how to manage your workday anxiety takes practice, time, and above all compassion for yourself. We all succumb to the cheese doodles at times, and that’s OK too.

Watch her The Way We Work video here: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Morra Aarons-Mele is a (mostly) happy, successful person. She also identifies as an extremely anxious overachiever. To normalize anxiety and help others manage theirs, Aarons-Mele launched and hosts The Anxious Achiever podcast for HBR Presents, which was a 2020 Webby Awards Honoree and is a top 10 management podcast. She’s passionate about helping people rethink the relationship between their mental health and their leadership. Aarons-Mele is also the founder of the award-winning social impact agency Women Online, which created a database of female influencers, the Mission List. She was named 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year at the Iris Awards, recognizing excellence in digital parenting media. Aarons-Mele is also a prolific writer. Since 2004 she has covered the campaign trail, the White House, the lactation room and the office cubicle. Her book, Hiding in the Bathroom: How To Get Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home), was published in 2017, and she has written for the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Slate, InStyle, O, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the Guardian.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Thoka Maer

Let’s say I’m trying to find a specific location so I’m driving really slowly. The person in the car behind me starts honking and flashing their headlights at me.

How do I respond?

I take it personally.

I know I shouldn’t. But it just happens.

Or, let’s say someone cancels a work-related appointment with me at the last minute.

How do I respond?

Again, I take it personally, even though it’s professional. I feel I must not be important enough to them.

I give keynote speeches for a living, and I really like drawing my audience into my story. But the very moment that I see someone not paying attention and look at their phone, I take it personally.

Of course, I’m not the only person who takes these kinds of things personally.

Imagine you invite a friend to the movies and she replies: “Oh sorry, I have to work.” But then you see her on social media having dinner with friends that very night.

Or imagine you worked hard on a project, you’re really proud of the end result, but the only feedback you get is criticism. So you come home and want to share this terrible experience. But while you’re telling your story, your partner walks away to switch on the TV.

Most of us would take these situations personally — we’d feel hurt, neglected, offended or betrayed by the other person.

At these moments, we believe: “It’s the other person’s fault; they’re responsible for what I feel; they’re the one to blame.”

The part of us that’s speaking is our ego. Our ego thinks others should take us into consideration. Our ego doesn’t want to be criticized. Our ego wants to be acknowledged and told we’re always right.

When our egos take over, it’s exhausting.

Instead, it would probably be easier for us if we could stop taking things so personally. That way, no one has power over us; we’re free. We’d experience more harmony and connection between us and others, and our energy could go towards positive things, instead of endlessly battling against the things that drive us crazy.

Well, how do we do that?

Here are some strategies that I’ve come up with:

Strategy #1: Realize that it’s not about you

When I take things personally, I’m always convinced that their actions are about me. When I see someone looking at his phone when I’m speaking, I feel offended and think, “Hey I’ve put so much effort and time in this presentation. I want respect.”

But in fact, it isn’t about me. What if I try to look at it from the other person’s perspective and ask myself: “Why is he or she looking at his or her phone?”

Maybe she’s just received an important message, one she’s been waiting for. Perhaps the topic of my presentation is not really his cup of tea, or, on the contrary, she finds it so interesting that she wants to take notes on her phone.

By shifting my focus from “me” to “we”, I won’t take it so personally. If I try to see the intention of the other person, I make space for understanding rather than irritation.

When you put your son to bed and he doesn’t want you to and he throws himself on the floor and screams, “I hate you,” do you take that personally?

Probably not, because you know it’s not about you; it’s about what he wants and needs. He’s angry because he just wants to stay up a bit longer; that’s all.

Whenever you start to take things personally, look at the other person’s intention. Of course, this seems simple … in theory. In real life, it turns out to be a heck of a job. When you see two colleagues talk to each other, look at you and start laughing, do you think: “Oh, they must have noticed my new shoes and I want them too?”

No. You think, “They’re laughing at me” or “They’re gossiping about me.”

It takes a lot of effort to say to yourself, “Hang on, I have no clue. They might be laughing about something that has nothing to do with me.”

Seeing the positive intentions of the other person requires discipline and training. I became a kind of referee to train my brain not to take things personally.

When the “It’s not about me” strategy doesn’t work, it usually means it is about me.

Then, it’s time to use:

Strategy #2: Give yourself some empathy, or speak up

Let’s say a driver is tailgating me. Even if I think it’s because he is in a hurry, I need to ask myself: “Was I driving too slowly?”

And when I do, I may realize that I was at fault — and I’m uncomfortable because I don’t like that part of myself which made a mistake.

That’s when you need to give yourself some empathy and say something like: “Oh, this hurts; I’m longing so hard to be perfect” or “I’m longing to be right, and I feel sad when I don’t feel that way.”

Sometimes, it might make sense for you to speak up. If someone walks away while you’re talking to them, tell them: “I’m in the middle of my story, and you just left me to switch on the TV. It feels as if you don’t care about what I’m saying.”

By opening up, being vulnerable, and stating how you feel without blaming the other person (this last part’s important), you increase the chance that they’ll understand you and take your needs into account.

In the next hours, days and weeks, I hope you’ll find some things to take personally — and I think you will! — so you can test out these two strategies.

This piece was adapted from a TEDxMechelen Talk. Watch it here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frederik Imbo is the founder of Imboorling, where he’s now had more than 15 years of experience in stimulating and guiding people. With the aim of increasing people’s communication skills, he gives presentations, workshops and personal coaching sessions. Imbo graduated as an actor from the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Guy Winch

Welcome to “Dear Guy,” TED’s advice column from NYC psychologist Guy Winch.

Twice a month, he’ll answer your questions about life — about your relationships, your job, your family, your passions, fears, and more. Please send your questions to dearguy@ted.com; to read his previous columns, go here.

Dear Guy:

I’m incredibly anxious about coronavirus and what’s going to happen to me, my loved ones, my coworkers, my neighbors, community, and everyone else. What can I do? How do I deal with this?

Signed,

The World

Editor’s note: While this letter isn’t real, the feelings in it are. TED published this special edition of “Dear Guy” to address a topic on many people’s minds right now.

Dear World:

Two weeks ago, the majority of my patients spent at least part of their sessions discussing anxieties about the coronavirus. Last week, every single one of them did. And they expressed many of the same worries: “Will I get it? Should I avoid seeing my elderly relatives? Where can I find some toilet paper?”

Indeed, the pandemic is fueling fear and anxiety around the world. But even though they elicit a similar psychological response, fear and anxiety are two different things. Fear is a response to a specific and imminent danger; anxiety is a response to a vague and future threat.

Most of our emotional responses to coronavirus are in the anxiety category. For the vast majority of us, the threat is still uncertain, like a storm cloud of “what if”s hanging over our heads. We don’t know if we’ll be exposed to the virus or not; if we are exposed, we don’t know if we’ll get symptoms or not; and if we do get symptoms, we don’t know if we’ll able to recover from them.

And unfortunately, anxiety feeds on “what if”s and uncertainty. It fills any unknowns with terrifying worst-case scenarios that keep us in a state of constant stress. Anxiety is, by definition, a psychological over-reaction that can make the most uncertain, unlikely and potentially manageable threats seem both incredibly certain and absolutely unmanageable.

Another problem with anxiety is that it makes us feel helpless, powerless, overwhelmed and paralyzed — all of which increase our feelings of vulnerability and make us less likely to take action.

But that’s where the key to managing our anxiety lies: in taking action.

By acting to restore the very feelings that anxiety seeks to diminish — feelings like control, empowerment, reason, and agency — we can shut off our fight-or-flight response, regain a more realistic assessment of the actual threat, and use our emotional and intellectual capacities to deal with it more effectively.

That said, we are living through unprecedented and extremely challenging circumstances. All of us will experience moments of anxiety, panic, anger and other forms of distress. If you’re overwhelmed by such feelings, do not blame yourself for having them — they’re entirely appropriate. However, do consider adopting emotional self-care strategies (such as the ones below) to help reduce their frequency and intensity.

I’m sure that most of you know the basics about what you should be doing now to maintain your physical health: Get accurate updates and information from reputable sources such as the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control, frequently use hand sanitizer or wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water, seek medical attention if you develop any symptoms, etc.

But you also need to take care of your emotional health. One important way to do that is to manage your anxiety and to reduce your stress.

Here’s how I’m managing my own coronanxiety and how you can manage yours:

1. Focus on what you do know as opposed to what you don’t know

Whenever you notice that your anxiety is leading you to contemplate “what-if” scenarios straight out of World War Z, resist taking the bait. Instead, focus on the facts. For example, while you don’t know if you’ll get the virus, you do know that the majority of people who get COVID-19 have symptoms that are minor and manageable. Or, you don’t know when the crisis will be over, but you do know there is unprecedented global cooperation going on among scientists who are racing to find vaccines and treatments. Or, you don’t know when you’ll see beloved family members who are living in other countries, but you do know you can video-chat with them and stay connected.

2. Focus on what’s in your control as opposed what isn’t

When you feel overwhelmed by what’s going on, take a pause from whatever you’re doing, and shift your mind to thinking about what’s within your control. For example, if you’re in the supermarket, you can’t control whether the other shoppers have washed their hands, but you can put on gloves or use your elbow to open doors and clean your hands thoroughly as soon as you get home. If you’ve been asked to work from home, you can’t control when you’ll be allowed to return to the office but you can make a list of tasks that you can accomplish from home, like emptying out the junk drawer, cancelling the gym membership you don’t use, researching a cheaper cell phone plan to switch to, or tackling that mountain of magazines that your partner has been asking you about.

3. Focus on what you can do as opposed to what you can’t

Whenever you feel powerless, focus on the actions you can take instead of those you cannot. If you plan in a community basketball team and practices and games have been cancelled, you can still work on your skills by using visualization which studies have found, may be almost as beneficial as actual practice. If you’re a parent and you’re worried about your children feeling stressed and anxious, it’s especially important to help them focus on what they can do as opposed to what they cannot. You know one thing all kids can and should do? Chores. Chores are good in times of stress because they allow you and your kids to take action and by doing so, counter your feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. Do your chores together whenever possible — for example, prepare a meal, wash the dog, start a vegetable or flower gardens — since this can enhance bonding at a time when feeling close and connected is so important.

4. Help yourself by helping others

Whenever you feel paralyzed by difficult feelings, one way to get unstuck is to help other people who are in need. In fact, kindness, altruisma and doing for others significantly improves our own well-being than doing for ourselves. Check on a neighbor who lives alone, text a friend who works in a business that’s been hit hard by the pandemic, or call an elderly family member to say hello. If any of your friends or family are struggling with feelings of anxiety, communicate what you’ve learned about managing your own worries. Practicing kindness and helping others are great ways to reinforce your own feelings of agency and control, and they have the bonus of making you feel empowered and connected — important feelings that we could all use more of during these times of stress and potential social isolation.

5. Limit your news consumption

The situation is changing and developing by the hour which is keeping many of us glued to the news or to social media. However, when the news is especially stressful, it’s extremely important to find a balance between keeping informed and not becoming overwhelmed. Decide on specific times of day in which you will check the news, and check it only then. In between, try to focus on doing normal life activities as much as possible, especially if you are sequestered at home or if you have children. We need to give our minds and bodies as many opportunities as possible to de-stress and recover, which means taking breaks from all stress-inducing activities such as news consumption or conversations about the news.

6. Keep your perspective

Right now it can be hard for any of us — psychologists included! — to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But this emergency situation will resolve eventually. We don’t know if it will be in weeks or in months, but humans are highly adaptable creatures and life will seem normal again soon (although it might be a “new” normal).

World, we’re definitely being challenged right now. But we’re far from helpless. We can take control; we can take steps to actively manage our emotional health when we’re stressed or distressed; and we can communicate with our loved ones and stay connected to them. And once we do, we’ll emerge from this crisis having gained something of a great value, something that only true challenges can bestow — increased resilience, understanding and empathy.

Guy

Send your pressing questions about life — about your relationships, your job (or jobs), your family (or families), your passions, fears and more — to dearguy@ted.com

Watch his TED Talk on emotional first aid now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy Winch is a licensed psychologist who is a leading advocate for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His three TED Talks have been viewed over 20 million times, and his science-based self-help books have been translated into 26 languages. He also writes the Squeaky Wheel blog for PsychologyToday.com and has a private practice in New York City.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Jenice Kim

If your self-worth seems to rise and fall according to what other people think, you’re not alone. But you can challenge this mindset and find a new way of valuing yourself, says psychologist Meag-gan O’Reilly.

“How often do you get asked ‘What do you do?’ and feel like that question is going to determine how much attention or respect you receive?” asks Meag-gan O’Reilly, staff psychologist at Stanford University’s Vaden Health Center in Palo Alto, California.

Perhaps you had the stomach-sinking experience of seeing your questioner’s face change or their eyes glaze over when they hear your response. It’s lousy. Instead of being seen and appreciated for all of your complicated individuality, you feel like your worth has been judged in a flash — and found wanting.

But getting a nod of approval is also unsettling, says O’Reilly. “Even those of us who seem to be winning at these conditions stand to lose because conditions change with time, age or unexpected hardships.”

O’Reilly recalls a vivid example from her own life. Once, at a party, she went up to the host — whom she’d never met before — to thank him for his hospitality. She smiled, stuck out her hand, and, she recalls, “I was met with the response of ‘Qualify yourself.’ ‘Huh,’ I said, arm still outstretched … That’s when his friend beside him reiterated the question with more clarity: ‘Qualify yourself; tell him why he should talk to you.’”

O’Reilly says, “Immediately my mind split into two paths. The first and more dominant voice got to work on the task … What are the bells and whistles of my existence that I can showcase to woo and persuade this person I’m worth his time?”

Meanwhile, the other part of her was stunned that, as she put it, “there was a litmus test for conversation. I’m happy to say that this part of me won out. I didn’t engage. I simply said, ‘Thanks again for hosting’ and walked away.”

This incident spurred O’Reilly to think about how small moments like these can chip away at our self-worth. “As a psychologist who’s heard and held hundreds of human stories, I have witnessed firsthand how this mentality of feeling like you are not enough has stolen dreams, ambitions, relationships, health and happiness away from people,” she says.

For some of us, these encounters echo earlier occasions in our lives when we felt like our value as a person was determined by other people — usually adults — and fluctuated depending on what they thought of our latest grade, game, performance or accomplishment. O’Reilly says, “Think to yourself for a moment: What were some of the early messages you received about who you needed to be to show up in the world as meaningful?”

No matter how deep-rooted these experiences and feelings are, we can free ourselves from thinking that we’re not enough. This undoing may take a while to happen so we should be patient, cautions O’Reilly. “It’s a process, and I call it lifespan work.”

Here are 4 ways we can start challenging the not-enough mindset:

1. Do what makes you — not other people — happy. Feeling like you’re not enough can sometimes lead you to take on certain friends, hobbies, projects or jobs that you think will make you look good in other people’s estimation. O’Reilly asks: “When was the last time you did something not because it’s going to show up on your resume, not because it meets that condition of worth you’re wrestling with, but just because you enjoyed it?”

It’s important to pursue the things that you genuinely enjoy because “it softens our stance toward ourselves,” says O’Reilly. “It allows us a zoomed-out perspective and gives us a chance to experience ourselves and others in a non-conditional way.” When you’re in the flow of doing what you love, you can shake off the weight of judgements and expectations.

2. Recognize that you have value … period. Believing you’re enough does not mean that you should lower the bar for what you’d like to accomplish in life, emphasizes O’Reilly; it’s just that your personal enoughness remains constant and isn’t affected by your actions. She says, “Please go and achieve much. But do it in such a way that you know there’s a floor or a baseline of worth that you cannot descend below.”

Contrary to what some people fear, recognizing our inherent self-worth does not mean that we’ll be full of our own self-importance. O’Reilly says, “An inflated sense of self-esteem sounds like … ‘I can do it, I’m the best,” whether or not that’s actually true.” Inherent value, she adds, “sounds like ‘This is important to me, and I’m going to do my best … but it doesn’t define me.’”

3. When you meet new people, go beyond your job, title or school. If we’d like to remove the judgment associated with the “So, what do you do?” question, we can also change how we respond to it. “The next time someone asks you what you do, don’t provide an occupation or field of study,” says O’Reilly. “Instead, share with them something that you cherish about yourself; try to break interpersonal ground with them and not start with labels.” (For more advice on the topic, read the TED Ideas article “How to introduce yourself so you’ll be unforgettable — in a good way.”)

4. Respond with love and acceptance to the successes and failures of your family, friends and colleagues. Similar to the previous point, we need to try to model a new way of being if we want to ease the not-enough mindset in the people around us. Given how achievement-oriented society can be, says O’Reilly, “this is difficult … but a person is not a product and we need a culture that delineates the two and helps us see that one does not define the other.”

Wouldn’t you like the most important people in your life — young or old — to feel like they are enough? By appreciating them and showing that your care for them is unconditional, you can create change that will ripple outwards. O’Reilly says, “Enough is enough with these worth wars we’re waging. Think about how radically different our world and relationships would be if each of us actually acted like we all had inherent value.”

Watch her TEDxSJSU talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Justin Tran

By adopting a take-charge approach towards living with depression, you can start to feel more in control and less powerless, says health activist Jessica Gimeno. She shares three helpful strategies.

“Depression takes practice,” says Chicago-based health activist and writer Jessica Gimeno in a TEDxPilsenWomen talk. Wait — that sounds unrealistic and unwise. Depression just happens to a person, and if you’ve ever been seriously depressed, it’s something that you sincerely hope will never happen again, right?

“What I’m saying is that living well with depression takes practice,” clarifies Gimeno. “Being productive every day despite depression takes practice. Being a student or an employee with depression takes practice.”

Knowing how to live with depression is important for many of us — with more than 300 million people across the globe living with chronic depression, it’s the leading cause of disability worldwide. “With a visible disability, we assume it will take practice to cope, including things like physical therapy,” says Gimeno, who has a blog called Fashionably Ill. “Yet when it comes to depression, we think that a label and medication are enough to cope. It’s time to go beyond getting a diagnosis, into giving people actual coping mechanisms. Without coping mechanisms, we’re trapped in a downward spiral. Being depressed leads to falling behind; falling behind leads to more depression.”

After she was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder when she was in college, Gimeno was helped by therapy and medication. However, she was eager to find out how to continue living her life and get things done while she was depressed. In the absence of existing resources and dealing with other challenges to her health including myasthenia gravis (a debilitating autoimmune neuromuscular disease) and polycystic ovarian syndrome, she created her own strategies. Note: This advice is not intended to cure or treat depression but to help you better manage the rest of your life while living with depression.

1. Be proactive.

It’s a cliche because it’s true — the best defense is a vigorous offense. Do you know what you’ll do the next time you’re depressed? “In order to make a plan, you need to know two things: your symptoms of depression and the strategies that work for you,” Gimeno explains.

While mental-health professionals and physicians have uncovered many common symptoms of depression — such as feelings of anxiety and hopelessness; changes in sleep, appetite and energy; inability to concentrate — Gimeno says it’s important for you to pinpoint your individual signs. It could be sleeping too much or barely sleeping at all, losing your appetite or wanting to eat all the time, excessive irritability or excessive apathy, or anything else. Your signs don’t have to be only physical, however — they may be specific behaviors. For example, writer Chris Dancy has noticed that when he’s feeling depressed he spends much more of his time using particular apps (in his case, Twitter, Fitbit and Facebook).

Next, you need to identify helpful actions that you can take as soon as these symptoms arise. Gimeno asks: “What do you need when you get depressed? Is it faith, is it family, is it friends, is it exercise, is it reading, is it listening to music?” Note: Your go-to activities should be ones that can truly make you feel better, not just cope, and also ones that won’t make you feel worse in the long run. While eating a pint of ice cream is one coping strategy, getting ice-cream with a friend or family member is a better tactic to take. Be prepared to act whenever you notice an episode of depression is beginning for you. As Gimeno says, “Know yourself, plan now, don’t wait.”

2. Zoom in on what’s most important for you to accomplish.

For Gimeno, this means prioritizing her to-do list. She says, “If something’s due today, it gets 4 stars; if it’s due tomorrow, 3 stars; sometime this week, 2 stars, next week [or later], 1 star. And when I’m depressed, I ignore anything that has less than 3 stars.”

Urgency isn’t only about getting things done, she says. It’s “also about being able to say no to non-essential tasks. So, meeting your work deadline is essential; the church bake sale is non-essential. When we say yes to everything, we amplify our stress.”

3. Figure out the difficulty of your tasks, and let this guide your actions.

Gimeno says, “When I’m depressed, I label all tasks as a 1, 2 or a 3. If it’s an easy task, it’s a 1; examples include eating breakfast or taking a shower. If it’s a moderately difficult task, it’s a 2, and a 3 is reserved for difficult tasks. For example, finishing a paper in college, scheduling an appointment with your child’s teacher, or meeting a difficult work deadline.”

If she’s in the midst of an episode of depression, she explains, “I focus on finishing all the 1 level tasks first. And every time I cross something off my list, even if it’s taking a shower, I feel empowered … And as I finish off all the 1 and 2 level tasks, I build the confidence to tackle the 3 level tasks.”

When it’s possible, she also tries to turn 3 tasks into 1s or 2s. For example, when she’s depressed, working out for 30 minutes is a 3. But working out for just 10 minutes makes it easier to accomplish, so that’s what she does.

Despite all her best efforts, plans and lists, Gimeno admits that there are still days when illness wins. Know that’s OK, and don’t add to your suffering by beating yourself up because you’re human. She says, “I want to share this with anyone who … fights depression or who loves someone that does. Yes, depression is real. But hope is real. Courage is real. Resilience is real.”

Watch her TEDxPilsenWomen Talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.