Doubling Up
This month’s 30 day trial serves dual purposes for me. See, I’m a homebody. I usually prefer activities which can be done at home — reading, computer programming, watching DVDs, and so forth. When I was traditionally employed, I was forced to get out of the house and interact with people on a daily basis, but when you’re unemployed or work from home, you’re just not required to get out into the world as much. But staying at home all the time can have a dark side, and getting my exercise by going for a walk helps me fight it.
When I was in the hospital last year, I started having a relapse of my depression. This time, though, instead of it being a general mental condition which I could trace to no specific cause, there was an obvious connection between my physical condition and my state of mind. Another important difference is that psychological assistance was much more readily available this time. I notified the nursing staff of my difficulty, and they arranged to have a social worker visit me daily to discuss what was bothering me. I told them about my previous bout with depression, and during one session, one of them said something that made a big impression on me.
“Isolation is depression.”
I had never thought of it in such stark terms before, but when I thought back on the worst times of my depression, I realized that I really did feel isolated, and I think that was a big piece of why I was depressed. Of course, depression invokes the snowball effect — you feel bad, so you don’t want to do anything, so you don’t, so you feel worse… it’s a feedback loop, a vicious circle that keeps pushing you down more and more. But isolation is depression. When I came out of my depression, I did it with the help of medication, but at this point in my life, I think a better solution is to avoid depression in the first place, and that means avoiding isolation.
So you see, getting out of the house every day, walking to the post office, to the supermarket, to the sandwich shop — it’s not just exercise. I get to count the walking time against my exercise goal, which is good for my health, but it also ensures that I encounter other people. It may not be much interaction, but I see new people every day, have a brief exchange, and go on about my day. That makes a world of difference compared to staying in the house whenever possible. Going for a walk is two for the price of one — I get to work on my health while also shoring up my relationships, even if only in the minorest of ways. It’s nice to know that the time that I’m spending is serving a dual purpose, especially since I tend to begrudge time spend exercising as time that I could have been doing something that resonates with me in a way physical activity does not. And it’s a habit that I need to keep up when I get out of here and move back to my house. Get up, go out, do something every day. Because isolation is depression, and pursuing solo activities breeds isolation.
Doubling up is a great strategy for pursuing your goals — any activity that moves you toward two goals at once is an efficient pursuit, and I’d like to find more ways of killing two birds with one stone. What other ideas do you have about how to double up?