How to deal/cope depressed and stress?

[GiveYourPaw]

In these days I feel sad, depressed and stressed because of work, media news, paying utilities and giving money at my mom.

First, what's the difference (if there is a difference) between dealing something and coping something.

Second, how to deal/cope depression and stress? Everyone says that studing Martial Arts is a stress and depression relief... but isn't the opposite? For example having too much stress while sparring reaching brunout, doing drills or depressed because can't doing like an exercise, failing at sparring, etc...

 

[drop bear]

The idea is when someone is trying to punch your skull in. You are not thinking about your other problems.

 

[GiveYourPaw]

The idea is when someone is trying to punch your skull in. You are not thinking about your other problems.

I kinda disagree in part, yes I'm trying to not thinking about my personal problem while training, but problems doesn't disappear at the snap of a finger.

So in conclusion you have have stress and pain after the traning session and then you add up your personal probelm. So, double stress.

 

[_Simon_]

Thanks for reaching out and asking a very valuable question, and I'm sorry to hear you struggle with those.

Firstly, to me dealing with something means being proactive in addressing it, and working towards its resolution. Seeing what control and responsibility you have over a situation and applying methods to actively "deal with it". Coping with something to me means it's something that it is realistically there, but potentially out of your control or current ability to deal with. So you develop coping strategies to control things you can control in order to make sure other aspects of your life are balanced, healthy and stable (which then actually puts you in a better position to then deal with it in future).

I get where you're coming from, but to me martial arts is an incredibly potent and wonderful vehicle for assisting in good mental health. I struggle with depression and anxiety, and actually quite severely at the moment. Martial arts helps on many different levels, and is to be honest one of my main therapies.

When you train, you train. You leave behind all ruminating, all problems, difficulties, and spend that time to better yourself, and also better understand yourself.

The physical nature of martial arts has incredible benefits. Not only does it get "stuck" energy moving again through the body, it affects your hormones and emotional regulation in a very positive way. Just the physical benefits alone and how it affects your mental wellbeing is worth an article haha.

On deeper levels it helps you remain grounded, centered, and stable by reminding you every time you train to be so. It connects you with here and now and gets you out of any narratives you feel stuck in.

Your practice can become a form of deeper self-enquiry... while training being aware of how you hold and carry yourself, your doubts that come up etc... and allows you to challenge and question the authority that you have given them, no one else. Your beliefs about yourself come up in training... and you can safely address them and see with awareness how they serve you or not.

MA training can even bring you to a connection with something deeper within you and life itself, and allows you to engage with the spirit behind life and yourself in a very intentional way.

When sparring, to me it doesn't stress you more, but it gives you the gradient opportunity to help deal with stress. When you push yourself and train hard it reminds you of all you are capable of, how strong you are, how you can overcome challenges. You learn patience, and then you learn patience with yourself in your own healing.

You can remember all your training and what you've been able to face, and use that as a reminder and anchor for those challenging times. You develop perseverance and resolve, and it doesn't leave you.

Not only all that... the social component is hugely beneficial. Seeing your mates and getting social interaction helps break that isolation we put ourselves in. And training hard beside your classmates and going through some challenging training is a truly bonding experience that helps you connect to others. It's a great form of support and encouragement.

Dealing with depression and stress is a multipronged approach, and martial arts is but one very valuable tool. Therapy is incredibly beneficial so I highly recommend that, but seriously, martial arts has changed my life for the better, and has become incredibly important in my healing.

 

[GiveYourPaw]

Thanks for reaching out and asking a very valuable question, and I'm sorry to hear you struggle with those.

Firstly, to me dealing with something means being proactive in addressing it, and working towards its resolution. Seeing what control and responsibility you have over a situation and applying methods to actively "deal with it". Coping with something to me means it's something that it is realistically there, but potentially out of your control or current ability to deal with. So you develop coping strategies to control things you can control in order to make sure other aspects of your life are balanced, healthy and stable (which then actually puts you in a better position to then deal with it in future).

I get where you're coming from, but to me martial arts is an incredibly potent and wonderful vehicle for assisting in good mental health. I struggle with depression and anxiety, and actually quite severely at the moment. Martial arts helps on many different levels, and is to be honest one of my main therapies.

When you train, you train. You leave behind all ruminating, all problems, difficulties, and spend that time to better yourself, and also better understand yourself.

The physical nature of martial arts has incredible benefits. Not only does it get "stuck" energy moving again through the body, it affects your hormones and emotional regulation in a very positive way. Just the physical benefits alone and how it affects your mental wellbeing is worth an article haha.

On deeper levels it helps you remain grounded, centered, and stable by reminding you every time you train to be so. It connects you with here and now and gets you out of any narratives you feel stuck in.

Your practice can become a form of deeper self-enquiry... while training being aware of how you hold and carry yourself, your doubts that come up etc... and allows you to challenge and question the authority that you have given them, no one else. Your beliefs about yourself come up in training... and you can safely address them and see with awareness how they serve you or not.

MA training can even bring you to a connection with something deeper within you and life itself, and allows you to engage with the spirit behind life and yourself in a very intentional way.

When sparring, to me it doesn't stress you more, but it gives you the gradient opportunity to help deal with stress. When you push yourself and train hard it reminds you of all you are capable of, how strong you are, how you can overcome challenges. You learn patience, and then you learn patience with yourself in your own healing.

You can remember all your training and what you've been able to face, and use that as a reminder and anchor for those challenging times. You develop perseverance and resolve, and it doesn't leave you.

Not only all that... the social component is hugely beneficial. Seeing your mates and getting social interaction helps break that isolation we put ourselves in. And training hard beside your classmates and going through some challenging training is a truly bonding experience that helps you connect to others. It's a great form of support and encouragement.

Dealing with depression and stress is a multipronged approach, and martial arts is but one very valuable tool. Therapy is incredibly beneficial so I highly recommend that, but seriously, martial arts has changed my life for the better, and has become incredibly important in my healing.

Then why I dont see any improvement after 1 year of MA and still, after a simple training, more stressed as before?

Why everyone don't have this problem?

 

[Gyakuto]

Depression is a very serious, debilitating and specific condition not to be confused with ‘feeling blue’ or a bit down. Do not hesitate to speak to a medical practitioner about your issue as they will offer you a series of options to help you. I think this should be your first course of action.

It sounds like you have ‘reactive‘ mood issues. That means your mood is low because of identifiable external factors that do potentially have solutions.

Looking at your list of factors, one can immediately be dealt with: remove yourself from social media and only watch/listen to the news once per day. I did this a number of years ago and it did help my mood generally: FB et al. are insidiously, nasty, soul-devouring inventions designed to sell you things!

Your other stressors are financial in nature so your options to deal with them are to make more money or reduce your overheads - not terribly helpful advice I’m afraid and an issue that everyone has to navigate most of their adult life.

Dealing means to address the factors causing the issue. Coping means to modify your internal attitude to a stressor so that it becomes tolerable. For example, you could deal with a difficult boss by talking about your issues with them or having them taken out by hitmen (😉). You cope with the death of a relation by rationalising the loss with ideas such as, ‘we had wonderful times together and they had a great life‘, ’they are at peace now’, ‘they live on in my heart and indeed in my every cell as DNA’ etc

I’d suggest doing exercise, preferably something with repetitive movements like weight training, running, swimming cycling etc and socialising a little everyday which might include an MA class, having a coffee with friend(s) and chatting and laughing and it has been shown that volunteering can give you overwhelming feelings of contentment and satisfaction. Find an animal sanctuary or soup kitchen that needs a little help (and you’ll meet people too!).

 

[GiveYourPaw]

Depression is a very serious, debilitating and specific condition not to be confused with ‘feeling blue’ or a bit down. Do not hesitate to speak to a medical practitioner about your issue as they will offer you a series of options to help you. I think this should be your first course of action.

I don't know then and I don't want to search another psychoterapist again, is the fifth time and wasted all the money to them.

remove yourself from social media and only watch/listen to the news once per day. I did this a number of years ago and it did help my mood generally: FB et al. are insidiously, nasty, soul-devouring inventions designed to sell you things!

That is the easy part, the harder part is telling my dad to change the TV channels so I can't hear and watch fighting, brawl, police killing people, people killing police, stabbing each other and much more gore. Now I'm eating at my bedroom because of that but the same problem I have at work, collegues talking and chit chatty at me with gore situation.

Your other stressors are financial in nature so your options to deal with them are to make more money or reduce your overheads - not terribly helpful advice I’m afraid and an issue that everyone has to navigate most of their adult life.

That is not a terribly advice but my mom wants to give her my money because we need to buy our house because my uncle is old and wants to sell it at us. But is hard and I spending my money on utilities, fuel, car insurance, financing, groocieries.

For example, you could deal with a difficult boss by talking about your issues with them or having them taken out by hitmen (😉).

Talking with my boss is like talking to the wall and I can't do that hitmen think, it's illegal.

socialising a little everyday which might include an MA class, having a coffee with friend(s) and chatting and laughing and it has been shown that volunteering can give you overwhelming feelings of contentment and satisfaction.

I'm very bad at socialising, I'm shy, very anxious when someone touch me or making eye contact with me. Still having issue with my only partner in Wing Chun with almost one year training each other.

 

[_Simon_]

Then why I dont see any improvement after 1 year of MA and still, after a simple training, more stressed as before?

Why everyone don't have this problem?

How do you feel during training?

How do you feel right after training?

There are absolutely other factors at play here that need direct addressing then. MA isn't a cure-all, and not a cause and effect relationship (ie "if I do MA, then I am cured"), but a valuable tool for growing, learning, healing and exploring yourself.

I actually felt the same with my first style I trained in. After a year or two training I didn't feel different, didn't experience those effects others claimed. I needed to tackle this thing from a few approaches. And chances are without the training, I could have been way worse off. It's not a great model of objective measure and very hypothetical, but it's highly possible. Like taking vitamins. You may not feel different, but if you hadn't been taking them issues could have been much worse. The issue is when we are pervaded with a negative or pessimistic mindset and attitude we interpret alot in light of that, and literally at the time can't see it any differently. We find evidence of our perception, ie, we find what we're looking for. The issue is, we disregard anything to the contrary to support our narrowed view.

Give it time. Use training more intentionally for your own therapy.

And if you are stressed after training, I would strongly recommend looking into why that might be... what sort of training are you doing, what is your instructor's teaching style like? Fellow students?

 

[GiveYourPaw]

And if you are stressed after training, I would strongly recommend looking into why that might be... what sort of training are you doing, what is your instructor's teaching style like? Fellow students?

I'm studying Wing Chun, and my istructor in before practiced Boxing and a little bit of MT, he is not an *******, sometimes he asked me why are you off but I'm scared to ask him because I don't want to waste 3 hours of training due to my problems... I have one fellow student and I'm struggling but because is my anxiety and shyness.

How do you feel during training?

How do you feel right after training?

During training I'm shaking and worried: even with protection, even overwatched by our istructor, I'm kinda deviate my fist out of the sight of my partner head or even the shoulder or any body parts.
And after the training I'm feeling stressed and not satisfied at all, my instructor and my partner saying that you've done a good job, but for is not good.

The issue is, we disregard anything to the contrary to support our narrowed view.

I don't understand this, sorry I'm still learning English 🙇‍♂️

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I don't understand this, sorry I'm still learning English 🙇‍♂️

Basically, when you have a negative mindset, you only look at the stuff that supports the negative mindset. When things happen that would argue with that mindset, your brain doesn't like that because it's not what it's expecting. So instead it will find a way to rationalize (make sense out of) in a way that turns it into a negative, or just ignore it completely. Hopefully that helps.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I don't know then and I don't want to search another psychoterapist again, is the fifth time and wasted all the money to them.

The below is general advice, not specific to your situation, which I do not know, and not medical advice. Just my own noticing's throughout life.

When people have been through multiple therapists (3 or more), sometimes it's just really bad luck with therapists. But more often it's some combination, in no particular order. of:

1. They need more intensive therapy (ie: they go every other week, when they really need weekly sessions, or even an intensive outpatient program (daily sessions) or an inpatient program. Basically the severity level is greater than the treatment level they've received.
2. They're doing something wrong in therapy - Not being honest with the therapists, not doing homework (if the therapy model requires it), not following up with what was learned outside therapy, or just generally not engaging
3. They're finding excuses not to like their therapist, consciously or unconsciously, and leaving their therapists due to that
4. They've got a chronic illness (ie: persistent depressive disorder, a personality disorder or substance use disorder) which would indicate they need longer term therapy than they expect
5. They're doing just therapy, not meds, or vice versa, when they should be doing a combination (or the other one).

Again, I do not know you. I do not know your situation. I do not know your illnesses beyond what you've said. I do not know what's happened between you and your therapists. But these are the 5 most common issues, in my experience, and it's worth some introspection to see if any resonate with you.

 

[GiveYourPaw]

The below is general advice, not specific to your situation, which I do not know, and not medical advice. Just my own noticing's throughout life.

When people have been through multiple therapists (3 or more), sometimes it's just really bad luck with therapists. But more often it's some combination, in no particular order. of:

1. They need more intensive therapy (ie: they go every other week, when they really need weekly sessions, or even an intensive outpatient program (daily sessions) or an inpatient program. Basically the severity level is greater than the treatment level they've received.
2. They're doing something wrong in therapy - Not being honest with the therapists, not doing homework (if the therapy model requires it), not following up with what was learned outside therapy, or just generally not engaging
3. They're finding excuses not to like their therapist, consciously or unconsciously, and leaving their therapists due to that
4. They've got a chronic illness (ie: persistent depressive disorder, a personality disorder or substance use disorder) which would indicate they need longer term therapy than they expect
5. They're doing just therapy, not meds, or vice versa, when they should be doing a combination (or the other one).

Again, I do not know you. I do not know your situation. I do not know your illnesses beyond what you've said. I do not know what's happened between you and your therapists. But these are the 5 most common issues, in my experience, and it's worth some introspection to see if any resonate with you.

Is nice of you listing all the possible issues that force me to change therapists multiple times and I'm feeling, and it's totally understandable, you suspect that I'm in denial, but the therapist they all had bad reviews that I found out after all the sits that I payed so yes, it was bad luck.

And I'm deeply sorry if you guys suspect this behavior that I'm feeling that I don't have. Maybe because I'm lacking of knowledge that schools didn't want to teached me nor my parents nor the society.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Is nice of you listing all the possible issues that force me to change therapists multiple times and I'm feeling, and it's totally understandable, you suspect that I'm in denial, but the therapist they all had bad reviews that I found out after all the sits that I payed so yes, it was bad luck.

And I'm deeply sorry if you guys suspect this behavior that I'm feeling that I don't have. Maybe because I'm lacking of knowledge that schools didn't want to teached me nor my parents nor the society.

I'm genuinely not feeling you have any behavior. Like I said, I don't know you, and it's totally possible that you only went to bad therapists - they do exist, and some people just have bad luck. It's just less likely than the other options, so it's worth introspecting either way.

And the main reason I'm mentioning this is because you're asking about martial arts issues that sound much more like mental health issues. If you want to improve your anxiety during training/the 'double stress' you're having, or the sparring issue, it doesn't sound like the answer will come through martial arts naturally. Sounds like something underlying that you're only noticing with martial arts.

 

[GiveYourPaw]

Sounds like something underlying that you're only noticing with martial arts.

After reading this maybe I've thought of something, I remember, beside bullies, that everything started when I started to see blood or generally "brutal" Martial Art (like MMA) so I think that will be the issue I think like: anxious while training, deviate my punch so I couldn't hit him so it's safe, stressed after the training because of overthinking, etc...

Now... the hardest step is next...

Thank you

 

[Oily Dragon]

In these days I feel sad, depressed and stressed because of work, media news, paying utilities and giving money at my mom.

First, what's the difference (if there is a difference) between dealing something and coping something.

Second, how to deal/cope depression and stress? Everyone says that studing Martial Arts is a stress and depression relief... but isn't the opposite? For example having too much stress while sparring reaching brunout, doing drills or depressed because can't doing like an exercise, failing at sparring, etc...

Stress? Breathe.

Depression? This is serious. Seek a doctor.

There are those who believe merely talking about your problems with a professional stranger is enough to treat depression, but it often takes medicine of some sort. In a lot of cases trauma is so deep in a person, they won't even get to the point of being able to talk about it openly without first setting their brain chemistry straight.

And there's a whole spectrum there from medical prescriptions for anxiety down to recreational self medication (which I would never recommend to anyone)

Short of all that, most people can't even breathe well during stress. I learned Shaolin Chan breathing and it worked for a long time. It doesn't always work, because I've got more problems than most monks. Imagine what it must be like to have nothing to do but chill and train on a mountain. I'm jealous.

You could look into that, some sort of meditation practice. Hell, we can start teaching you right now if you want.

It's Friday!! Movimiento es vida.

 

[GiveYourPaw]

Stress? Breathe.

I'm lucky that I can do diaphragmatic breathing without even thinking because I play the flute, but I'm so used to this that it doesn't help anymore.

We do Qi Gong sometimes, but we can do 1 hour and I don't see improvement.

It's Friday!!

Guess who are going to work tomorrow...

<< me

 

[Oily Dragon]

I'm lucky that I can do diaphragmatic breathing without even thinking because I play the flute, but I'm so used to this that it doesn't help anymore.

We do Qi Gong sometimes, but we can do 1 hour and I don't see improvement.


Guess who are going to work tomorrow...

It's still Friday. You've got a whole day before Saturday!

Can you do diaphram breathing under a heavy load (more than 50lbs) or like, in a deep squat?

What kind of Qingong?

 

[GiveYourPaw]

Can you do diaphram breathing under a heavy load or like, in a deep squat?

Yes

What kind of Qingong?

Ummmmmmmmm... there is variations of Qingong? Here, we go... now it will be more complicated... I thought Eskrima was the only complicated part...

 

[Oily Dragon]

Yes

Ummmmmmmmm... there is variations of Qingong? Here, we go... now it will be more complicated... I thought Eskrima was the only complicated part...

A lot of variations. Qi gong is a really diverse set of physical and mental training exercises from China based on ancient gymnastic and calisthenic exercises.

Martial arts style didn't really develop their own Qi Gong really, as much as adopt it. Qi gong sets are usually much older exercises with common names that are used in different styles. Seven Golden Gates, Eight Pieces of Brocade, Wu Wei (no-action) exercises, Shaolin Sinew Changing Classic.

Some are more "martial" than others, particularly the routines involving added weight.

Some are really easy (Five Animal Frolic, which is pretty low impact), some are very difificult (this is Shaolin Yijin Jing).

 

[JowGaWolf]

Then why I dont see any improvement after 1 year of MA and still, after a simple training, more stressed as before?

Why everyone don't have this problem?

Sounds like you are focused on the wrong thing. You aren't getting the expected outcome that you think you should have based on the training you do. This is backwards

Training should be done without thought to expectations. Results are the insights of your training. If you aren't good at sparring then you have to look at your training and make changes there or make changes in how you understand the training. Sometimes we may think that the training is for sparring but when we understand more we learn that the training is for breathing or for coordination.

If your stress and depression follow you then it's a bigger issue that may not have anything to do about martial arts.

The reality about people is that they don't explode when you hit them. our minds often makes us feel like we have more power than what we really have. To deal with this, hit your sparring partner in the stomach softy and increase you punching power with each strike until they tell you that they don't want to be hit harder than that punch.


This will help you to gage your power.