The Power of Efficiency and Repetition
Do you remember your first job?
Many of my friends worked in fast food, grocery, or in restaurants. My first job was at a photo center.
There comes a time when you are pressed for time and find a way to do your task twice as fast as your boss trained you to do the task. What fortune! Maybe there’s other tasks that you can do twice as fast and live that ‘getting-paid-to-do-nothing’ dream for an extra 18 minutes each shift.
Write a note to a friend, call someone with the business phone, or, in my case, my coworker and I would shock each other with capacitors taken from those old one use cameras.
Good times.
Our brains work in a somewhat similar way. That three odd pounds of what top neuroscientists call ‘foldey gray stuff’ is optimized for efficiency.
If it can do its job faster, then it will do what is necessary to make that happen (including, bizarrely, killing parts of itself).
So, as we do that new process (taking all the trash out at once, folding new boxes for the next shift, telling customers the cash register doesn’t work for whatever reason); we get better at the process with our diligent practice.
Depression Uses Efficiency and Repetition to Reinforce Itself
Unfortunately, depression often uses the exact same process to drag us down.
In my experience, depression will often start spinning around after a stressful event. This could be a myriad of things. Reason I often hear are the loss of a loved one, then ending of a long term relationship, or chronic levels of stress. The brain, wanting to do things ‘better’ (and feeling like it is failing) starts to stir around. “Why are things so hard? Is it because of me? Is it because I’ve always been bad/negative/poisonous/etc.? I knew it. I’m bad.”
Once depression finds that thought; it will start to look for patterns in your daily life to reinforce this (trust me, your brain HATES being wrong… which is why it came up with the thought above anyway, right?)
It can be so powerful, that even if something good happens; the brain can spin it around into something bad. If it is unable to do that, then it can also just forget about it as if the good thing had never happened.
In other words, depression uses repetition (of negative consequence) and avoidance (using negative reinforcement) to reinforce itself.
Examples of This Process
Often times, people eventually stop enjoying stuff they used to. They start stress eating or stress starving. They lose good sleep or find themselves sleeping too much to try and avoid what they see as a depressive world.
The best example of this is getting stuck in bed. If we leave the bed, then depression says, “Oh, it’s just going to be awful out there. Just stay here and nothing bad will happen!”
Since your brain has access to your inner voice; all of this sounds credible to you. Depression has little issue settling in unseen and unheard. Over the course of a month (or less, sadly), depression can take one’s quality of life down significantly.
Unfortunately, if we stay in bed, we slam the door on the opportunity for something good to happen to us.
This can become so painful that people can start to think about what it might be like to not exist anymore; fastest route being the end of their lives.
So, since you are probably reading this for something to do about this…
What do we do about this?
Observe
Start by observing your thoughts. Accept what you see as a THOUGHT ONLY and NOTHING MORE. What do your thoughts look like? What do they say about the past, present, and most importantly, what do they forecast for the future?
Write it down
Next, write these thoughts down. As a kid or teen, you may have kept a journal. Over time, are they the same? Are many of them rude to yourself, hopeless, or irritated towards others? Why might that be?
Funny. Didn’t you used to keep a journal? Maybe that younger version of you keeping a journal knew what they were doing?
Look at the facts
Next, look at the facts of the situation. Can you read minds? Do you really know how that other person was feeling at the time? How likely is it that the people you are dealing with have some organized agenda against you? Is it possible other people struggle with these same situations?
If the facts don’t really fit the nasty thought that your brian came up with, then what is a MORE ACCURATE way to think about it that FITS THE FACTS?
Did the person on the street who you don’t even know really scowl at you? Maybe they were just having a bad day before crossing paths with you.
Did the car really plot against you to break down on you at the least convenient time (when is a convenient time for your car to break down, really?) or did you just accidentally buy a Dodge Caravan? (We all make mistakes.)
So, in this way, “I’m bad” might become “I’m a good person and people who have never met me wouldn’t know this.” “The future is hopeless” could become “Neither I nor anyone else can predict or know the future.”
Your brain will hate this
Now, here’s the really hard part:
You are going to have to remember and use this new thought process the next time the old process starts. Trust me on the following as I’ve been doing this kind of therapy for the last 8 years now.
YOUR BRAIN WON’T WANT TO DO IT.
YOUR BRAIN WILL DO EVERYTHING TO FORGET ABOUT IT.
THE IDEA OF USING THIS NEW THOUGHT WILL EXHAUST YOU.
Why? The brain is saying that you are being inefficient, even though this new way of thinking is beneficial to your mood.
Ugh, journaling. Isn’t there an easier way?
“But Chris,” you say.
“I get intimidated by blank journals! My depression tells me anything I’d write is garbage.”
If you try the above and you find that it is difficult, then I might suggest you check out my book, Be Calm: A Guided Journal. The book takes several different approaches to guide you through examination of your thought processes, feelings, and life events to develop a plan for change.
The above strategy appears and there’s a ton of other strategies/journal prompts to help you sort out what works for you.
Changing the Behavior
At some point, as fun as shocking each other was (and as scintillating it was to get to know the older girls attending the local liberal arts college); I left the photo center for a better rate of pay at an antique mall and better treatment.
Continued attempt in the face of challenge is effort.
Effort begins deliberate change.
Deliberate change will lead to change in the situation.
A change in the situation will lead to different outcomes.
I hope this has been of some help to you.
If there’s anything more I can do, then please feel free to reach out via email at chris@gentlebeacon.com.
Sincerely,
Chris
PS. You were wrong, Meredith. The Sixth Sense was a great movie and you totally missed out. Spoilers: He sees dead people!
References
Cafasso, J. (2018, September 18). What is synaptic pruning?. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/synaptic-pruning#:~:text=Synaptic%20pruning%20is%20a%20natural,the%20brain%20eliminates%20extra%20synapses.&text=Synaptic%20pruning%20is%20our%20body%27s,and%20learn%20new%20complex%20information
University of Rochester Medical Center. Journaling for mental health. Retrieved January 19th, 2022, from https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=4552&ContentTypeID=1