Goswami Kriyananda concludes his three-part series on yoga and depression. Part three gives techniques for overcoming depression.

Depression is a growing crisis in every way. Luckily, helpful treatments can be found at https://cbd360.de/. The rates of depression have rapidly climbed over the last six decades, and it is occurring in younger people, with the average age of the first depressive incident being the upper teens and lower 20s rather than the mid-30s. It has been known that people in this demographic enjoy private label cbd gummies in an effort to tackle the depressive symptoms. Cross-cultural data shows that the U.S. has the highest rate of depression than any other country. Interestingly, reports show that as Asian countries become more Westernized, their rates of depression rapidly increase. This data makes it quite clear that these changes are not the product of individual biochemistry or of family genetics, but a cultural pathology.

There are many depressogenic factors operating in our culture. Information overload is one of these key factors. Since 1945, we have accumulated at least as much information as we had throughout all of recorded history. With all this added information, more people merely skim the surface, which leads to superficial thinking, and people miss the “big picture” and the vital details. As a result, when we have a personal problem, we cannot recognize the steps needed to solve that problem. Thus, we feel overpowered and tend to give up. The next stage is a feeling of being a helpless victim.

Furthermore, our growing reliance on technology contributes to depression. One of technology’s main values is speed. But speed has distorted our perspective of time, thus we expect things to happen instantaneously. This leads to frustration and depression. Embracing speed as a cultural value has a profound disadvantage when applied to building a relationship, solving family problems, or dealing with your children or boss. You cannot instantly learn to be a good judge of another person’s character or instantly build a positive relationship with a new boss, lover, or co-worker.

The result of all this “instantaneousitis” is that people want a good relationship, but they want it immediately. They expect instant intimacy and think they have achieved intimacy by engaging in sex on the first date—even before they know the person’s personality. This leads to greater frustration and stress, which leads to depression, which, in turn, leads people to the couch and to the TV (Terminal Virus) and to deeper depression.

Depending on whose data you believe, Americans watch between four and seven hours of television each day. This has dangerous effects on the mind. On TV, all problems can be quickly solved by violence or murder. A recent report suggests that by the time a child is 12 years old, he or she will have witnessed at least 100,000 acts of violence on TV. All this violence reduces the child’s tolerance for frustration. By watching major problems arise and become resolved in 20 minutes, people totally underestimate the complexity of life.

Scientists have learned that depression is an organized, patterned way of responding to events in one’s life. For example, some people develop the tendency to take things personally, even when things are not personal. Others tend to engage in all-or-nothing thinking. Either way, they draw wrong conclusions about events and make the mistake of believing their emotional conclusions rather than the facts.

It is often assumed that depression runs in families and that the cause is faulty genes. However, people fail to realize that parents transmit their general patterns of thinking, attitudes, and thus perceptions to their children. Thus, some children are conditioned very early in life to make defective negative interpretations about themselves and life. Depressed people are best helped when we encourage them to be active on their own behalf, to challenge their own thinking, and to recognize whether their thoughts are hurting them or helping them. This is why psychotherapy and yoga outperform medication.

Skills for avoiding depression

• Recognize and tolerate uncertainty and vagueness. In many situations there is no one correct answer, but a variety of possibilities. Life is naturally uncertain. Life is a living Rorschach test! It is in response to life’s ambiguity that one is most likely to make a negative interpretation that leads to depression. Thus, critical thinking is crucial for avoiding depression.

• Determine what you are responsible for and what you are not responsible for. This factor is directly related to how much guilt you have or how much guilt you have experienced. The problem is that people continually tend to underestimate or overestimate the amount of control they have over their lives. Furthermore, if people assume they are helpless, even when they’re not, they won’t even try to take action—and thus they are helpless. In addition, you need to discriminate between ways in which you are defined by your achievements and ways in which you are not defined by your achievements.

• Articulate your goals. Many people say their goal is to be happy. But what exactly do they mean by “happy?” The goals must be measurable. For example, happiness is having two meals a day. Happiness is not having a TV set. Happiness is having three hours a day to read and study. Goals must be measurable, or they can lead to frustration and depression. Therapists, yoga teachers, and self-helpers must create learnable sequences for people to follow in order for them to achieve their goals. This will remove the feeling of helplessness, which is a major building block leading to, and sustaining, depression.

• Discriminate between what you feel versus what is objectively true. Good mental health requires an ability to work with the interplay between what’s going on within your head and what is going on in the outer world.

• Develop relationship skills. It is a well-known fact that for the average person, relationships serve as major buffers against illness and emotional disorders. The people who are at the greatest risk for depression are those who feel most lonely. It’s critical to know how to meet people, how to assess them, and how to communicate with them.

Modern people have forgotten how to establish a relationship with nature, with the Divine, or with living wisdom. For those who have forgotten how to do this, relationship skills in dealing with people are vital. The first and the last step in establishing a relationship is to communicate clearly and skillfully so that the relationship flows harmoniously. After that, it is a matter of continuously communicating skillfully.



Reprinted from the July–August 2007 issue of Yoga Chicago.

Goswami Kriyananda


Share This