Day 148 Gratitude

In one of my daily readings I read about a person who decided to list, alphabetically, the items they were grateful for.  At the time, it was a begrudging task, but the author did it anyway as a gesture of trying to be more positive.  Doing such a task plants seeds of gratitude, and if you review your list frequently (every day?) you move from duty to sincerity.

So, I thought I would try the exercise, not out of duty, but because I have a number of people, things and events that I am truly grateful to have in my life.

Day 147 Trying

Depression is insidious.

Sometimes it comes as a relentless, yet out-of-the-blue sadness.

Sometimes it is a total lack of motivation

Sometimes all you want to do is crawl into bed and hide under the blankets. Sometimes you are angry, at no one in particular, and everyone in general.

There are some doctors who believe depression is related to the food we consume.  This isn't really surprising when you think about the huge numbers of people who are pre-diabetic or diabetic. According to one article in Arch Intern Med that was published in November of 2010, (Directional association between depression and type 2 diabetes mellitus in women) diabetic women are at a 29 percent higher risk for depression, and women on insulin are at a whopping 53 percent higher chance of manifesting depression.

Depression is real.

Depression is crippling.

And lots of people are dealing with depression through medication. According to Scientific American eight to ten percent of Americans are on anti-depressants. Mad in America reports thirteen percent of Americans are medicated for depression - up from almost seven percent in 1999.

That's a lot of people.