Depression is one of the most common and dangerous health conditions of the 21st century, second only to obesity. It affects millions of people worldwide, and while some of them suffer from mild and temporary depression that typically resolves by itself, others suffer from a deep state of depression where they are feeling down and hopeless all the time. As a matter of fact, as much as 7% of the world’s population is said to be suffering from depression, and only a small percentage of those actually do something about it. While being depressed is certainly a negative thing that can seriously impact your life, it also has its upsides. Here are seven reasons why you should embrace your depression – accepting it and realizing its advantages is a big step toward overcoming it!
1. It Can Help You Focus on the Things That Truly Matter
Few of us actually realize how important certain aspects of life are until we get depressed and start to analyze everything on a greater, deeper level. We often tend to take things for granted without thinking twice about them. For some of us, especially for those who have artistic inclinations, depression tends to focus their mind on the most essential problems of life. Taking Darwin as an example, he is known to have suffered from chronic depression, and it was that deep sadness and pain that helped him analyze everything – a trait that helped him greatly when developing his evolutionary theory. For some of us, depression can be the tool we need to create greater things – things that we may otherwise be unable to create if we were always content or happy.
2. Depression is Sometimes the Mother of Creativity
It’s widely known that some of the world’s greatest writers and painters created their masterpieces when they were depressed or deeply hurt. It is almost an unwritten rule of the universe: when you experience a high level of sadness and depression, you tend to create deeply moving things. This is precisely what makes depression such a huge paradox these days, since for some of them depression is often associated with a lack of focus, determination or motivation. Some of those who are depressed simply feel like staying in bed or inside the house for days or even weeks. Others, though, get an inspirational outburst when they are depressed.
3. It Can Actually Help You Think Clearly
Another common myth surrounding depression is that it prevents you from thinking clearly. For some people, however, it actually helps them concentrate and see things in a totally different light. This aspect of depression applies especially if the depression was triggered by a traumatic life event, such as the loss of somebody dear to you.
4. Depression Can Be the Best Motivator
Depression is commonly associated with both deep sadness and anxiety – these feelings are basic traits of depression. However, what most of us fail to understand is that depression can actually turn out to be one of the most motivating things that happens to an individual. Although this is not a general rule and it varies greatly from one person to another (depending on each individual’s own way of thinking and coping with things), depression can sometimes force you to find joy and to stick to it. Sadness can be enabling to some, and depression can actually help us appreciate joy more than ever before. We are all familiar with the saying “You don’t know the true value of something until it is gone,” and this applies to depression – it can help you see the beauty and joy in everything.
5. Depression Can Teach You to Find Reasons for Living
This may sound contradictory, since depression is often associated with a lack of desire to live, but in some cases where a person is so depressed that they only see the world in ‘black and white,’ the depression can help them find reasons for living and going on. Life will try to bring you down more than once, but it is important to stand up more times than you fall down. Depression can help you make a retrospective analysis of your life; it will make you look back and see where you may have done wrong, and what you can correct to make things better. In this sense, depression can help you learn from past mistakes.
