No matter where you are at in life today, chances are you will likely be depressed at some point in your life. Some live with depression on a daily basis while some of us experience depression based on what is going on in our lives. I noticed recently I had been under a ton of stress. Work has been off the chart stressful, my mom has needed a lot of help after her surgery and nothing in life seemed to be going right by a long shot. I realized it was having a very negative impact on me.
I am also healing from surgery I had a couple months ago. This surgery resulted in significant unplanned weight loss. Seeing I lost weight, I became motivated to workout again. After my Marathon in 2023, I stopped doing much of anything except focusing on my new job. I really had not been taking care of myself so the weight loss due to the forced change in eating habits made me want to exercise again. I started back at Muay Thai but then over the holidays my mom had surgery and my Muay Thai school closed for those two weeks and my stress at worked kicked into high gear.
Stress can really make us feel like failures. So much can be heaped on our plates and we feel like failures when we cannot do it all. We see influencers on YouTube and Instagram who seem to have these perfect lives and do it all but is that real? If you are human, probably very unlikely. I started to feel things were pointless and like life did not really have any purpose other than to fall short and constantly be behind on getting to everyone who needed something from me. I started to loose interest in everything. I decided over the holidays to start doing an online Beachbody HIIT workout and told myself just do this, even if you do not go that hard just hit play and do something. What I found is the hard part was just starting. Once I started, I had fun and finished. When I finished, I felt great. I noticed how much of a difference working out and also eating right had on my self view and attitude. As my body started getting stronger it made me want to keep going as my mood was also improving.
Depression is very hard to deal with for anyone. For some of us it is a life situation and for others it can be an ongoing illness that must be battled. It is important we seek appropriate help and we make time for our health. Working out no matter what it is, can have amazing healing powers for our mind and body.
I am now taking control of my work life a bit more by not letting everyone put 5pm or 6pm meetings on my calendar everyday and instead, leaving and going to the health club or to Muay Thai class. I have noticed what a big difference it has made. It is important we set boundaries otherwise people will continue their behaviors oblivious to how it is impacting us.
We cannot help others if we do not take care of ourselves. Make time for things you enjoy and no matter how busy take time, even a few minutes to put your mind and body first!
