“Psychiatrist Alexander Niculescu sees depression as a survival instinct to conserve resources in an environment void of hope—“to keep still and stay out of harm’s way,” he wrote in a 2005 article in Genome Biology. It’s a form of hibernation: When the emotional landscape turns wintry, our neurobiology tells us to stay inside. Except that it can last much longer than a season. It’s as if our entire being has said, there’s nothing out there for me, so I may as well quit.”
– Dr John J. Ratey, Spark!
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“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” —But it’s nicer here.… So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?”
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (translated by Gregory Hays)
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Some days the yearning to withdraw and stay under the covers is great.
But getting up prevails over inertia.
Yet the yearning can last all day.
The safety and warmth and solitude of bed.
The splendid isolation from others.
Ignorance of responsibilities.
Fed by, and in turn feeding depression.
Like an ouroboros – the mythical snake that devours it’s own tail.
A perpetual cycle of doom and gloom.
Getting out of bed breaks the cycle.
Getting to work requires movement.
I have to tell myself to get that serpent tail out of my mouth.
It’s difficult to speak with my mouth full.
But I still have the choice to get moving.
Conversations With Quotations 