Stagnant Energy Is The Enemy

Whether chronic, or situation-based, we’ve all felt at some pt, that terrible depressive symptom where you’re not strong enough to get out of bed.
 
It’s a viscous cycle too: you’re depressed so you get/stay in bed. By staying in bed, the lack of movement actually feeds the depression more, making it even harder to motivate to get up. For me, I can locate the area in my body where the exhaustion literally sucks me into the mattress each time – it’s the back of my neck on both sides, where it meets my upper back. It’s like a magnet to the bed.
 
I remember when my depression was at its worst, when I was in the throes of the major PTSD battle, my psychologist – when I first met her, told me I had to get “stagnant energy in my body, moving.” I replied by saying – I’ve been back going to the gym for the last 2wks (which I thought was a great accomplishment after 2.5 years of laying in a bed).
 
To her, my normal gym routine wasn’t what she meant. She explained that stresses/traumas that we live through, compound, & get caught & trapped in our physical body. In our muscles/joints/fascia/cells. They become corrosive inside of us, & our tendency when we are depressed is to tighten up/hunker in – kinda like this pic. It’s why we have neck pain, back pain, stomach pain, etc.
 
It’s incumbent upon us to move that stagnant energy arnd, or it becomes hard to move on from that cemented-down depressed feeling.
 
My first “homework” was to go to a large tree in my backyard & start swinging a bat against it as hard as I could, picturing anything that angered me. I can’t begin to tell you how it felt to have the release of endorphins & the movement of stored negative energy move arnd for the first time in yrs! It was/is way different than the gym. I was moving my body in ways I just didn’t do in my traditional weight and cardio workout.
 
This wk, I found myself feeling the magnet again. When you’re like that, any movement is a challenge. But I gotta say, anything is better than nothing, so you don’t fall further into the depression spiral. Stretch your arms over your body to each side. Open your legs w your heels touching each other. Roll back & forth on each side. Think about literally letting energy out of any and all areas of your body where it might be caught – your vertebrae, your hips, your shoulder joints.
 
Don’t let your natural tendencies from depression make things worse on you. Even from your bed, you can take back control just by moving bit-by-bit. You can start small and build into larger movements. To be its victim…take back the reigns!