Mind-Gardening

An illustration based on The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry.
This was one of a series of drawings I sold and in return the buyers donated to charities.
Donating to charity and helping other people has been shown to help alleviate anxiety and depression.

Yesterday I heard about someone who fell deep into depression and never managed to get out again. Usually, I would never post about mental health. But that conversation, coupled with other things that are going on at the moment, has made me want to write this.

Everything here is just what I personally found useful. Everyone is different and deals with problems using different tools. I had very bad depression at one point but the main problem I've always had is anxiety, so it might be that the things I found helpful are more suited to anxiety than depression.

This article is really good, and echoes advice I've read in other books. In a nutshell: It's ok to do something and not do it perfectly; Forgive yourself; Wait to worry, and Help other people.

Therapy did not help me, personally, for any length of time, but there is an NHS-approved range of books, and for me, that was a better option.

I use audiobooks a lot - they kind of smother the anxiety, and are really helpful with insomnia. Ones I personally like are Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter books; Carl Sagan reading Pale Blue Dot; Douglas Adams reading Dirk Gently's Detective Agency. BBC Radio 4 have some programmes that are perfect for this, and they're available online, like The Living World.

Bertrand Russell's book The Conquest of Happiness was the first thing that gave me any kind of lever to use against anxiety. Parts of it are dated, but I've never read any book that's made more of a difference to me. Funnily enough Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind also had some good advice in it, and Richard Wiseman's 59 Seconds.
 
Naturally, as someone who draws for a living, I use art to some extent too. In 59 Seconds, Wiseman talks about the research showing how the colour green can help diminish stress. Maybe that's why I chose this beautiful Garas François print for my sitting room. I draw scenes that comfort me and cheer me up, like the one below of a park. You don't need to be good at drawing or painting to do this. It can be a way of going to a nice place in your mind.

A windy park in Autumn, with a dog running and a man flying a dragon-kite.
Drawing this let me take a break from a very dark January day.

I wrote this post, and then didn't know what title to give it. I chose 'Mind-Gardening' because that's sort of what I try to do. My mind can grow a lot of unpleasant things in it, and the methods listed above are the tools I use to weed them out, and make it a comfortable place to be.