Don't Be Sad - Islamic Tips and Advice to Prevent Sadness and Boredom

Don't Be Sad - An excellent book to read and benefit from. Don't be sad is an excellent book by Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni.

This book is based on Islamic principles and gives excellent advice on variety of matters like handling past, dealing with criticism, handling boredom, being content and patient, how to handle the wrong done by others. People are many times affected by what others say about them. If they let others affect them too much, then they are actually giving a lot of power to others. We should not let this happen. We should try and not be overcome with grief when someone says something bad about us. People will always find fault with others, throw tantrums at them and be jealous of the successful ones.

If someone is jealous of you and constantly throws tantrums at you, then it is infact a thing to feel happy about. It is because the author says that people will not kick a dead dog. There must be something in you that makes others jealous of you.

There must be some quality, some skill in you that is making others feel inferior or insecure. So they resort to such behavior with you. You can let them feel more rage by forgiving them for their behavior, ignoring their negative comments and constantly trying to further improve your skills and strengths.

The book talks from an Islamic perspective on improving yourself, your life and dealing with sadness. If you want to know how to overcome grief and not fall prey to depression and sadness then this book might be a must read for you.

There are many reasons for depression. Among them are stress, boredom, loneliness, not being treated properly with others, criticism, past memories etc. If we can learn how to effectively deal with these things so that they no longer affect us, then it can be a big bounty for us.

This book comes out with sound advice for dealing with all the above mentioned problems. So its an essential read for almost all people of all walks of life. It can help us get better at handling our negative emotions so that we do not get easily affected by problems and negatives happening in our lives.

SAD - Real and Treatable

Are You SAD?

Many women experience occasional periods of the "winter blues." However, when the "winter blues" are more than occasional and seem to happen over and over again during the Fall and Winter and not in the Spring or Summer, you may have seasonal affective disorder or SAD. This disorder affects an estimated 35 million Americans to varying degrees. Of these, at least 10 million experience a serious disruption in their lives due to seasonal affective disorder. Did you know that those most likely to be affected by SAD include children, adolescents, and women? In fact, 75 to 80 percent of those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder are women; the majority of women affected by SAD are over age 30.

Symptoms of SAD

The most common symptoms of seasonal affective disorder include:

• Lack of energy including increased fatigue, an increased need for sleep, and lethargy.
• Increased appetite, possible weight gain, and increased cravings for sugar and carbs.
• Withdrawal from friends and family, relationship problems, loss of libido, and anxiety.
• Problems with focusing or concentrating on various types of tasks or work.
• An increase in the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome or PMS, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder which is also called PMDD.
• Seasonal depression during Fall and Winter.

If you experience severe depression with SAD, it's imperative that you receive an evaluation of your symptoms so that a proper diagnosis is made. While the symptoms of major depression are consistent from morning to night, the severity of the symptoms of SAD, such as depression and fatigue, increase throughout the day.

What Causes Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Where you live is an important factor to consider; people who live in far northern regions of the Northern hemisphere or in extreme southern regions of the Southern hemisphere are more likely to experience SAD. In fact, the further north or south you live from the equator the more at risk you become. In the U.S., it's estimated, that as many as 25 percent of the people who live in the northern region may experience seasonal affective disorder. The shorter daylight hours and the reduced amount of sunlight to the retina causes SAD. This is because sunshine increases the body's production of serotonin, and increased levels of melatonin. Together, these seasonal fluctuations cause seasonal affective disorder in some people. Normal sleep -- wake cycles cause variations in our levels of both serotonin and melatonin. These variations allow us to sleep at night and stay awake during the day. When your brain chemistry is off balance your serotonin level may not have enough daylight hours to increase to the level it does during Spring and Summer months.

Treating Seasonal Affective Disorders

Light therapy effectively improves the symptoms of SAD. Because a lack of sun causes SAD, it makes sense that therapy with lights is the preferred treatment. Light therapy increases light to the brain through your retina. Treatment of seasonal affective disorder with light therapy is effective for from 60 to 80 percent of patients, with most patients noticing significant improvement within four to five days.

How Does Light Therapy Work?

Special lamps may be purchased for the purpose of light therapy. These lamps should have a power rating of at least 10,000 lux. This is equivalent to five to twenty times the normal lighting in your home or office. SAD lamps should be used everyday during the peak seasons in which this disorder occurs. For effective treatment you'll need to sit in front of your light therapy lamp from 30 minutes to two hours daily. You should not look directly at the light source. While your in front of your light therapy lamp you can read, watch TV, work at your computer, or anything else you can do while sitting. Although most SAD patients prefer to use their lamps when they wake up in the morning, you can also do this in the evening. The time you pick to do your seasonal affective disorder treatment depends on you and the time of day that you feel it's most effective. You may also find it helpful to set an automatic timer to start the lamp two hours before you wake up in order to create a natural sunrise affect.

Tips to Reduce or Prevent SAD Symptoms

What You Can Do to Help Yourself When Seasonal Affective Disorder Happens

The following tips are helpful for some patients affected by SAD:

1. Eat a low fat diet that includes an adequate amount of protein, but not an excessive amount of protein. You should also eliminate sugar and carbs as much as possible.
2. Some find taking vitamins that contain magnesium, B complex, and minerals is helpful.
3. The elimination of caffeine may also help. Remember caffeine is in most sodas, coffee, tea, and chocolate.
4. Increasing your amount of daily exercise increases your level of dopamine, as well as your energy level. Easy ways to implement increased activity in your daily life include walking, jogging, and aerobics.
5. If your case of SAD is mild, try increasing the lighting in your home -- leave the lights on instead of always turning them off to lower your utility bill. And whenever it's sunny outside, spending extra time outdoors is often helpful.

Don't forget to see your health care professional if SAD symptoms or depression are causing problems in either your personal or professional life. In addition to light therapy both anti-depressants and counseling are often effective methods for treating seasonal affective disorder.

 

 

How to Stop Feeling Sad

Feeling Sad

So you are feeling sad?
I know how it feels like to live in agony and i know how It feels like to be neither happy nor satisfied.
But why do have to feel sad? Are these sad feelings nothing more than a result of a mood swing?
No they are not; these sad feelings are messages sent to you by your subconscious mind in order to motivate you to take an action.

Why Do We Feel Sad?

Sad feelings, like all the other emotions we experience, are an indication that something is going wrong in our lives. The root causes for sadness are uncountable but they can all be summarized under one big category, Unsolved Problems.

The more unsolved problems you have the more likely you will feel sad from time to time. You don’t have to solve the problem completely to feel good but you just need to take an action towards solving it.
See this example below for a better a understanding of the concept. This example will explain to you how communication happens between you and your subconscious mind.

Your Subconscious Mind Hey, you may not get a raise this year and you are not taking any actions so I am sending you some sad feelings to motivate you.

You Oh my God, I am feeling sad, I am feeling sad. Why, why is this happening to me, God, why, why me??
Few weeks later you discovered that you are feeling sad because you are afraid not get a raise so you started to work harder.

Your Subconscious Mind I can see you are taking actions so there is no more need for the sad feelings, I am withdrawing them again
As you can see your subconscious mind found no more reason to keep the sad feelings and so they disappeared. When you feel bad, your main focus should be finding the root cause for these feelings then working on solving them.

Feeling Sad without Knowing Why

Feeling sad without knowing why is usually the result of having too many accumulated problems in your subconscious mind to the extent that you don’t know which one of them is the real reason for your sad feelings or depression.

Some people escape from solving their problems by using drugs, others escape from them by sleeping while a third category escapes by going into a new relationship (see External dependency for more information).
There are hundreds of methods that people use to bury their problems deeper in their subconscious minds but the subconscious mind never gives up and it will always reply back by sending a more intense sad feeling in order to wake them up.

If you don’t really know what’s making you feel sad then start by sorting out all of the problems you have and then try solving them one by one. when you come along the one that is causing your sad feelings you will feel better.

Feeling Sad all the Time (For extended Periods)

Feeling sad all the time is one of the symptoms of depression. You may be feeling sad because you are depressed. Personally, I consider depression a message too telling you that hope was lost and that you should take actions to restore it.

In my book, The ultimate guide to getting over depression i explained how ignoring your problems and allowing them to accumulate can be the primary source for depression.

Some people face problems as soon as they encounter them, while others bury them deeply in their subconscious minds or throw them behind their backs. When they do so their subconscious minds usually respond back with depression. The key to dealing with depression is taking actions and not allowing your problems to pile up.

How to Stop Feeling Sad

Whether it’s an unsolved problem or whether it’s a problem that is buried into your subconscious mind the result will be sad feelings. The only way to deal with these sad feelings is to solve what can be solved and to accept what cannot be solved; only then your sad feelings will go away.

If you don’t like this approach, you can start it the other way around, by starting a journey towards feeling happy. This guide will tell you what you need to do in order to feel happy which in turn will drive sad feelings away.

 

Stop Being Sad

The 3 words you need to stop saying

1. Can’t
The cry of quitters. The of howl of naysayers. Quite possibly the most negative word in the English language. Never give up on something, even if it seems impossible. You aren’t too old, or too dumb, or too short or too poor – figure out a way. I promise you there is one.

Case in point: my friend Rachel’s Dad had been a semi-truck driver for nearly 18 years when he decided he wanted to become a surgeon.  He had been out of school for years, he had a wife and two daughters to support, and was nearly two decades older than the other students applying to medical school. There was a 100 foot wall of “can’t” looming down at him when he decided to follow his dream. He didn’t see can’t.
He is currently a surgeon in Cincinnati.
Stop saying can’t. Don’t give up before you even try.
You can.
I promise.

2. Bored
There is absolutely NO reason you should ever, ever be bored. If you mean to tell me that in the whole wide world there is absolutely nothing you can learn, nowhere you can go, not one thing you can watch, nothing you can listen to and not a single person you can talk to…then and ONLY then are you allowed to say that you are bored.  Instead of saying “I am bored” try saying “What should I do?”.

If you are bored it’s life’s way of telling you to change things up!  Sitting around doing nothing exclaiming you are bored is the sorriest excuse out there – and one that no one is buying. Get off your butt, stop feeling sorry for yourself and pick something new to try! Go volunteer, write in a journal, exercise, learn a language or pick up a guitar.  It’s completely ok if you try 100 different things before you find something you really enjoy, and it’s encouraged to step out of your comfort zone. You are going to keep being bored if you don’t do anything but complain.

3. Hate
How much more of a negative nancy can you be? What is the point of stating aloud, or in your mind, that you hate something? No really, this isn’t rhetorical. What is the point?

There isn’t one. The only purpose it serves is to fuel negative energy into whatever the object of your hate is. You’re making it worse!  Just because you don’t care for something doesn’t mean you have to shout it from the rooftops. Make an effort to see the positive side of things.  For every time you think a negative thought about something, try to balance it with a positive one.

 

About 50% of youths are sad. Our day-to day stress can be a contributing factor to this. Or there could be other things as well. Disappointment, sadness, frustration these things are all part of the life. But prolonged sadness can lead to depression which is not healthy. But you can overcome sadness, at least you can try-

Steps

1. The Cause.You need to figure out why you're sad. Did someone make you sad? Did something make you sad or are you just sad and don't know why. Some people tend to get sad because they are bored of their lives. They think nothing interesting is happening. But you are the one who has to take charge of your life and figure the cause out.
2. Breathe.Take 3 deep breaths and and don't think about anything. See what you can do to make your life an interesting affair or what you can do to eliminate the cause. Just pondering over the sadness is not going to do any good.
3. Share your feelings. Talk to a person you love; a mom, dad, wife, husband, whoever. Its proven that sharing the feelings makes a person feel better. Find a person who will listen to you without judging you. You could even write in a personal journal, which has lots of benefits of cheering you up if you are frequently sad or moody.
4. Then you should just talk why your sad and see if they can cheer you up.
   
   

Tips

• Make sure you talk for a while to people who love and care about you.
• Talk to positive people, funny people as they make you laugh and this helps in eliminating stress.
• Watch funny shows, movies.
• Travel.