by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

As I look out my window and see the overcast, gray sky, I'm reminded of the seasons changing, and although fall is coming up, winter is just around the corner. While it's a wonderful practice to be in the present moment, at times it's good to look toward the future so we can use this moment for planning.

I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." When it comes to seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or just being negatively affected by less light and shorter days, this is a great opportunity to get your ducks in a row to stave off a depressive slide.

Here are five key tips to stave off any upcoming fall and winter blues.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Bill Knaus EdD , author of The Procrastination Workbook.

Part three of a three-part series on client procrastination

Activity is a useful remedy for depression, but often not easy for your client to execute. When your client's depression lingers, you can use counter-procrastination techniques to spur positive activity.

A five-minute plan to break a procrastination cycle may help limit your client's lingering depression. The method involves getting a client commitment to engage a meaningful, measurable, and achievable activity for five minutes, such as light exercise. The client can choose to do five more minutes, or stop. Here are steps that I follow:

In a recent interview with WJBC, Sara Rosenquist, PhD, author of After the Stork: The Couple's Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Postpartum Depression , said that both women and men experience postpartum depression.

Listen to her interview here.

by blogger Melissa Kirk, co-author of Depression 101

A fairly recent television ad for an antidepressant that shall remain nameless used the tagline "Depression hurts." And really, you couldn't say anything more truthful about this amorphous and much-studied yet little-understood condition. Depression can sap the life out of you, make you feel worthless, self-destructive, and like there's nothing in the world that's real except for the pain. I know the feeling, believe me. I know how people with depression can be so sensitive to painful situations and triggers that we can sometimes literally be afraid of normal human interaction for fear of the pain. We may pop pills, abuse drugs or alcohol, or numb ourselves in a myriad of other ways just to feel that we can cope. Let's face it simply: Depression sucks.

So how can something so painful be our teacher?

Excerpt from Treating Depressed Children

A person’s belief system is comprised of both rational and irrational beliefs. Children and adolescents, like adults, have a particular belief system. Rational beliefs are those that usually tend to be consistent with objective reality and lead to self-enhancing emotions and goal-directed behaviors. Irrational beliefs are generally distortions of reality, are expressed automatically, and lead to negative feelings that often block goal attainment. Irrational beliefs may also remain dormant or inactive and only be activated in specific situations or stressful events.

excerpt fromThe Estrogen-Depression Connection

Depression can occur in a subset of susceptible women

as a result of natural fluctuations in estrogen levels

associated with the developmental stages of a woman’s life.

Let’s break this sentence down into sections:

Excerpt from Is He Depressed or What?

To put it very simply, women tend to think and process their feelings when they are depressed, and men tend to act. A man who takes action in the face of depression can either be extremely adaptive (such as going out to look for a job if he is feeling depressed about being unemployed) or extremely maladaptive (such as picking a fight and getting drunk to escape feeling bad about himself). Research studies report that when women describe what they actually do when they are depressed, they say, “I try to find out why I feel the way I do,” or “I try to analyze my mood” (Nolen-Hoeksema 1993). For men, the patterns are typically quite different. Most men report that they turn to an activity they enjoy or simply decide to distract themselves from the bad feelings: “I decide not to concern myself with my mood.” Of course, many people (especially men) are likely to respond with “What do you mean, depressed?”

Excerpt from Transforming Depression

How well you manage your attitudes and emotions each day determines to a large extent how much vitality you will experience overall. Most people think fatigue sets in because of all the things they have to do or because they didn’t get enough sleep. They often overlook the energy drain from out-of-control emotions.

Different triggers in life can cause stress to run through your system, creating frayed nerves, fatigue, and overwhelming, out-of-control feelings. Once this occurs, it’s important to recover from the stress fast, otherwise your energy drains away. Taking emotional responsibility to get into heart rhythm coherence helps to rebalance your system. Coherence also helps you develop the intuitive discernment to see how to stop draining energy and renew your vitality. This is especially important when you are trying to lift depression.

by guest blogger Melissa Kirk, co-author of Depression 101

I remember the moment I realized my rumination was contributing to my chronic low mood and sense of frustration with life. I lived about a mile away from my job, and in nice weather I would walk to work through neighborhoods of beautiful homes and lush gardens. People in Berkeley love their gardens! On my walk, though, I tended to ruminate - to obsess over what was wrong in my life, to replay difficult incidents and conversations, to worry about what I was missing: the right relationship, the perfect body, the "right" personality. By the time I got to work, I would often feel more tense or distracted than when I had started out, and often I would have missed the beauty of the homes and gardens along the way.

I always thought there was something inherently wrong with me that I got depressed and sad; I figured that somewhere, way back when, I hadn’t learned some vital lesson that others - the ones who didn’t get depressed - had learned. In the back of my mind I always figured I was flawed in a deep, core way that meant that I would never have the things that others had: marriage, successful career, physical beauty, the ability to connect easily with others. This is what I would ruminate over on my walk: why can I never seem to be able to do the things others do? What was wrong with me?

Excerpt from Choosing to Live

So, how shall we view suicide? Here’s what we recommend:

1. Get rid of the stigma
2. Adopt a problem-solving point of view.
3. Keep an open mind.