No person goes through life without experiencing some level of impaired mental health. There are numerous reasons that can affect our mental wellbeing, but lucky for all of us, psychological problems and disorders are no longer a taboo. Although western medicine greatly ignores the immense impact the mental state has on physical health and overall life quality, people seeking alternative ways to ease their torment have found many clever and efficient ways to achieve improvement.
Among the many holistic, natural, or alternative approaches to dealing with depression, learning a foreign language comes more like a logical choice. Besides being one of the skills a person can acquire to enjoy better brain development and many advantages in life, learning a foreign language has proven to be very beneficial for people dealing with depression.
Depression is not an easy disorder to live with, it completely changes the way you live as it practically dictates your life by forcing you to push away your wishes and ambitions. The intense feeling of hopelessness pushes a person deeper and deeper into self-destruction and despair. Apart from medication that won’t help without taking its tool, learning a foreign language as much as any other solution that promotes mindfulness will provide an effective treatment for depression. Moreover, apart from easing the symptoms of depression, becoming fluent in a particular language gives you a brighter future to look forward to, as it brings many advantages that will improve life quality and fight off depression for good.
Let’s take a look at the process of how starting to learn a foreign language can change your life and bring a new perspective that will help you to efficiently deal with depression.
First, It Brings an Engaging Distraction
A person that is overwhelmed with negative thoughts, stressful and worrisome feelings is mostly unable to concentrate on any task and find an effective distraction alone. That is the common reason why people fail to help themselves by learning a foreign language. The most effective way to step into the “healing” process is to start with the support of another person, preferably an expert tutor.
Staying concentrated and overcoming the challenges of learning something new is not easy even for those that are not dealing with depression, which will make it twice as hard for worrisome types. Therefore, the best way to start is to find an online tutor. Available 24/7 and adaptable to your schedule, one-on-one tutoring with a professional as you can find on livelingua.com is the best choice for you to get the distraction whenever you feel the need to.
Not only that your tutoring time will bring distractions for a full hour or so, but you’ll also establish a purpose and start learning. Moreover, you will have an excellent distraction anytime you are learning the language, alone or with a tutor. It’s very hard to stress over anything if your brain is engaged in remembering words, conjugating verbs, or trying to comprehend a sentence you are reding in your targeted language. Although a tutor is great way to get you going and excellent support on the way, you can always find many supporting solutions like books, movies, music, language apps, etc.
Practicing a New Language = Practicing Mindfulness
Practicing meditation and mindfulness are some of the holistic approaches to depression that are greatly praised for their beneficial impact. Mindfulness is no more than being aware of the present moment and living it fully. This can easily be achieved when learning. By being completely involved in the process, you are practicing mindfulness by learning words, remembering them, putting them into sentences, reading, or talking, it’s all here and now. When engaged in learning a language that you wanted to learn since forever, it’s harder to get lost in worrisome thoughts. Being mindful of your learning process not only brings momentary benefits by easing the pain and burden of depression, but it has long term positive effects. Let’s take a look at those.
It Physically Changes Your Brain
Our brain has the ability to constantly change due to environmental impacts, thoughts, emotions or brain exercise through learning. Moreover, learning a new language is greatly affecting brain plasticity, thus changing the brain in a way that it builds many new neuropathways and connection that form white and gray brain matter. The changes in the brain that learning a new language brings have been studied for years. Searches have confirmed that by becoming fluent in one or more new languages the brain develops seriously enhanced cognitive abilities, multitasking abilities, improved memory and of course, improved mood.
This “building” of the brain will help you think more clearly, moreover, by boosting your abilities it will help you feel more satisfied and happy with yourself. This is only the start of increasing your self-appreciation. By becoming fluent in a foreign language you are building self-confidence and start to believe in your great abilities again.
A Reason to Socialize
Depression isolates people. The overwhelming little world you feel trapped in will now begin to expand and not appear as lonely and tiny. The world will become a good place to live in as you are given a chance for a fresh new start.
A horrible life experience sometimes is the reason that induced depression. In such case, a person that has become fluent in a new language can move to another country, or socialize with completely new people. You can build a new life for yourself without anything reminding you of negative past experiences and avoid those that have hurt you.
Language is about communication and now you are opening a door to meeting completely new people and widen your horizons. Interacting with people on encouraging groups and online platforms will help you realize that there is a whole community of people out there cheering for you to succeed and become your life long friends.
Immense Satisfaction
The absence of happiness and self-appreciation in people with depression is mostly linked with low levels of “happiness hormones”. Moreover, prolonged periods of stress and worries decrease the levels of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins which results in negative emotions, thus inducing and amplifying the symptoms of depression. When a person achieves something so great as becoming fluent in a foreign language it feels happy and satisfied with the achievement. Moreover, these thoughts of self-appreciation and content increase the levels of happiness hormones and physically impact the mental state of the person.
Constant practice and finding a way to incorporate what was learned in everyday life, will remind you of the great value of your personality, and help you to permanently cure depression. Moreover, re-gained self-esteem will result in believing in the ability to learn, improve and advance in life without clinging to the past and negativity in your life.