How do you deal with depression and art block?

[Watercolorheart]

Topic title...

[Didules]

...Depression is like the flue, eat well, sleep a lot and it passes... at least that's what I think. About art block... I usually don't do things I can't do at the moment. Just like the flue, it'll passe soon enough. At least I hope.

[Sharm]

I'm manic depressive (possibly bipolar), happens all the time. Getting out of the house and taking in some inspiration helps as well as giving myself permission to do the art/writing/creative thing that I really want to do at the moment and then trying to do what I should be doing once I'm in the groove. Doodles and warmup exercises can be good if you're psyching yourself out, then your doing stuff that actually doesn't matter so why stress? Some people have found actually throwing those away or deleting them to be very liberating and helpful to the process. Doing something active while planning how you want to do that creative thing can help. And if all else fails, just force yourself to do it anyway, sometimes you just need a little momentum.

[Lesleigh63]

Non-clinical depression - i.e. just feeling a bit down and apathetic
I give into it and watch a lot of anime. Then I feel slack for not doing anything creative although sometimes inspiration comes from something in the anime. So I guess the answer to art block or writing block is finding inspiration and something to get all excited about. Big time inspiration for me was finding digital art about 8 yrs ago and more recently finding visual novels (didn't even know they existed and now I really want to make one).

[Tempus]

Sleep and exercise is good advice, but I'd add two more things. Exercise and activity. Exercise as in going for a long walk. Long as in half an hour. Everyday. This will help with sleep too and the sunlight is good too. Activity means anything that requires you to do something, rather than be passive. I find passivity makes me feel worse. Even doing something mindless like washing up is better than having something act upon you (i.e. watching tv, videos, etc). Which is not to say that passive things are bad, merely that they shouldn't constitute all of your time.

This is all based on personal experience though. If you really do think you have depression, consider talking to a doctor or someone qualified to give you advice.

[Arin the Eloquent]

Depression sucks. It really does. I've been dealing with it for the past two or three years. If this is the case, then I just put on Soul Calibur 5 and watch the CPU characters beat on each other. It's always fun to watch them and hedge your bets on who you think is going to win that particular fight. Or just little stupid crap like that to temporarily take your mind off the pain.

[Obscura]

I tweeted a link to this a few days ago.

http://www.med.umich.edu/leadership/res ... 20Time.pdf

Though it doesn't deal directly with depression, this article talks a lot about managing energy. Now, energy is something I believe is completely sapped during a depressive phase, so it might contain some helpful insights, particularly for people who may suffer from mild depression or low energy in general. (I'm not qualified to make any recommendations when it comes to severe depression, other than the standard, "you should probably see a health care professional.")

The recommendations in the article were actually tested using a control group at a number of large companies. You can check out the data measuring the effectiveness of its suggestions. (Spoiler: the energy-boosting regimen seems like it had some very good results for most people in the study!)

[JumpJump]

As others have said before me, better sleep, eating well and exercise dose work wonders. I can personally vouch for that. Now we come to the art block. I had a tutor that once said; "There is no such thing as artists block!", that's a bit of a overstatement I believe. I used to get blocks all the time and it was related to my depression. It got to the point where I almost stopped drawing altogether. It was a real bad time for me. It's been only within the last year that I sorted myself out and with that I found myself drawing again. Since then I can't say that I've come across an artists block. I think that you have to focus on building yourself up before you should handle the block. Think about it, being an artists is about expressing yourself and if you are feeling depressed, what help is that to you?

Keep strong.

[Verstehen]

I get long periods of borderline suicidal depression but I usually pick up and become extremely motivated afterwards, and knowing that'll happen turns it into kind of a pseudo-apathy? I don't know.

With writers block I just go ask one of my co-writers what they would do here and look over the ideas and see if I can improve upon them in anyway. If I can't I just put in a place holders and continue where I can until I can go back and change it.

[twilightworks]

I find watching inspiring artists on Youtube usually cures my art blocks. Sleeping and taking a break also helps to prevent me burning out. Sometimes it's best to just get your mind off art entirely.

Dealing with depression I have less experience with. There are a lot of "general" guidelines you can try to apply if you haven't already, like eating right, getting enough sleep and exercising to release those endorphins.

[AquaEG]

Depression is one topic I can understand. Personally, I've always been described as a silly person, but I've always been really fragile cause a few years ago, depression was literally biting away at me. But I got people to help me through it and got motivated to change myself for the better. Now, I've become quite annoyingly smily-gushy.

I had exercise and good food and all that, but what really picked me up even more was how I was just wasting my time by being depressed. I couldn't do anything then except sleep. My advice is, if you really set a goal for yourself, then you'll focus on that and you'll gradually climb out of it. It not a permanent thing. x)

Plus, depression like the best time to let the creative juices flow! Just go outside, take a nice long breather at a local park or at a beach and trust me, you'll feel a lot better and by the time you're home, your hand'll be itching to draw again!

[Obscura]

I don't know if this has been posted yet, so apologies if it has, but you may want to check out Sycra's theory on art block. A very cool video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb0g_gWrNf8

[Dazed]

I've had mild depression since high school. It runs in my family so I wasn't surprised when it started affecting me. It is really difficult when the depression and writer's block mix. It's hard to get anything done.

Honestly, I tend to sleep when I'm depressed and it generally helps a lot. Gets me feeling well rested and happier when I wake up. Also- a good glass can go a long way. Haha.

[SHiNKiROU]

When I have an art block, I program. Programming never blocks, and if blocking happens, I'm doing something wrong and I should backtrack.

[RobertSilvermyst]

I play Animal Crossing: New Leaf.