How to Raise the Dead

"You’re doing “all the right things,” and yet, it can still feel like there is a cloud hanging overhead." Advice for those who find January utterly depressing.

From Crisis

By Rob Marco

When the spiritual bricks are firm in their foundation, and you are in a state of grace, could there be natural steps you can take to bring yourself back from the proverbial dead and reclaim your raison d’être?

January is always a hard crash for me. Each year, the pleasant lead-up to Thanksgiving is followed by a fast-clipped Christmas season right on its heels. New Year’s Eve quickly closes everything out in a disappointing mélange of unmet expectations and forced revelry. And then, for the next of couple months, it’s a descent into the long, cold darkness of midwinter.

For those like me who suffer from things like Seasonal Affective Disorder and clinical depression (not to mention midlife ennui and sinful temptations like acedia), it can be especially difficult to find a reason to get up every morning and face the day this time of year when the “Noon Day Demon” rests heavy on the shoulders. Of course, this is no excuse to forgo the basic spiritual remedies to keep the devil at bay—such as daily mental prayer and Rosary, regular confession, Mass and Holy Eucharist, spiritual reading, and acts of charity. You’re doing “all the right things,” and yet, it can still feel like there is a cloud hanging overhead. 
When the spiritual bricks are firm in their foundation, and you are in a state of grace, could there be natural steps you can take to bring yourself back from the proverbial dead and reclaim your raison d’être? I can think of a few—some proven remedies, and some unorthodox experiments—to jump-start your life in the new year and gear up for Septuagesima and Lent. 

Take a cold shower every morning

I have been taking cold showers, year-round, for about three years now. I never expected it to have the kind of positive effects on my mental and physical state that is has—mostly because it sounds absolutely insane. And yet it has. As I wrote in my 2022 article “Do the Hard Thing,” 

If we are convinced we can’t survive two minutes in an icy lake, and we jump in anyway, what do we have to lose if we want to die in that moment anyway? If we die, we obtain the wish of our distorted mind. But if we come out of the experience, panting and shivering, but very much alive and with a new lease on life…what if that was the spark needed to ignite the will to live again?

Every morning, I step into the shower and turn it on straight cold for two to three minutes, and every morning it is a fresh shock to the system. I focus on my breathing while norepinephrine (the body’s stress hormone) surges and dopamine gets released almost instantly and lasts for hours throughout the day. Anyone can do it, and it doesn’t cost a thing. It is extremely uncomfortable, and that’s the point. You think you’re going to expire, and then you emerge from the ice box of death victorious. Who wouldn’t have a smile on their face after doing that first thing in the morning?

Leave your phone in a drawer for an afternoon

When I went on retreat at a Franciscan hermitage this past fall, I got in the habit of putting my phone away for the two days I was alone in the woods. This is not easy for me. Most of us instinctively know we are addicted to our smartphones and digital devices, and like the cold shower, we feel like we will die from anxiety if we don’t have them in our pocket. 

But it’s simply not true. I am part of the Gen X generation that remembers life before digital tethers, and life was good then. While smart devices may be a necessary evil for many, a digital detox can help with stress and anxiety, increase focus and productivity, lead to better sleep, and build up resilience and creative muscle. And even if it leads to boredom, that’s not a bad thing.

Do a multiday fast

In keeping with the theme in the examples above, a multiday water-only fast can be a great reset from the (over) indulgence many of us succumb to during the holidays. When I did a three-day water-only fast a few years ago, I found it was not only doable but led to greater mental clarity. 

Fasting is a spiritual discipline, but even secularists know the value of this time-honored discipline of restricting food. Metabolic elasticity gives one the advantage of not being so dependent on food three times daily, and periodic extended fasts also help with autophagy which can clear out dead and diseased cells.

Go for a drive with no GPS

I haven’t tried this one yet, but I am looking forward to it in the new year. When I owned a motorcycle in my twenties, I would lay out paper maps and study routes. When I biked across the country, I used MapQuest “cue sheets.” It can be done! Navigation is like a muscle that atrophies when we don’t use it. Think of it like an adventure. What’s the worst that can happen? You get lost? On the flip side, it might just be the shot in the arm you need to feel alive again—like a teenager with the whole world in front of him.

Push yourself physically to the brink

Exercise is good for you; and the older I get, the less I do it willingly. Going for a run, a swim, a bike ride in which you push your body and raise your heart rate above what you might normally do is the last thing you want to do when depressed or laid out by ennui. But comfort itself can kill, and doing whatever one can do to make themselves uncomfortable is a discipline worth enacting. Plus, free endorphins!

Grow something

When I was severely depressed and nothing would help, a friend took me to Home Depot and bought me a mini greenhouse and some herb seeds. I couldn’t do anything right in my own life, but raising those little plants and watering them every day was something I could do. After a few months, when the weather got warmer and brighter, I planted them outside as a testament to hope—the hope that things can and will eventually get better. God made us to be cocreators with Him in His creative enterprise. What a gift.

Serve

Depression has a way of turning you in on yourself. So, the natural antidote is to do the opposite and get out of yourself. And there’s no better way to do this than serving. It could be a friend in need, or the poor at your local soup kitchen, or doing landscaping for an elderly neighbor. Becoming the hands and feet of Christ in the world is a privilege not a chore.The dark days of winter can be a tough time for many people, even the most ardent Christians. But we are not slaves without hope, for we have a Savior who has ransomed us from damnation. Everything else in the natural world can be dealt with. We do not sleep the sleep of death, even though we struggle under its yoke. Physician, heal thyself! (Luke 4:23).