Don Steele   Dealing with the End of Love - Part I Your advice was good regarding my failing situation with my young woman. But the other women I see do little to interest me. I’ve been suffering from the usual physical problems when this happens, like sleep irregularities, night sweats, loss of weight, feelings of hopelessness. I know these are symptoms of depression but I’ve managed to keep functioning OK without medication. Is this normal or do other people not feel it as much when their relationships fail? How do I prevent this next time? Do any of your contacts have an outstanding shrink you can recommend in my area? Rich Bell, Santa Barbara. Question 1. Is this normal or do other people not feel it as much when their relationships fail? STEELE SEZ: Rich, its not only normal, but also extremely necessary! This process is called grieving. You must go through it. Go ahead and cry, cry, cry. Go ahead and smash things. Depression is preventing the expression of emotion. The feelings will come out as physical symptoms if you do not express them as emotions. Somehow, your body makes you pay for holding your feelings of pain, sorrow, self-pity, hopelessness and sadness inside. As a Humanistic Psychologist, my advice is, to exercise at least three 20-minute sessions every day for a month until your heart rate is over 140 and you break a sweat. Swimming is the only activity that is not effective because it keeps your body temperature too low. These work: running, jogging, aerobics, racket ball, basketball, hi-rep weight lifting, bicycling, and such. Running is the best and most effective. When you make yourself exercise, you are taking control of your life and emotions again, even if for short periods. During these times of assertion, your natural body chemistry changes and as the days pass, your brain chemistry begins to change along with it and the depression will begin to lessen. Eventually, your brain chemistry returns to what it was before the trauma. As you continue take control of you emotional life, your real life also comes under your control, simply and automatically. As the Greeks preached, and I agree, a healthy body, a healthy mind. ©2010 R. Don Steele Other Relationship Issues, Books   Don Steele has worked for more than 20 aerospace, defense and engineering companies as well as many political campaigns both in LA and in Hawaii. He became a Marriage, Family and Child Counselor in 1976. Beyond writing, other passions include a deep, abiding hatred for hypocrites, bureaucrats, poverty pimps and nearly all politicians; a lifelong devotion to anthropology, philosophy; astronomy and cosmology plus a long-term love affair with Hawaii, consummated in 1996. He and Joanna Bardot Lopez live in Whittier CA, with their number one dog Wolfie, number two dog, Tootsie, Peaches The Rabbit, Puppy Cat, Princess Cat, Snookums Cat and Bebe Cat. Don is the author of Date Young Women:  For men over 35 - Revised, How to Date Young Women:  For men over 35, Volume II, and most recently, Body Language Secrets. Check out steelballsAUDIO.COM and steelballsRadio.com or E-Mail. Contact Us | Disclaimer | Privacy Statement Menstuff® Directory Menstuff® is a registered trademark of Gordon Clay ©1996-2023, Gordon Clay