Here's what DesMaisons proposes:

* Keep a food journal. The journal keeps you in relationship to your body. It reminds you of the connection between what you eat and how you feel.

* Maintain your blood sugar level. Stay steady and clear. Always have breakfast. Eat three meals a day at regular intervals. Eat brown things (whole grains, beans, potatoes, and roots), green things (broccoli and other green vegetables), and yellow things (squash and other yellow vegetables). Choose foods with the least sugars and the most fiber.

* Enhance your serotonin level. Eat protein at each meal. Make sure that enough tryptophan is swimming around in your blood. Have a complex carbohydrate (without any protein) three hours after your protein meal to boost tryptophan into your brain. The baked potato as a nightcap is a powerful tool.

* Enhance your beta-endorphin level. Reduce or eliminate sugars and white things to minimize the beta-endorphin priming that comes with a hit of sugars. Make life changes to enhance behaviors and activities (meditation, exercise, music, orgasm, yoga, prayer, dancing) that evoke or support the production of your own beta-endorphin in a steady and consistent way.

* Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue and click here to follow Therese on Twitter and click here to join Group Beyond Blue, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.

I googled the term "empty-nest depression" to see what I could find on this topic. I was surprised to see the Beyond Blue post I wrote in 2007 at the top of the search results. But, after reading it, I can see why it was so popular. I merely asked a question, and all of you answered it. On the combox of that post are written different kinds of compassionate and insightful responses to my question: How do you treat empty-nest depression? Beyond Blue reader Barbara initiated the discussion with this practical piece of advice:

His new project is a series of articles on Slate.com about the creative relationship. He writes this in his introduction to the series:

What makes creative relationships work? How do two people -- who may be perfectly capable and talented on their own -- explode into innovation, discovery, and brilliance when working together? On one level, these are obvious questions. Collaboration yields so much of what is novel, useful, and beautiful, and it's natural to try to understand it. On another level, looking at achievement through relationships is a new, and even radical, idea. For hundreds of years, science and culture have focused on the self.

Josh then explains a little history on why we've focused on self so much, and why creative relationships hold so much power. Then he wants your input. He writes:

Which relationships do you find most compelling? Which bonds suggest some kind of electrical charge? Where do 1 + 1 add up to infinity? Your cases may be historical or contemporary, high culture or lowbrow, famous or obscure. (But while you might consider it a creative act to, say, raise a child with a partner, remember that I'm after relationships where concrete work can be assessed by the public and by relevant experts.) Please offer some detail along with your nominees. What do you know of their particulars? What do you think accounts for their success?

Can you suggest a form of relationship that probably escapes most of us? For example, it was news to me, when I heard from the food writer Amanda Hesser that every star chef has a crucial partner behind the scenes. (She gave the example Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich.) Another journalist friend, the music writer Richard Gehr, explained to me the role that the arranger played in making jazz compositions sing. (He mentioned Gil Evans and Miles Davis.) I've had enough of these conversations to know how much I don't know. What relationships matter most in your field or one you know?

In the pieces that follow, I'll be examining a variety of pairs, the themes they suggest, and the particulars that make them fascinating. I'll also be following a single pair, subjecting them like guinea pigs to a variety of tests, experiments, and oddball exercises to get the core of their bond. More on that soon.

Let me hear from you, and stay tuned.

Check out Slate.com and tell him what you think.

Artwork by Anya Getter.

Learning to live with trust does not happen overnight, just as the spiritual practices in this book are not necessarily learned in a neat progression: recognize your conditioning, know yourself, then listen for divine guidance and change your attitude. Instead they are points around a spiral. Each practice makes the others easier. Accepting yourself makes it easier to accept others. Accepting others makes it more likely you will bring out the best in them, which helps to build a strong community. Community, in turn, can help you listen to God and know yourself. Sometimes it may feel like you are going in circles, until you realize that you are a little wiser than the last time around.

Accepting life's flat tires seems to be easier for people who have accepted themselves. If you know who you are, what you are capable of, and what you are called to do, you are much less likely to waste your time and energy sweating the small stuff or even the big stuff you cannot change. You are less likely to project your uncomfortable feelings onto other people, instead of facing your feelings and learning what they have to teach you. You are less likely to waste time trying to change other people and more likely to influence them with a positive example.

Quoted with permission, from The Wisdom to Know the Difference (c) 2009 Eileen Flanagan, published by Tarcher/Penguin.