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The shower
Mel Robbins went through severe postpartum depression after her daughter Sawyer was born. One day she got out of bed, stood under hot water, and went back to bed. She remembers that shower as the smallest moment that made her feel okay.
Two channels of relief
A moment like that can work through two channels. One is sensory: hot water on the skin and a moment of relief. The other is meaning. Some part of the person can place the shower against yesterday and the day before, when it was impossible, and register that today it happened.
Reading small moments
The brain is good at generous interpretations of small moments, and people can train themselves to make them. Without that context, the same shower would not have provided the same hope. Registering it means that change is possible and that the person is capable.
Why do mood changes follow childbirth?
Estrogen and progesterone climb to very high levels during pregnancy and fall sharply within days of delivery. A 2000 study at the National Institute of Mental Health, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry by Michael Bloch and colleagues, raised these hormones in women and then withdrew them. Women with a history of postpartum depression developed mood symptoms after the withdrawal, while women without that history did not. Researchers also point to sleep disruption and social stress as contributors.
Why does a small win lift mood?
Harvard Business School's Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer analyzed nearly 12,000 daily diary entries from 238 employees at seven companies. They found that the best days were marked most often by progress, including small steps forward. The effect did not depend on the size of the achievement. Amabile and Kramer called it the progress principle, and they described it in a 2011 book.
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