Aaron Swartz, 26, an Internet developer and activist, committed suicide last week. The tech world has since been ablaze commenting and speculating on his life… and his death.

While many people point to the cause of his death connected to the overzealous prosecution by U.S. District Attorney Carmen Ortiz, it’s unlikely that a single thing led to his decision. If Aaron Swartz was like most of the 100 people every day who take their own lives in this country, the biggest thing that likely led to his death was untreated or under-treated depression.

Which comes as no surprise to people who knew him and have written about him. Nor after reading his own struggles with depression earlier in his life.

His passing is indeed a tragedy. But it’s time to realize that he lived and thrived in a technology sub-culture that mostly doesn’t understand — or care much — about mental illness.

Whenever you’re anxious, sad or overwhelmed or simply need some soothing, it helps to have a collection of comforting — and healthy — tools to turn to.

But some calming activities don’t work for everyone.

For instance, some people are allergic to bath salts, while others can’t drink herbal tea because of possible drug interactions (e.g., blood thinners). Many of us also can’t afford manicures or massages. And most of us are pressed for time.

So we asked three experts for their take on how readers can truly soothe their minds and bodies without needing more money, time or anything else, for that matter. Below are 13 strategies anyone can use to comfort themselves when they’re having a bad day.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
~ John F. Kennedy

I live on the water at the Jersey shore and the reports about Hurricane Sandy were not to be taken lightly. I caught the last train out of Washington D.C. and headed back to the home. Everything on the dock had to be secured or removed and it was already raining.  From the Amtrak station I raced down the Garden State Parkway. 

The rain was relentless.

I went straight through the house to the back prepared to work in the rain to save my stuff.  I had only moved into my house months earlier, and since I travel a lot barely knew the neighbors.  The water was rapidly rising. Trees were already down and everyone had already been evacuated. The town was broadcasting a red alert. I had to get in and get out — fast.

I came in the front door and ran to the back to get out to the dock. But what I saw stopped me in my tracks. 

It’s impossible to feel joy every minute of the day. Life is often a roller-coaster. Amid the good times are the inevitable stressors and tough moments. Our emotions also naturally wax and wane.

However, it is possible to rejoin joy, according to professor and psychologist Gerald Young, Ph.D. It is possible to keep returning to joy even after experiencing something difficult. It is possible, he said, to get on a path that leads to joy.

And creating that path is something all of us can work on. “In our efforts to rejoin joy, we can be the source of much of our change process,” Young said. And those changes can be anything from being a more sensitive partner to working harder to switching jobs to becoming more compassionate overall, he said.

Below, Young offered several suggestions on creating positive change in 2013.

A client shared his frustration over not achieving more in his life, all those things he thought he would have done by now. I suggested that his struggle with low self-esteem would be helped if he stopped comparing himself to others.

This man, like many I know, deals heroically every day with the special needs challenges in his family. He and his wife step up in a non-traditional, focused, determined manner with love and spirit that is hard for outsiders to imagine. He is the frog in the pot, so it is nearly impossible for him to see how exceptional he is.

His reaction to me was: “Are you asking me to lower my expectations?”

No, I said, I’m asking you to blow them up, destroy them, obliterate them to dust. I hate that term: ‘lower expectations’, (can you tell?) as if by thinking differently we are less ourselves instead of more.

When my first daughter was born — nearly 15 years ago — I remember a level of anxiety that I carried with me wherever I was and whatever I was doing.

Was I doing things right? Would my decisions as a parent serve her well? Would she grow up to be a well-adjusted person, at ease and self-confident?

Being in the mental health field, these things were of primary importance to me. I would often ask myselff: Was I stimulating her enough? Was I providing her with an optimal amount of external stimuli? Was I stimulating her too much, interfering with her ability to soothe herself?

The answers from developmental and parenting experts were contradictory and confusing. They ranged from advice, such as never to put your baby in a crib (the equivalent of being “put behind bars”), to the need to teach your baby to self-soothe by several months of age. (Otherwise she will have difficulty developing a sense of independence and self-reliance.)

I was, as many new mothers are, vulnerable to the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” that were expressed all around me, both from experts and from other new mothers.

According to the American Psychological Association, stress is on the rise in America, with nearly half of Americans reporting that stress is having a negative impact on their personal and professional lives.  Although the holidays can be a time of joy, they often bring with them additional stressors.

During the holidays we are often surrounded with images of people who are happy, in love and enjoying the whirlwind of their lives.  In reality, however, this time of year can be difficult.  When our lives don’t match the images we see around us or live up to our own ideals of family and friendship, it can be painful. And spreading all that good cheer, creating traditions and memories can be tiring and can exacerbate daily pressures and hassles.

The following tips are designed to help you find relaxation during this often-emotional time and to improve how you are thinking or feeling about the moment and the season.

After the tragic shooting in Newtown Connecticut last Friday, many have good reason to feel anguish, despair and misery.

These events touched many families personally. For those of us not directly affected, they can still leave us with feelings of horror and wanting to hold our loved ones near.

As a nation and as individuals, we could not possibly have anticipated or planned to have to deal with the emotional consequences of such an event. And yet here we are… many of us saddened, enraged and overwhelmed.

In rearing my kids I always told them that ‘hate’ is a strong word. Don’t use it lightly, I advised. Don’t say, “I hate this tuna casserole!” Instead say, “Gee Mom, I strongly dislike this tuna casserole. Could I have a hot dog?” Save ‘hate’ for when ‘hate’ is the only word that can describe how you feel, when it counts.

I hate so much of what has happened recently.

I hate the senseless loss of the innocents. I hate the loss of good people who cared for the innocents.

From there it gets a little murky.

I hate that I have to separate myself from this tragedy in order to survive it. This is happening to them, not to me. I am safe, my children are safe.

With every Christmas and holiday season, we find ourselves repeating the same old patterns, year after year.

You read well-intended columns, much like this one, that suggest, “Just don’t do this” and you’ll be fine. Of course, if all it took was pure will-power, I’d suspect there’d be a lot less need for therapists.

So instead of telling you things you should or shouldn’t do, I’m going to suggest some simple strategies for actually sticking to those other lists.

There is magic in ordinary moments, in the mess of life. It’s just that sometimes we miss it.

Sometimes we’re so focused on the future or so buried in the past that we neglect the present. Sometimes we crave something so badly that we want time to speed up. And in that yearning, we gloss over the glory of today.

Other times we get so overwhelmed by daily pressures that we assume we don’t have time for the activities that feed us and bring us joy.

In her beautiful book A Field Guide to Now: Notes on Mindfulness and Life in Present Tense author Christina Rosalie shows us how to take notice, and take action, to live a mindful, passionate, truthful life amid the inevitable challenges and stressors.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Ashley Seeger.

Are you feeling anxious about your upcoming wedding? Sick to your stomach? Having bad dreams? Does the sight of the dress fill you with dread? Feeling like you may have made a mistake saying “yes” or proposing?

If you answered yes, you are experiencing pre-wedding jitters. This is your subconscious telling you that something is not right and you need to listen to it. It may be that you are nervous about your own ability to be a husband or wife, anxious that your fiancé can’t be the spouse you need or both.

Having wedding jitters does not mean that the marriage is doomed or that it is time to call off the wedding. But all jitters mean that an intervention is needed. Something is making you anxious and you need to understand what it is.