THE UPSIDE OF FEELING DOWN

D EPRESSION is debilitating in many ways, but a new study suggests it has at least one upside: It may help you let go of unattainable goals. Psychologists at Germany’s University of Jena asked 40 patients with clinical depression and 38 nondepressed participants to solve anagrams — word puzzles in which the letters are in the wrong order — within a set time. Unbeknown to the participants, some of the anagrams were unsolvable.

The depressed patients spent less time on the unsolvable anagrams than the control group, indicating that they had less difficulty detecting and accepting that it was impossible for them to solve these tasks.

At the same time, researchers say, the two groups spent equal amounts of time on solvable anagrams, suggesting that depressed people could commit themselves to manageable tasks.

Previous studies have shown that clinging to unattainable goals is linked to the onset of depression. In this new study, depression seems less of a psychological dead end than an opportunity — guiding a person toward a quicker resolution and an exit from futility.

Paradoxically, “the one who gives up wins,” says Katharina Koppe, the lead author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. She says the person who’s able to let go can move on, while someone who clings to an unattainable goal is stuck in limbo.

Koppe believes depression can make us stop and question what we’re doing with our lives, which can be constructive. Nevertheless, she says, additional research is needed to see if disengagement nt from simple tasks, like anagrams, can carry over to reallife goals.