Schedule Daily Sources Of Accomplishment And Pleasure
For mood health, we need two types of activities: those that provide a sense of accomplishment and those that provide pleasure. A well-researched therapy for depression called Behavioral Activation is based on this principle.
As a general rule, try to have one source of accomplishment and one source of pleasure in each of your mornings, afternoons, and evenings. These can be very simple. For example, a source of pleasure could be sitting in a sunny window to drink your morning coffee. A sense of accomplishment could come from a workout, vacuuming under your bed, or a work task.
Some people find it helpful to schedule activities in advance so they can more easily hit the recommendation of one pleasure activity and one mastery activity, per morning, afternoon, and evening.
If youre depressed, the pleasure you get from activities will typically be muted compared to normal. So, it may be a little harder to identify activities you would enjoy. This is another reason to schedule in advance. Start by brainstorming a list of the activities that provide either pleasure or a sense of mastery or accomplishment for you. Ask someone who knows you well to help if you feel stuck.
This tip benefits productivity in direct and indirect ways. Activities that provide a sense of mastery or accomplishment are productive, and the structure of this approach will benefit your biological rhythms and your mood.
Self Care Instead Of Spiral
Its time to invest in yourself. Maybe youve been pouring it all into others, into your duties, your activities, your efforts for success. Maybe youve just kept going, white-knuckling as you go rather than processing to feel or think or simply be. Thats why scheduling self care in your life is so important.
When youre feeling depressed, you also are feeling disconnected. Most of all, youre feeling disconnected from yourself. You suffer in silence so the world will not judge you for it. But when you start to love yourself, you start to grow.
Self care can be many things. It can be walking the dog, taking a shower, writing in a journal, expressing yourself in any way or helping someone else in need can even be a way back to loving yourself.
Make a list of things you can do that are simple, that can help you how to not be depressed by connect with yourself when you feel detached, lonely, isolated and drained, the many symptoms of depression. This plan will help how to not be depressed and to adopt self care in the face of struggle rather than to spiral.
If you have to start somewhere, start in self love. Thats what self care is really all about. You are showing up to face the day because you love yourself. Because you matter. This doesnt mean you have to face everything. You dont have to figure it all out. You just have to meet yourself where you are and simply show up.
Questions To Help You Keep Track
- What was the trigger or event?
- What emotion did you feel?
- What were your exact thoughts?
- How did you react?
- Could you, your thoughts, or your behaviors have been different?
- How can you create new thoughts or behaviors for the future?
You can even do it on the go with an app. Search CBT diary or thought journal, in your app store, Rigney suggests.
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Stressed Or Depressed Know The Difference
If you are feeling overwhelmed by stress, you are not alone it’s practically a fact of life on college campuses. A poll conducted by mtvU and the Associated Press in the spring of 2009 reported that 85% of students say they experience stress on a daily basis.
Stress is good if it motivates you but it’s bad if it wears you down. Many factors can contribute to the stress you experience, and this stress can cause changes in your body that affect your overall physical, mental, and emotional health.
Depression is more serious and long-lasting than stress, and requires a different kind of help. In a 2010 survey by the American College Health Association, 28% of college students reported feeling so depressed at some point they had trouble functioning, and 8% sought treatment for depression.
The good news is that depression is a highly treatable condition. However, it’s not something you can snap out of by yourself, so it’s important to get help. How do you tell the difference between stress and depression? Both can affect you in similar ways, but there are key differences. Symptoms of depression can be much more intense. They last at least two weeks. Depression causes powerful mood changes, such as painful sadness and despair. You may feel exhausted and unable to act.
Here are common signs of stress and depression. Which fits you best?
Socialize With Friends And Family
Even if you are experiencing mild depression or a funk, you might find yourself drawing away from others, avoiding social situations, or not wanting to burden people with your feelings. One of the hardest but most helpful things you can do to see yourself through depression is to find that strong support circle and spend time with the people you love.
Schedule times to visit with family and friends or plan to grab lunch with a coworker so you have a specific time and place where you can lean on others when youre feeling blue. You might also find that some of these people have experienced depression themselves and they might be able to relate with you on the subject and share ideas of what has helped them in the past or just lend an open ear.
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Create Lasting Behavioral Changes And Make Them Stick
Recognizing distorted thinking or a behavior pattern thats messing with your life is the first step.
Once you recognize it, its easier to do the work you need to replace it. It may be harder than swapping out a ratty old hoodie, but the mindfulness you build could be the most comfortable change ever.
Write down the action you want to change, then work backward to determine what triggered it, says Lauren Rigney, a Manhattan-based mental health counselor and coach.
Once you learn your triggers, you will have a better chance to intervene and change the thought or behavior.
Rigney recommends making a journal ritual to stay motivated.
If you are a morning person, take 10 minutes each morning to recap your progress, she says.
If you wrote down a situation the day before, take this time to complete the journal. If you are a night owl, that would be a good time to work it into your schedule.
What If My Symptoms Dont Improve
If youre not responding to treatment, you may live with treatment resistant depression. This is when your symptoms have not improved after at least 2 standard treatments. This can also be known as treatment-refractory depression.
There is currently no official criteria used to diagnose treatment resistant depression.
What treatment is available for treatment-resistant depression?There are treatment options for treatment resistant depression. Even if antidepressants have not worked already for you, your doctor may suggest a different antidepressant from a different class.
The new antidepressant you are offered will depend on the first antidepressant you were given.
Sometimes your doctor can prescribe a second type of medication to go with your antidepressant. This can sometimes help the antidepressant work better than it does by itself.
Where antidepressants have not worked, your doctor may suggest talking therapies, ECT or brain stimulation treatments. See the previous section for more information on these.
What is an implanted vagus nerve stimulator, and how is it used in treatment resistant depression?If you live with treatment resistant depression, and youve not responded to other treatments, you may be able ask for an implanted vagus nerve stimulator.
Please speak to your doctor if youre interested in this treatment and for more information. You may be able to get this treatment funded through an Individual Funding Request.
- NHS – Your Rights by clicking here.
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Do Something You Enjoy
Depression can push you to give in to your fatigue. It may feel more powerful than preferred emotions.
Try to push back and do something you love something thats pleasurable or meaningful. It could be playing an instrument, painting, hiking, or biking.
The byproduct of engaging in meaningful activities can be a lift in your mood or energy, which can further motivate you to continue to engage in helpful activities that help with navigating symptoms.
Research suggests that walks in nature may improve depressive symptoms in people with clinical depression.
Time in natural spaces may improve mood and cognition, and lower the risk of mental health disorders. However, theres only limited research on the direct effect of nature on those with clinical depression.
Consider taking a walk at lunch among the trees or spending some time in your local park. Or plan a weekend hike. These activities can help you reconnect with nature and soak in some rays at the same time.
Exercise Is Something You Can Do Right Now To Boost Your Mood
Your fatigue will improve if you stick with it. Starting to exercise can be difficult when youre depressed and feeling exhausted. But research shows that your energy levels will improve if you keep with it. Exercise will help you to feel energized and less fatigued, not more.
Find exercises that are continuous and rhythmic. The most benefits for depression come from rhythmic exercisesuch as walking, weight training, swimming, martial arts, or dancingwhere you move both your arms and legs.
Add a mindfulness element, especially if your depression is rooted in unresolved trauma or fed by obsessive, negative thoughts. Focus on how your body feels as you movesuch as the sensation of your feet hitting the ground, or the feeling of the wind on your skin, or the rhythm of your breathing.
Pair up with an exercise partner. Not only does working out with others enable you to spend time socializing, it can also help to keep you motivated. Try joining a running club, taking a water aerobics or dance class, seeking out tennis partners, or enrolling in a soccer or volleyball league.
Take a dog for a walk.If you dont own a dog, you can volunteer to walk homeless dogs for an animal shelter or rescue group. Youll not only be helping yourself but also be helping to socialize and exercise the dogs, making them more adoptable.
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What Are The Symptoms Of Seasonal Affective Disorder
Seasonal affective disorder is a type of depression. According to the American Psychiatric Association, SAD is officially classified as major depressive disorder with seasonal patterns. So if you have seasonal affective disorder, you have mood changes and symptoms of depression, including:
- Sadness, feeling depressed most of the day, almost every day.
- Trouble sleeping .
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The End Of A Tv Show Or Movie
Reaching the final episode of a TV show or the end of a movie triggers depression in some people. For example, back in 2009, some Avatar fans reported feeling depressed and even suicidal because the movie’s fictional world wasn’t real. There was a similar reaction to the final installments of the Harry Potter movies, according to Entertainment Weekly.
“People experience distress when they’re watching primarily for companionship,” Emily Moyer-Gusé, PhD, assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University, tells Health. With Avatar, Moyer-Gusé suspects people were “swept up in a narrative forgetting about real life and own problems.”
The ends of a large-scale projects, such as a big home renovation, or the end of an experience like a vacation, can also result in depression.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors
Also known as SSRIs, these typically have fewer side effects than other types of antidepressants. Fluoxetine , sertraline , and escitalopram all fit into this category.
Depression is linked to low levels of serotonin . SSRIs work by preventing your blood from absorbing some of the serotonin from your brain. This leaves a higher level of serotonin in the brain, and increased serotonin can help relieve depression.
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Why Is Dealing With Depression So Difficult
Depression drains your energy, hope, and drive, making it difficult to take the steps that will help you to feel better. Sometimes, just thinking about the things you should do to feel better, like exercising or spending time with friends, can seem exhausting or impossible to put into action.
Its the Catch-22 of depression recovery: The things that help the most are the things that are the most difficult to do. There is a big difference, however, between something thats difficult and something thats impossible. While recovering from depression isnt quick or easy, you do have more control than you realizeeven if your depression is severe and stubbornly persistent. The key is to start small and build from there. You may not have much energy, but by drawing on all your reserves, you should have enough to take a walk around the block or pick up the phone to call a loved one, for example.
Taking the first step is always the hardest. But going for a walk or getting up and dancing to your favorite music, for example, is something you can do right now. And it can substantially boost your mood and energy for several hourslong enough to put a second recovery step into action, such as preparing a mood-boosting meal or arranging to meet an old friend. By taking the following small but positive steps day by day, youll soon lift the heavy fog of depression and find yourself feeling happier, healthier, and more hopeful again.
One: Figure Out What Youre Feeling
The first step to organizing your feelings is to list your problems or worries.
That might sound like a negative thing to do, but sometimes just writing them down will ease anxiety, says a 2018 study focused on evaluating the positive effects of written expression.
Identifying the underlying thought or belief, evaluating it for its helpfulness and truth, and then changing it if its not serving us well can be incredibly powerful, Robistow explains.
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Focus On The Positives
Reduce Your Usual Workload
When youre struggling with your mood and high stress levels, attempting to work at 100% of your usual output is ill-advised. However, not working at all typically isnt helpful either. Why?
Regular work helps provide structure to your day. When you have the structure of regular activities, this helps regulate your biological rhythms, such as those related to eating and sleeping. Without the structure of regular activities, including work and socializing, those biological rhythms will become more dysregulated, which will tend to make depression worse.
Fifty percent of your usual activity is a good sweet spot between not working enough and expecting too much of yourself. You may even find that your productivity doesnt decrease that much with this approach. It will force you to prioritize deep work and other truly important tasks. Limiting yourself to 50% of your usual work will help you let go of activities that were only medium-productive to begin with. Fifty percent isnt a hard and fast rule. You can choose a different number if youd prefer, but adopt the principle.
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How Not To Feel Depressed: Live Intentionally And Mindfully
Living intentionally means to take charge of each day by being fully present in what is happening around you and within you. Depression puts us on autopilot so we find ourselves drifting numbly, keenly feeling depression.
How not to feel depressed and numb involves purposefully connecting with ourselves and the moments of our life. Life is a journey of moments, and its imperative to get out of our own head and into every moment.
The process of living intentionally in each moment is known as mindfulness. With mindfulness, we are fully present in our life. To be mindful is to become aware of our thoughts, our sensations, and what we doing in life moment by moment. When were present in each moment, we can experience it for what it is rather than through a lens darkened by depression.
Numerous studies have shown that living intentionally and practicing mindfulness significantly decrease depression . An effective answer to the question of how to feel less depressed is to live intentionally by practicing mindfulness, paying attention to what you are doing in the present moment, every day.
Assess The Parts Instead Of Generalizing The Whole
Depression can tinge recollections with difficult emotions. You may find yourself focusing on things that are unhelpful or perceived as difficult.
Try to stop this overgeneralization. Push yourself to recognize the good. If it helps, write down what was meaningful about the event or day. You can track what you achieved that day, and which activities were enjoyable.
Seeing the weight youre giving to one thing may help you direct your thoughts away from the whole and to the individual pieces that were helpful.
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