Focus On The Future You Want
If you want your future to be a certain way, you need to focus on what that entails. You have to envision the life you want in order to get to it. Think through what you want this future of yours to be. It can bring you great joy to focus in vivid details about what you want in your life. Allow yourself to dream a bit and it can be a really exciting and rewarding.
You may have been held back in the past and therefore afraid to envision what could be in the future. That thought of what could have been is here and its waiting for you now. This is the time to grasp it and make it happen. You get to put your dreams into motion and focus on what you want rather than what you have had. Just because it was your reality in the past doesnt necessarily mean that its your destiny.
Letting go of the past is hard but, if you want to move forward with your life, you have to allow yourself to get to where you really want to be. This only comes from setting goals, having dreams, and putting in the work to make them reality. So, start today by focusing on what you want your future to be and how it will be different from your past.
Overcoming Depression: 5 Most Powerful Strategies To Beat Depression In 2021
If you havent been able to shake your feelings of depression, this article is for you!
Remember, depression is a treatable condition.
Countless people experience and overcome depression each year.
You can too!
In this article we will discuss:
-Section 1: 5 Strategies for Overcoming Depression
- Strategy 1: Shift Your Focus
- Strategy 2: Challenge Your Scripts
- Strategy 3: Engage in Self Care
- Strategy 4: Make Plans
- Strategy 5: Know When to Seek Help
Lets get started!
How To Get Rid Of Your Repressed Anger
Left unprocessed, repressed anger will wreak havoc on your happiness, your relationships, and your overall life.
But Im not an angry person. I never get angry!, say most people everywhere.
If you found your way to this article, theres some repressed anger buried somewhere deep inside of you. And it isnt your fault.
Its totally normal to have stored negative emotions in your body.
Anger is one of the least encouraged emotions in our daily lives. If there was a dinner party for all of your various emotions and society was hosting the gathering, anger would be invited last .
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Make The Decision To Let It Go
Things dont disappear on their own. You need to make the commitment to let it go. If you dont make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.
Making the conscious decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. To stop reliving the past pain, to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think of the other person . This is empowering to most people, knowing that it is their choice to either hold on to the pain, or to live a future life without it.
Tip : Eat A Healthy Depression
What you eat has a direct impact on the way you feel. Reduce your intake of foods that can adversely affect your brain and mood, such as caffeine, alcohol, trans fats, and foods with high levels of chemical preservatives or hormones .
Dont skip meals. Going too long between meals can make you feel irritable and tired, so aim to eat something at least every three to four hours.
Minimize sugar and refined carbs. You may crave sugary snacks, baked goods, or comfort foods such as pasta or French fries, but these feel-good foods quickly lead to a crash in mood and energy. Aim to cut out as much of these foods as possible.
Boost your B vitamins. Deficiencies in B vitamins such as folic acid and B-12 can trigger depression. To get more, take a B-complex vitamin supplement or eat more citrus fruit, leafy greens, beans, chicken, and eggs.
Boost your mood with foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids.Omega-3 fatty acids play an essential role in stabilizing mood. The best sources are fatty fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, tuna, and some cold-water fish oil supplements.
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What To Do At The End Of Each Anger Releasing Session
Anger is a secondary emotion that is, a reactionary emotion that is covering something else up. Why is this relevant? Because once your repressed anger has been released, it is very common for their to be some sadness, grief, hurt, or fear underneath. So allow some time to sit or lie down and feel your way through the underlying feelings.
Lie still, on your back, and put each of your hands over your stomach and chest and feel your breath rise and fall. Whatever emotions rise up, allow them to rise. Whatever you feel, simply accept it. Let it be there, without rushing or condemning your feelings.
If You Need To Wallow Wallow But Do So Constructively
Suppressing your feelings and emotions may seem like a strategic way to cope with the negative symptoms of depression. But this technique is ultimately unhealthy.
If youre having a down day, have it. Let yourself feel the emotions but dont stay there.
Consider writing or journaling about what youre experiencing. Then, when the feelings lift, write about that, too.
Seeing the ebb and flow of depressive symptoms can be instructive for both self-healing and hope.
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Stop The Negative Self
Depressed people tend to see the world in a negative way. When things go wrong, they blame themselves, and when they go right, they put it down to luck. Depression reinforces self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness.
Monitor your inner negative talk and make allowances for this type of thinking by reminding yourself that your thinking is being clouded by your depression. Dont take your thoughts seriously when you are feeling low. Acknowledge the thoughts, but this doesnt mean you have to believe them.
How Is Depression Diagnosed
To be diagnosed with depression, an individual must have five depression symptoms every day, nearly all day, for at least 2 weeks. One of the symptoms must be a depressed mood or a loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities. Children and adolescents may be irritable rather than sad.
If you think you may have depression, talk to your health care provider. Primary care providers routinely diagnose and treat depression and refer individuals to mental health professionals, such as psychologists or psychiatrists.
During the visit, your provider may ask when your symptoms began, how long they last, how often they occur, and if they keep you from going out or doing your usual activities. It may help to make some notes about your symptoms before your visit. Certain medications and some medical conditions, such as viruses or a thyroid disorder, can cause the same depression symptoms. Your provider can rule out these possibilities by doing a physical exam, interview, and lab tests.
Read NIMHs Tips for Talking With Your Health Care Provider to help prepare for and get the most out of your visit. For additional resources, visit the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality website.
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The Effect Of Insecurity
Its clear that there are many things that shape our critical inner voice, from negative attitudes directed toward us to attitudes our parents had toward themselves. As we get older, we internalize these points of view as our own. We keep these attitudes alive by believing in our insecurities as we go along in life. The most common critical inner voices Dr.s Robert and Lisa Firestone found people to experience throughout their day include:
- Youre stupid.
- You never get anything right.
- Youre not like other people.
- Youre a failure.
- Youre such a loser.
- Youll never make friends.
- No one will ever love you.
- Youll never be able to quit drinking .
- Youll never accomplish anything.
- Whats the point in even trying?
Like a mean coach, this voice tends to get louder as we get closer to our goals. Youre gonna screw up any minute. Everyone will realize what a failure you are. Just quit before its too late. Oftentimes, we react to these thoughts before we even realize we are having them. We may grow shy at a party, pull back from a relationship, project these attacks onto the people around us or act out toward a friend, partner or our children. Just imagine what life would be like if you didnt hear any of these mean thoughts echo in your head. Imagine what reality might actually look like if you could live free of this prescribed insecurity.
Start Moving On And Getting Over The Past
Once you stop beating yourself up about the past you have the opportunity to start moving on and getting over the things that have been holding you back. An important step you must take is to gain clarity. You have to look at the situation you were in and the things that happened. It is important to consider how you got there and why you made the mistakes you did. You have to forget the past and the only way to do that is to find the lesson in it. Believe it or not, there is always a lesson!
Whatever happened in the past helped bring you to this point. Something shaped your path and lead you to this defining moment, so what was it? What caused you to want to move forward? What occurred that made you desire change in your life? Consider any positive aspects of what happened in the past, for they matter greatly, then take some time to reflect upon the past very carefully to see what may lie ahead.
Even out of the worst, most tragic and stressful times comes some sort of life lesson or affirmation. Though the past may have represented negative things, its time to turn them into positives. Its time to recognize that what happened taught you something about yourself, about your life, or what you are capable of. That is the key to moving on and getting over the hardships. There is always something to learn and once you can focus on that you can get rid of the negative and focus on the positivethis is your future!
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Strategy : Make Plans
Sitting inside and thinking about the past is gloomy.
People get a positive emotional boost when thinking about things they look forward to in the future.
Make plans to do something you enjoy. The more you get out of the house and do, the better youre going to begin to feel.
Be aware that you probably are not going to FEEL like doing anything.
Depression creates a nasty cycle that can quickly spiral out of control. When you feel bad, you dont want to go out. When you dont go out, you feel worse. Then the cycle repeats.
Despite how you might feel, choose to get out there and do something you love.
Ideas: Find small ways to serve others, spend some time in nature, go mini-golfing, attend a religious service, take a painting class, or go to lunch with some friends.
Strategy 5: Know When to Seek Help
Sometimes you can feel completely crushed beneath the depression you are facing.
If you feel youre not able to get any control over your situation, it may be time to reach out for professional guidance.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and other specific therapies have been shown to have highly effective results for people struggling with depression.
Therapists can also help you:
- Identify beliefs and experiences that your depression may be stemming from and how to change these things.
- See things differently.
- Create a plan moving forward that will help you overcome depression.
- Learn and use new skills to address depressive mental patterns.
Practice These Coping Skills Every Day
I recommend doing many if not all of the following coping skills and techniques once a day when experiencing depression. Its important to know you probably wont be motivated to do any of them at first because depression frequently saps motivation. In other words, know that its normal to feel unmotivated until youre halfway done.
The patients I work with who frequently practice these coping skills get better.The seven techniques can be memorized with the acronym MY PEERS.
1. Meaning: Find small ways to be of service to others.
Find personal meaning by serving something larger than yourself. Remember service doesnt have to be big to count. Consider this, Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued it must ensue as the unintended side effect of ones personal dedication to a course greater than oneself. Viktor E. Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning
2. Your goals: Find workable goals that give you a sense of accomplishment.
Most people feel guilty when talking about goals because they set unreasonable or unworkable goals. A goal is workable if its:
If something goes wrong with your goal, adopt a what can I learn from this? attitude . Also, be careful when comparing your progress with others. We usually compare our biggest weakness with another persons biggest strength. This is unfair .
3. Pleasant Events: Schedule pleasant activities or events.
4. Engagement: Stay in the present.
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Strategy : Engage In Self Care
In a lot of ways, we operate like a computer and printer: we can only print what was first put into the computer.
Engaging in self-care can exponentially alter your mood and create the tools you need to overcome depression.
Diet & Exercise:
When we eat junk foods and dont use our bodies the way they were intended to be used, we begin to feel junky too.
Make sure you are eating right. Reduce sugars and fatty foods and increase your intake of healthy, unprocessed foods.
Be sure you are getting outside in the sun every day, and that youre getting your heart rate up for at least 15 minutes.
When you eat right and exercise, your brain will begin to release more chemicals that make you feel good about yourself.
Get Enough Sleep:
Working on changing all of the habits we have discussed so far takes effort & energy.
When you dont get enough sleep, you dont have the energy to sustain the focus you need to make this happen.
When you lack sleep, your mind and body revert to using the path of least resistance to save energy.
This means that to save energy, your body will do what comes most natural which means eating what youre used to, thinking what youre used to, and focusing on what youre used to.
If you want the energy and will-power to overcome depression, make sure you are meeting your needs!
Stay in the present moment:
One way you can stay in the moment is by doing deep-breathing and mindfulness exercises.
Dont try to do it alone:
Humans are social creatures.
Move Toward Living The Life You Want
The antidote to feeling bad all the time might be to start taking small steps toward what you want in life. That might mean finding a new career path, traveling, getting out of debt, ending a relationship, starting a family, or moving far away. Determine your values and then start acting in accordance with them. Once you start to align with your values, it will be easier to feel confident in yourself.
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What To Do When You Don’t Know How To Treat Ptsd By Yourself
Taking an action is always the first step. Here’s a simple plan to build your healing intention:
Creating a healing intention is not so tough a project, is it? As with everything in learning how to treat PTSD by yourself, each step is about slowing down, gaining clarity, being deliberate and committing to the next decision.
Listen To Upbeat Music
I have always thought of music as food for the soul. An upbeat tune can change an atmosphere instantly and create a more positive vibe. Listening to upbeat, happy music alters brain chemistry and can improve your mood.
One study found that findings indicate that music listening impact the psychobiological stress system, which means music has the ability to lower stress and regulate mood. Both of these can help relieve some symptoms of depression.
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