Dealing with Depression: Self-Help and Coping Tips to Overcome Depression The road to depression recovery Recovering from depression requires action, but taking action when you’re depressed is hard. In fact, just thinking about the things you should do to feel better, like going for a walk or spending time with friends, can be exhausting. It’s the Catch-22 of depression recovery: The things that help the most are the things that are the most difficult to do. Start small and stay focused The key to depression recovery is to start with a few small goals and slowly build from there. Take things one day at a time and reward yourself for each accomplishment. Depression self-help tip 1: Cultivate supportive relationships Getting the support you need plays a big role in lifting the fog of depression and keeping it away. The thought of reaching out to even close family members and friends can seem overwhelming. Turn to trusted friends and family members. 10 tips for reaching out and building relationships Talk to one person about your feelings. Think outside yourself.
How to Stop Negative Thinking by Using Habit Releasers Negative thinking pervades nearly every aspect of our lives. Our thoughts range from all-or-nothing thinking (“I’ve blow my diet completely”) to overgeneralisations (“I always make a fool of myself”) to dwelling on the negatives and ignoring the positives (“I got a promotion but…”). The truth is there isn’t one big solution to negative thinking, but there are numerous strategies we can use to stop negative thoughts and prioritise happiness. Today, let’s discuss one of the simplest pattern-interrupts we can use to get rid of negative self-talk: “Habit Releasers”. What Are Habit Releasers? In his book, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, Professor Mark Williams explains: [Habit Releasers] are meant to reveal and break open some of our most unaware life patterns of thought and behaviour, patterns that unbeknownst to us, tend to imprison us in a smallness that is definitely not the full story of who we are. [1] Habit Releasers: How to Replace Negative Thoughts 1.
The Illusion of Transparency Other people can’t read your mental state as well as you think. Most people hate public speaking. The very idea starts the palms sweating and the stomach churning. It makes sense: with everyone’s eyes on you, the potential for embarrassment is huge. Crowds, we are told, can sense our nerves. Or can they? When this is tested experimentally we find an interesting thing. The results showed that people tended to over-estimate just how nervous they appeared to others. In other studies people have been tested trying to hide the lies they are telling, as well as their disgust at a foul-tasting drink and even their concern at a staged emergency. Sometimes simply knowing this can help. Psychologists call this the ‘illusion of transparency’. You can test this illusion by tapping out the rhythm to a song and getting a friend to try and guess what it is. When this study was carried out, people guessed that those listening would get it about 50% of the time (Newton, 1990; PhD dissertation).
Depression - Helpguide.org Life isn't always pleasant or easy but being unhappy all the time is a problem you can overcome. These articles can help you identify, understand, and successfully solve the challenges of depression. Depression can make you feel helpless, hopeless, or empty and numb; but there’s a lot you can do to change how you feel. The key to recovery is to start small and take things one day at a time. Four Steps to Freedom from Negative Thinking A number of years ago I created a free email-based program called “Daily Now Moments.” Every day people get an email into their inbox that is meant to inspire a moment of mindfulness or give some practical guidance in the direction of emotional freedom and happiness. One of the practices is called “The Freedom Practice” and I wanted to share it with you because it can be so useful in gaining freedom from styles of thinking that don’t serve us and keep us stuck in stress, anxiety, depression and even our addictive behaviors Sometimes I call these styles of thinking “Mind Traps.” Mind traps are styles like catastrophizing, blaming, exaggerating the negative and discounting the positive or just your most common negative thoughts. The Freedom Practice When you first notice a mind trap or common negative thought, first stop, take an intentional deep breath and from this more mindful space, move through these next four steps (Name, Feel, Release, Redirect):
Happy Habits: How to Fix Bad Moods Which do you prefer to get first: the good news or the bad news? “Imagine that you have two letters in your mailbox. One notifies you that you were caught on camera speeding and must pay a fine. Another is a nice handwritten letter from your best friend who lives in a foreign country. We are forced to make decisions like this all the time. In a new study participants were given pairs of everyday events, both uplifting and depressing, to see how they chose to order the experiences (Sul et al., 2012). Some of the pairs were both uplifting, some both depressing and some mixed, for example: You lost a $250 gift certificate for a department store.You had a good time with some of your friends. Participants could not only choose the order of the events but also their timing. When both good and bad things happen you don’t usually want it all on the same day. Life, of course, tends to be more mixed and so it’s the mixed pairs that are most interesting. Image credit: Prince Lang
How To Fight a Powerless Feeling When It Really Matters Five-minute technique can boost confidence and performance in high-stakes situations. Self-affirmation can boost performance for people who are put in positions of low power, a new study finds. Thinking or writing about your family, your strengths or something that is important to you boosts confidence and performance. This can even work when self-affirming about a situation which is apparently irrelevant to the situation. Dr Sonia Kang, an organisational psychologist at the University of Toronto, who led the study, said: “Most people have experienced a time in their lives when they aren’t performing up to their potential.They take a test or have a performance review at work, but something holds them back.Performance in these situations is closely related to how we are expected to behave.” The study involved putting some people in positions of high power and others in positions of low power. Then people carried out high-stakes negotiations. Dr Kang explained the principle: Dr Kang said:
How to Stop Obsessing Over Things You Can't Control We’ve all heard how bad it is to ruminate — that is, to chew on something troubling, turning it over and over in your mind. Doing this makes you feel worse instead of better, so according to traditional wisdom, you’re supposed to watch your thoughts. You’re supposed to just STOP if you find yourself ruminating. But no one tells you how. Feels So Bad It’s Good The reason no one tells you how you’re supposed to stop ruminating is because it’s not clear how to do it besides simply using willpower. As Bob Newhart advised a client in the famous therapist sketch, “Just stop it.” In order to make it stop, you have to understand why you’re ruminating in the first place. We already know you’re not an idiot who wants to make yourself suffer for some unknown reason (only intelligent, thoughtful people read this blog after all). If you had a choice, you wouldn’t choose to ruminate on things that trouble you. Many people believe they’ll feel better if they can just stop ruminating. What Is Rumination?
How Memory Works: 10 Things Most People Get Wrong Human memory and recall works nothing like a computer, but that’s what makes it all the more fascinating to understand and experience. “If we remembered everything we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.” ~William James It’s often said that a person is the sum of their memories. Despite this, memory and recall is generally poorly understood, which is why many people say they have ‘bad memories’. Here is my 10-point guide to the psychology of memory and recall (it is based on an excellent review chapter by the distinguished UCLA memory expert, Professor Robert A. 1. Everyone has experienced the frustration of not being able to recall a fact from memory. So it seems obvious that memories decay, like fruit going off. But what on earth is the point of a brain that remembers everything but can’t recall most of it? 2. Obviously the only one that’s of interest is the most recent. 3. There’s another side to the fact that memories do not decay. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
As A Failure, I’ve Learned To Appreciate The Little Things In Life I’ve taken a lot of trips around the sun on this crazy blue rock, and I like to think I’ve picked up some wisdom along the way. While I don’t have all the answers—heck, who does?—I do know that happiness in life doesn’t come from your job, or where you live, or what kind of car you drive. When you’re a complete and utter failure of a human being like me, you learn that it’s the little things in life that actually matter. The sound of rain, the warmth of sunlight on my face, the crisp feel of the morning paper in my hands—these are all things I’ve come to truly cherish because I’ve achieved absolutely nothing of real significance that could bring me any joy. It’s a total cliché, I know. So, now I make sure to stop and smell those roses whenever I can and enjoy them for what they are: a momentary distraction from the suffocating reality that literally all of my dreams have gone unrealized. There’s beauty all around you if you stop to notice it.
Locate Your Negative Thought and Yank it Out! Have you ever wondered where your emotions live inside your body? Sounds a little strange, huh? This is what a group of researchers out of Finland recently asked 700 volunteers. Specifically, they were asked to indicate on a human silhouette where they felt various emotions within their body. Warm colors indicate where sensations increase; cool colors indicate where sensations decrease. The study (pdf) revealed love and happiness activated feelings across the entire body, while depression muted sensations in the arms, legs and head, for example. This is a great reminder that the mind-body connection is biological. Fascinating, you might think, but what do I do with this information? As a coach that works with kids experiencing anxiety, I use this concept to help children dissolve negative thoughts and emotions. Thoughtbuster — Yank it Out! Take a few deep breaths.Close your eyes and take a mental tour of your body. Try this exercise out yourself or with your kids.