Mental Strategies for Battling Depression Part I

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“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.” ~ Marcus Aurelius.

“The universe never says no to your thought about yourself. It only grows it.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch.

Winning the war on depression has a large mental or cognitive element. It is your thoughts that sink you further and further into depression. Am I saying that depression is all in your head? Not quite. At least not in the manner you might think.

The fact is, that stressful life events often precipitate a depressive episode. Loss of a job, loss of a loved one, social or romantic rejection – all these can, and do act as a catalyst for depression.

Not everyone experiences severe depression

However, many people experience these same challenging life events and yet do not succumb to a long-term depression. They feel a short period of grief or negative emotion and then get on with their lives. What is the difference between you and them? It might be that you have a genetic predisposition to depression. It might be associated with a chemical imbalance in the brain. That is not the issue of concern here. We are not looking for reasons. What we need to learn is how those people bounce back from severe life events without becoming seriously depressed. We have already explored some of the physical tactics for escaping depression. Now we discuss the mental strategies. 

Tune in to your Thoughts

The first thing you need to do in order to fight your depression is to tune in to your thoughts. This might seem obvious, but we all have a constant stream of self-talk going on. It is so second nature to us that we might not be fully aware of it. You need to tune into that, and listen closely to what you tell yourself about yourself, your coping abilities and your environment.  

Look out for absolutes

Particularly look out for absolutes…such as always, never, everyone, nobody. Examples include: 

• “Nobody likes me”
• “I always choose the slowest lane”
• “I never do anything right”
• “Everyone is smarter than me”
• “My life will never improve”

 Absolutes by their very nature are incorrect. So, the next time that you are feeling stressed or worried or anxious or depressed, pay close attention to your self-talk and look out for those absolutes.

Challenge these absolutes

To fight depression you need to challenge the truth of your self-talk. Once you hone in on what you are telling yourself, you need to start challenging it. Is it true that nobody likes you? Your entire life, can you think of one person who has liked you? Who likes you now? Does the newspaper boy smile at you? A coworker? A friend? Your mom? Is it really true that nobody likes you? Or is it true that right now you feel a little bit down because someone turned down your proposal? 

Be more realistic

You get the picture. These negative absolutes that you are feeding your subconscious with are incorrect. They are simply inaccurate. You need to practice challenging them and seeing a more realistic perspective. Are you really in the slowest lane? Or does it simply seem that way because you would like things to move faster? And surely you remember a time when you chose a really fast lane. 

Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not advocating that you become Pollyanna and live in la la land, telling yourself all manner of ridiculous overly cheerful things that are blatantly untrue. The fact is, that would be as ridiculous as telling yourself all sorts of overly negative things that are blatantly untrue, which is what you are doing now. What you need to do to overcome depression is be realistic.

So your weapon for fighting depression today is to practice focusing on your self-talk, hone in on those absolutes and challenge their truth. Finally, in order to win the fight on depression, replace those negative absolutes with more realistic thoughts.

Over the next few articles, we will continue to focus on various mental strategies you can use to win the fight against depression.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” ~ George Eliott.

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Related Articles:

• How to Fight Depression Naturally
• Physical Strategies for Fighting Depression Part I: Exercise
• Physical Strategies for Fighting Depression Part II: Diet, Vocabulary and Positive Activity
• How to become an Optimist – Part I
• How to be Happy – Training yourself to enjoy life
• The Power of Realistic Positive Thinking
• Your Capacity for Change
• Affirmations and Your Subconscious
• Optimism vs. Pessimism
• The Different Explanatory Styles of Optimism and Pessimism

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Posted in A New Start, Choices, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline |   2 Comments »

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 7:15 am and is filed under A New Start, Choices, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.