What to do when you start to feel depressed

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“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” ~ Winston Churchill.  

Depression is the number one mental illness in the United States with many millions of people suffering from it worldwide. Almost every single person on the planet has or will experience at some point in their life. When depression strikes, whether you are a chronic depression sufferer or just occasionally feel depressed, it is important to recognize it and know what steps to take to manage it in the most effective way possible.

Depression Coping Strategies

Every person has a particular coping strategy for depression. This depression coping strategy is a sequence of behaviors and actions that you take when you start to feel depressed. You have probably developed this strategy automatically without any conscious thought. It is a learned behavior that you would have learnt as a child - without ever realizing that you were learning it. As an adult, you must now evaluate your depression coping strategy to see if it is the most effective one you could be using.

Identify your depression coping strategy

How do you react when you start to feel depressed? Do you reach for fattening foods? Do you park yourself in front the TV? Do you mope and dwell on depressing events? Do you view your circumstances from the most negative perspective? Or do you call a friend? Do you go for a run? Do you go to the gym? Do you work on a project? Consider the last 3 or 4 depressive episodes you had and carefully identify your depression coping strategy.

Evaluate your depression coping mechanisms

The next step after identifying your depression coping strategy is to evaluate it. Is it positive or negative? A positive coping strategy is one that helps to lead you out of depression to more positive feelings. A negative coping strategy is one that leads you deeper into depression to more negative feelings.

Examples of negative depression coping mechanisms include:

• Dwelling on negative events – this serves to make you feel more depressed by creating the illusion that only negative events exist in your world.
• Eating fattening foods – apart from the fact that fattening foods have been found to have a biochemical effect that serves to reinforce the depressive feelings, eating fattening foods feels like a negative action. You are aware that you are doing something that is not good for your body and that you will regret it later. This serves to make you feel more negative about yourself. 
• Mindlessly watching TV for hours – Again this serves to make you feel negative about yourself because you know that you are not engaging in a useful productive activity. Further, it allows your mind to roam aimlessly and dwell on negative events.
• Taking a pessimistic perspective of your life – Thinking always, everything, personal thoughts such as “I never do anything right”, “Things will never work out for me” and “I am loser”. These thoughts are blatantly untrue and serve only to make you feel worse, causing your depression to spin out of control.

Examples of positive depression coping mechanisms include:

• Calling a friend – discussing the issue with a third party can serve to bring some perspective to the situation. One cautionary note is to ensure that your friend is more of an optimist than a pessimist who could actually make you feel worse.
• Exercising – going for a run, to the gym or even just a brisk walk around the office can change your body’s biochemistry. This will stimulate those neurotransmitters that promote positive mental changes. Additionally, you will know that you are taking a positive productive action to control the situation which will help you feel more in control of your depression which will have a positive feedback effect on your feelings. Look out for a more detailed article on the effects of exercise on depression and how to get moving when you are in the grips of emotional inertia.
• Watch a brief humorous TV show – this will serve to change your focus (if it is engaging enough) and it will serve to make you laugh – reminding you that whatever situation you are in is temporary and good times will come again. 
• Work on a project – Working on a project, such as a work item or a school project will serve to change your focus from the negative event and also serve to make you feel productive. You will once again know that you are taking control of the items you can and making progress in some areas of your life.
• Help someone else – Focusing on someone else’s problems helps to remind you that your situation has boundaries and is not all-encompassing. It brings perspective. It also reminds you that challenges are a normal part of life and everyone experiences them, not just you. This helps to prevent any feelings that the universe is victimizing you. It further serves to give you a satisfying feeling of being useful and helpful, all of which tend to banish feelings of depression.
• Make a list of all the great things in your life – The purpose of this exercise is to deliberately change your focus from the negative to the positive. Do not forget to be grateful for the things that you routinely take for granted – such as your eyesight, voice, family, friends, job (even if you hate it – it pays the bills) and of course your ability to read and seek help.

There are many other positive depression coping mechanisms you can use. It takes effort and lots of practice to consciously choose to respond in a new way to feelings of depression but it is well worth it to overcome the depression as soon as possible, and get back to living a happier, more satisfying life. 

When you start to feel depressed

Identify your current depressing coping strategies. Evaluate them to determine which are negative and which are positive. Choose specific positive depression coping strategies to try the next time you start to feel depressed. With practice you will soon have a new automatic depression coping strategy which helps to lead you quickly out of depression back to enjoyment of your life. 

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” ~ Margaret Thatcher

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Related Articles:

• Mental Strategies for Battling Depression Part I
• 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

Posted in Choices, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline |

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 3:29 pm and is filed under 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.