Six Strategies for Managing Depression

We’re going to look at six strategies that can help us manage depression and start to improve our moods and how we feel. In this video we’ll look at the basics of each of these strategies, and if any of them sound helpful to you, I have videos that describe them in more detail that you can check out from the links in the description and pin comment.

1. Behavioral Activation

When we’re feeling depressed we have a tendency to lack the energy or motivation or desire to do a lot of the things that we used to do. But the less active we become, the more depressed we tend to feel. And when we’re feeling this way it’s even harder to get ourselves to do things, so it creates a vicious cycle where the less we do the worse we feel, and then the worse we feel the harder it is to get ourselves to do anything, and as a result we end up feeling even worse.

Behavioral activation is a strategy that helps us improve our moods by gradually increasing our levels of activity and starting to do more things that give us:

• A sense of pleasure or enjoyment
• A sense of achievement
• A sense of social connection with other people

The goal with behavioral activation isn’t to be ambitious but to gradually build up our levels of activity through a series of small manageable incremental steps. It’s really important to start with small changes that don’t seem overwhelming. For some people this might just mean getting out of bed or taking a shower or having something to eat. For someone else it could be doing a little bit of housework or just going for a walk, or for someone else it could be chatting with a friend or even just texting with them.

The important thing is to not bite off more than you can chew. Start with the smallest step possible and try not to beat up on yourself for needing to take such a small step compared to what you used to be able to do. When we’re depressed, any amount of increased activity can help us feel at least a little bit better, and gradually we start to build up our levels of activity back to where they used to be.

2. Cognitive Restructuring

Our thoughts have a huge effect on how we feel, and the way that we’re feeling has a big impact on the types of thoughts that we have. There’s a close relationship between negative thoughts and depression. Automatic negative thoughts – negative thoughts that pop into our heads automatically – are a hallmark of depression. They can lead us into depression, and when we’re already depressed we can experience a constant barrage of automatic negative thoughts that leave us even more depressed. As long as this vicious cycle continues, it can be extremely difficult to start feeling better.

The basic premise of cognitive therapy, which is considered one of the most effective treatments for depression, is that when we change the way we think, we change the way we feel. The technique we use to change the way we think is called cognitive restructuring, which is a way of helping us reframe our thoughts to make them less negative.

Our negative thoughts do tend to have some truth to them, but they also tend to be heavily biased towards pessimism, self-criticism, guilt, regrets, helplessness, hopelessness, and negativity in general. The key to cognitive restructuring is to challenge the accuracy of our negative thoughts and then modify these thoughts so they present a more balanced perspective.

We’re not trying to replace negative thoughts with positive thinking that’s equally biased in the opposite direction. We’re simply trying to look at the bigger picture and see that there are other ways of looking at things that aren’t so negatively biased. Once we’re able to do this and our thoughts become less negative, our moods will start to improve. And once our moods start to improve, our thoughts naturally start to become less negative, which has a further positive effect on how we feel. So we end up reversing this vicious cycle between our thoughts and the way that we’re feeling, and we start a virtuous cycle that moves us in a positive direction.

3. Mindfulness and Letting Go of Thoughts

Instead of trying to change the content of our thoughts with cognitive restructuring, we can try to change how we relate to and interact with our thoughts. Thoughts are popping in and out of our heads all of the time, and most of our thoughts aren’t that important – we’re often not even aware that we’re having them. But when a thought has an emotional pull to it, we tend to take notice, especially if it reinforces how we’re already feeling.

When we’re depressed and have a negative thought, it grabs our attention. But there’s usually nothing special about that thought. We tend to play the same loop of thoughts over and over again in our heads, so this negative thought that just popped into our heads probably isn’t telling us anything interesting. It doesn’t offer us any new information, and so we don’t need to pay attention to it.

This is what being mindful is about: as best we can, we keep our minds focused in the present. We’re aware of what we’re thinking, and when thoughts arise that aren’t related to what we’re doing in the present moment, we don’t try to reframe them or change them or think about them or do anything with them. We simply notice we’re having that thought and let it go and refocus our attention back to the present.

For example, if we’re cooking dinner and taste the food and think “this is a little bland,” that’s a thought relevant to what we’re doing and we probably want to pay attention to that thought and act on it. But if we’re cooking dinner and have the thought “I hate my life” or “I always let everyone down,” there’s really no value in giving that thought our attention while we’re making dinner. We can just acknowledge it and then let it go.

While we can’t control what thoughts we have and we can’t stop certain thoughts from popping into our heads, when we have a thought we do have some control over what we do with that thought. Letting go of thoughts is a skill that takes practice, but it’s one of the best things that we can do to take away the power that our negative thoughts have over us.

4. Focusing on Positive Experiences

One way to help combat this negative bias we have when we’re feeling depressed is to make an effort to recognize the positive things we experience, even if just for brief moments every day. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, notes that we think too much about what goes wrong and not enough about what goes right in our lives. This focus on negative events sets us up for anxiety and depression.

One way to keep this from happening is to get better at thinking about and savoring what went well. He recommends an exercise called “Three Good Things” where at the end of each day you take some time and write down three good things that happened or that went well or that you enjoyed, regardless of how small or insignificant they may seem. This might not seem like much, but research has found that doing this exercise for just one week can increase happiness and decrease symptoms of depression for up to six months.

A similar exercise is a gratitude journal. Be as specific as possible about the good thing that happened or whatever you’re grateful for, as this helps foster an attitude of appreciation and gratitude. So instead of just “I had a nice walk,” include specific aspects of the walk that you enjoyed or feel grateful about: “It was a beautiful sunny day and I saw a rainbow, and then a dog came over and played with me, and then a butterfly floated by, and it was the first time I didn’t feel miserable all day.”

Whenever possible, write down what you did to contribute to the good thing happening or the thing you’re grateful for coming about, such as forcing yourself to get up off the couch or reaching out to a friend. This helps give you a sense of agency and demonstrate to yourself that there are things you can do to help yourself feel a little bit better, which can act as an antidote to the feelings of lack of control and helplessness that so often accompany depression.

5. Emotion Regulation

When we’re depressed our emotions can feel overwhelming, and it’s not just sadness and despair we experience – anxiety and anger are also quite common. Learning to regulate our emotions can help make depression more manageable.

Usually we react to our negative emotions with aversion. We don’t like the way they make us feel, so we try to shut them out, ignore them, or try to force them to go away. While we might be able to avoid our emotions temporarily, they always come back, usually a little stronger and more intense each time. So just trying to shut out our negative emotions doesn’t work.

Often we react to our negative emotions with negative thoughts about these emotions: “I can’t stand feeling this way,” “What’s wrong with me?” “What do I have to be sad about?” or “Why am I so anxious all the time? I don’t even do anything.” These negative thoughts about our emotions give them more fuel and make them even stronger.

Emotion regulation refers to our ability to influence our emotions and how we feel. If we learn to practice emotion regulation skills like validating and accepting our emotions, our emotions tend to become less intense.

Validating and accepting our emotions doesn’t mean we need to like how we’re feeling or that we’re resigning ourselves to feeling that way. But if you’re feeling sad, it’s okay to feel sad. If you’re feeling anxious, it’s okay to feel anxious. If you’re feeling angry, it’s okay to feel angry. While you may prefer not to feel these ways, we can’t control our emotions, and it’s always okay to feel however you feel.

While we can’t control our emotions, we can influence our emotions and how we feel. If we’re able to accept our emotions and validate how we feel, our emotions tend to become more manageable – they lessen in intensity. This feeds back into any vicious cycles that were helping to sustain them, so now our thoughts become a little less negative, which helps calm our emotions even further.

Physical Sensations

There’s often a close relationship between our emotions and the physical sensations we experience in our bodies. When we’re depressed, it’s common to feel the depression in certain parts of our bodies. We might notice a lump in our throats or a feeling of tightness or heartache in our chests, or some tightness or butterflies in our stomachs, or a feeling of dread in the pit of our stomachs.

Depression can also lead to physical pain. Our backs become sore even though we haven’t injured them, or we start to get a lot of headaches, or we just get all sorts of aches and pains all over.

Just like we can’t control our emotions, we also can’t control the physical sensations in our bodies, and so we need to try to accept them. When we don’t accept them, our subjective experience of them is worse because now not only do we experience the physical pain or discomfort, but we add a layer of emotional pain and discomfort on top of it.

When we’re able to accept the reality of our situation and accept that we’re experiencing some physical discomfort, our bodies can begin to relax, our uncomfortable physical sensations become less intense, and as a result our moods start to improve. As our moods improve, our physical symptoms tend to subside even more.

6. Self-Care

Finally, make sure to practice self-care. When we’re feeling depressed it’s easy to start neglecting ourselves.

Sleep

Not getting enough sleep or sleeping way too much can both contribute to depression, so try to get into a regular routine and keep a consistent sleep schedule.

Exercise

Getting some sort of regular exercise, even if just going for walks, is important and helps us feel better both physically and mentally.

Nutrition

When we’re depressed we can develop bad eating habits and start eating junk food or just eating too much to try to calm our emotions and make ourselves feel better, or we can lose our appetites altogether and barely eat at all. Try to eat as well as you can because what and how much we eat does have an impact on our moods and our levels of energy and how we feel overall.

Social Connection

Sometimes when we’re depressed we just want to isolate ourselves, but a sense of isolation can contribute to depression. So even though it can be hard to socialize when you’re feeling depressed, do your best to find ways to stay connected to other people that don’t feel overwhelming.

Self-Compassion

Learn to practice some self-compassion. Depression is hard – it’s hard feeling depressed and it’s often hard to get yourself to do anything when you’re depressed. So try to give yourself a break. Don’t beat up on yourself for not being able to do as much as you’d like, or if you’re struggling with things that you think should be easy, or for not being able to make yourself stop feeling depressed.

Remember that any little bit that you can do is going to make a difference. Focus on the little things that you’re able to manage and give yourself some credit for doing them rather than being hard on yourself for not doing enough.

Conclusion

While unfortunately none of these tips are a magic cure for depression, being able to implement any of them – even just partially – is probably going to help you start feeling at least a little bit better. Once you’ve taken one step in a positive direction, more improvement usually follows and you can start to see some light at the end of the tunnel.