Psychology in Life

5 Ways to Tackle Depression

Depression affects even the strongest of us. Whether you’re a successful millionaire or a struggling student, depression can strike you down to the lowest pits of your life. I’ve suffered through depression several times but when I came through, I always found myself to have improved in one way or another. Nevertheless, it is a tough experience. Here are 5 ways to tackle depression.

1. Seek Help

While it may seem obvious, people with depression often feel ashamed or embarrassed and try to hide it. Sure, if you have friends that have the emotional range of a teaspoon, you shouldn’t tell them (in fact, you should be reconsidering your friendships). But that shouldn’t stop you from seeking professional help, or even help from online communities.

If you’re a prideful person then take a good look at yourself and drop some of your pride. Encouragement and support is what you need, not self pity and sadness. Go seek help, it’s for your own benefit.

It’s important that you don’t tell people that you know won’t understand. They will only serve to make you more depressed, it’s not a pleasant experience, being kicked when you’re already on the ground.

This is a great online forum with some nice people. If you ever feel depressed, it may be your answer. Take This Life

2. Don’t Wallow in Self Pity

It is harder than it seems. A symptom of depression is to think negative thoughts about yourself. You might think “My life is useless, I’m just one in a million” or “What’s the point in living if I’m only going to feel pain?”

To handle depression, you must not allow these thoughts to become reality. These thoughts will appear in your head and they will make your life seem worthless. You have to remember that life is worth living and that you are special. Otherwise you can easily sink lower and lower into a dangerously depressed state.

Combining this with the first piece of advice is very useful as they complement each other.

3. Self Injury? Suicide? Say No

This interlinks with the previous pieces of advice. You may think that the emotional pain is too much to handle. You may come up with the idea, or the idea may be suggested to you, of harming yourself to distract yourself from the emotional pain of depression with physical pain. This is not a good idea. Hundreds of people harm themselves and regret it afterwards. It is addictive. Avoid it at all costs.

To a more extreme level, you may think that suicide will let you escape from the pain. No one will benefit from you killing yourself. You will miss out on all the joys of life and all your friends and family will be left stunned and sad. Depressed people often think that their friends and family don’t care about them. If this is the case for you, consider getting some new friends. Again, online forums are great to this extent.

4. Run, run!

Studies have shown that physical exercise does in fact help cheer you up and help overcome depression. That’s not all. Studies have shown that sunlight and nature also helps (when you think about it, it’s not that surprising. I mean, Spring makes people happy).

Grab a friend and go for a stroll. Walk around the park and talk about life’s problems. Think happy, talk happy, play happy. Human contact is essential. If you can’t find anyone, take a stroll by yourself and meditate (think about) your life. Just make sure that you don’t fall into the spiral of negative thinking. Walk around, listen to the birds chirping and smile.

5. Depression Won’t Last

Remember:

• Depression is temporary
• Once you come out of your depression, you’ll feel happier than ever
• Depression usually results in better personality traits
• Depression is common and affects one in six of us. Just about everyone of those people make it through

Beat it

You can beat it. Everyone can beat it. Depression is considered a defence mechanism by some psychologists. Either way, it isn’t easy but it is definitely beatable. Social contact and positive thinking will prevail.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!