How to Fight Depression Without Outside Help Depression is a c

How to Fight Depression Without Outside Help
   Good afternoon. My topic today is how to fight depression without outside help. [1] Depression is a common feeling, but sometimes it can become overwhelming. There are two steps you can take on your own to control it, such as correcting dysfunctional thinking and structuring your day. Keep in mind that depression is a very complex illness and you may still need to get outside help to significantly improve.
   The first thing you should do to fight against depression is to correct dysfunctional thinking. [2] Dysfunctional thinking is a way of framing the world so that you feel you’re always fighting an uphill battle. There are four common types of dysfunctional thinking. [3] The first one is polarized thinking which means not allowing for any gray areas in life, or thinking in "black and white. " [4] Another example of dysfunctional thinking is filtering or discounting the positives, which means focusing on the negative of a situation and ignoring any positives. A third type is overgeneralization which features thinking that one bad experience guarantees more bad experiences. [5] The last type is blaming. You are always blaming yourself for things you are not responsible.
   So how should we fight against dysfunctional thinking? Four procedures must be followed. [6] Firstly, find a journal to write in. Journaling can be a useful tool to analyze your own thoughts without outside help. Journaling can help you identify and change the way you think and behave. This practice has also been shown to help decrease stress, which can be a byproduct of depression. Secondly, monitor your emotions in your journal. Our thoughts greatly influence how we feel and how we interpret and perceive our environments, our futures, and ourselves. People who suffer with depression often have thoughts that they are worthless, unlovable, or undeserving, and they often have thoughts that their environments are overwhelming, have insurmountable obstacles, and that their futures are hopeless. Many who suffer from depression feel powerless to change how they feel and the course of their lives. A great way to combat this is to monitor your emotions and automatic thoughts by recording them in a journal or daily record. [7] Start first by noticing mood changes, then begin to analyze what your thoughts had been just prior to feeling differently.
   Next, [8] write down your automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts are the things that pop into your head spontaneously. They tend to pertain to three types of ideas: ideas about yourself, about the world, and about the future. After you’ve identified your emotions about an event where your mood changed, you can start to analyze the automatic thoughts that correspond to the event. Then you can evaluate these thoughts to determine how they are dysfunctional, challenge them by looking for evidence for and against the thought. [9] Finally, you need to write down rational thoughts to reframe the automatic thoughts. Counteract your automatic labeling with thoughts that are more rational. Some ways to generate more rational thoughts include looking for evidence for or against the automatic thought, looking to your past for a similar situation in which the automatic thought did not hold true, and analyze the situation for blame and logically redistribute responsibility for feelings and events to others that may have been involved.
   The second step to fight against depression is to structure your day. To do this, you need to follow the following five procedures.
   Firstly, plan out each hour of your day. [10] Help combat depression and loneliness by keeping structure in your day with a daily schedule. The use of a schedule helps depression by counteracting the loss of motivation, hopelessness, and decreasing time for rumination, which are all associated with depression. Rumination is the activity of replaying a scenario or problem in your head over and over, like a broken record. While some people consider rumination as a form of problem-solving, if the problem is upsetting, you will end up continuing to be upset until you stop thinking about it. [11] Find a day planner that has space for hourly scheduling. Make sure you plan each hour of your day. Incorporate time for journaling, rest, exercise, relaxation, and self-care.
   [12] Second, consult your schedule frequently. Carry your schedule with you so that you’re following it closely. It’s important to follow through with each activity, so prepare yourself by knowing what comes next throughout the day.
   Thirdly, track how you felt during the activity. [13] After you have completed your scheduled activities, write down the level of competency you felt about completing the activity, as well as the level of pleasure experienced if any. This record of competency and pleasure can serve you in the future if you are having thoughts about not being able to get things down or being able to enjoy anything. Refrain from evaluating your activities on an all-or-nothing scale. Instead, try to evaluate on a scale of one to ten, with one being low competency or low pleasure, and ten being maximum competency and maximum pleasure.
   [14] Fourthly, retrain yourself to be self-reliant. Self-reliance training is sometimes needed for persons with depression when they have become reliant on friends or family members to take care of daily needs. The process of self-reliance starts with taking back responsibility for self-care. It is important to begin in one area, scheduling this daily. For instance, you can start with being responsible for showering. You can also record your level of mastery in being responsible for showering. For instance, starting out, you may indicate that you were only able to get out of bed for the day and not shower. This may seem like no mastery at all, but it is more mastery than you previously had. Use your planner and feelings of competence to build yourself back up in self-care. Once you have taken on showering, you can tackle making the bed, then cleaning, etc.
   [15] Finally, plan a set of "go-to" distractions for overwhelming times. It is important to know how and when to use distraction as a helpful method to combat rumination and intense emotions. Have a set of " go-to" distractions that you can use if you are ruminating, feeling overwhelmed, or feeling depressed. Some examples include: exercise, having coffee with a friend, painting, reading, meditation, prayer, or playing with a pet. Write down these distraction methods in your journal or planner. Consult them frequently so that you have a reminder about your distraction plan.
   To summarize, the above two steps are things we can do to get over depression without outside help. But it is also important to understand for yourself what "outside help" means to you, as well as knowing when you need to access it. That is the topic for next week’s lecture. Thank you for listening.