![]() Making the bed is essential in this process, as it signals to your brain that there isn’t an option to get back in the bed for the day. ![]() Then, get up and nicely make your bed, leaving the troubles behind for the day. The first step to take is to sit up on the bed, put your feet on the floor, and visualize leaving all of your troubles and thoughts behind you in the bed. The alarm serves as a cue to draw your attention to a target area where you want to become more active in change.ģ) Make Your Bed- Getting out of bed can be very tough with depression. You might set an alarm to wake yourself up at a certain time to make sure you get out of bed in the morning or you might set an alarm to signal a meal time if you’re missing meals, or signal time to do laundry, or run a particular set of errands, and so on. ![]() The alarm can be for anything that marks a symptom of depression. In CBT, the principle is that your behaviors can create positive changes in your emotions.Ģ) Set an Alarm- This isn’t only for getting out of bed. It’s very much a “just to the opposite of your unhealthy urge” technique. For example, if you want to stay on the couch and watch tv all day, when realizing this only gives in to depression, opposite action would say to get up and go out, knowing it would be a healthier behavior. Let’s look at some steps that can help break an episode or a cycle of depression.ġ) Opposite Action- In Dialectical-Behavioral Therapy (an offshoot of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy), Opposite Action is the idea of forcing yourself to do something that you know is good for you, in order to prevent the reinforcement of a bad habit. This doesn’t replace taking the steps to learn more about what’s causing the episodes, but these steps can help us move on with our lives while we continue to work on the underlying issues. For some it’s brought their symptoms entirely into remission. I have seen evidence with many people that creating a change in mindset with small, manageable, behavioral steps can change a whole experience of depression. While it’s important to give depressive symptoms their attention and get to understand and learn about what’s underlying the depressive episode, the concept of “mind over matter” can help create motivation when depressed. Obviously, activelydoing anything doesn’t sound so desirable when feeling depressed, let alone confronting our depressive urges head-on. That’s right, catering to our depressive urges actually reinforcesthem. If everybody tried to wait out their depressive episodes, some people would be in bed for 20 years, realizing somewhere along the way that depression actually tends to breed depression if it’s not actively confronted. Unfortunately, it’s not usually as simple as this.
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