Overcoming Depression Is Possible If We Change Certain Habits

When we are faced with an increasingly frequent problem, such as depression, it is important to go to a psychologist  to help us get out of the well in which we find ourselves. Why? Because contrary to what you might think from the outside, overcoming depression requires more than will and gritting your teeth: it requires the use of different tools to help us in this process.

The functions of a psychologist in this situation are various. First, it will be in charge of confirming that the depression we suspect exists; secondly, although he cannot prescribe, he can refer the patient to someone who can prescribe a pharmacological treatment, which is very positive especially in the early phases of therapy; thirdly, it will establish an action or treatment plan appropriate to the patient and will accompany him in its application, being able to make adjustments and follow-up when the depression has disappeared.

However, we all know that depression is not exactly a state in which we are especially proactive in changing or acquiring certain  habits, maintaining them over time and allowing them to take effect. Hence, the will is important, but also intelligence, the action plan established by the specialist or the pharmacological treatment.

Isolation may be necessary, but it will not lead to the solution

People with depression are often especially tempted to acquire new habits that feed their own depression: one of them is to isolate ourselves from others. We don’t want to see anyone, we are sad all the time and the gym, painting classes, music … everything that we used to like, motivated us, made us feel full now causes us great indifference.

Perhaps that time of pause and distancing is good in some cases and for a short period of time. Especially when the depression has appeared as a result of a prolonged period of stress. However, in the long term, cutting these types of “melancholic” habits is essential to leave depression behind.

Overcoming depression is possible when we start to do the opposite of what it urges us to do. Don’t we want to go out? Let’s go out with our friends. Don’t we feel like doing sports? Let’s get up very early and without thinking about it, let’s take our backpack to go to the gym or go for a run in nature. Given the first step, we will see that later it does not cost so much and it even becomes a pleasant activity. Maybe not to the levels of before, okay, but this still makes it more valuable.

The important thing is to get out of that cycle to which inertia leads us or in which we have already fallen. We have already verified that it does not make sense to continue like this, that nothing changes, that everything remains the same if we continue in the same direction.

Thus, one of the keys to overcoming depression is to start introducing different habits or recover those that we enjoyed and have abandoned. There are some, for example, like playing music that perhaps we have stopped liking, that it may be advisable not to recover. However, surely there are many others for which we continue to retain a certain taste and that we do not do because of the initial effort that they demand of us; an effort that seems like a mountain in the face of the little strength that we feel we have.

Going to the gym and talking to strangers or acquaintances, going out with those friends for whom we always had an excuse, starting to eat healthier (practicing what is known as mindful eating) and doing some moderate exercise will be important steps with which We will say “goodbye” to depression. Why? Simply because they will create moments  when we feel better.

Writing an emotional journal to overcome depression

Very well. We already know that depression will tend to go away when we recover or look for activities that make us feel good, confronting ourselves and doing an exercise of will to recover activities that we liked or to incorporate some new ones that we may like. But…., And what else?

We have said before that one of the characteristics of depression is that it usually encourages introspection. He tells us, “hey, you’re in a crisis!” and it puts us in a state in which it seems that it is easier to think. Well, we can take advantage of it to try to get to know each other better and put our emotions in order. Yes, our internal order does not work, so let’s analyze what it is like and look for a new one.

In this sense, writing can be very positive to unburden ourselves emotionally and, also, to keep track of our emotional ups and downs. Likewise, it also allows us to retrace our words to discover where we continue to fail and to be more aware of the situation in which we find ourselves.

Many professionals regard writing as therapeutic and they are right. Sometimes we cannot or do not want to tell anyone what is happening to us, but we still have a need to communicate it in some way. Keeping an emotional diary is very important and not only when we suffer from depression or a problem. Taking it as a habit will be very healing.

The natural thing is that at first it is difficult for us to leaf through the pages where we have captured all our pain. However, over time, this will become a necessity to feel, revive, and heal. Until the moment comes when we can leaf through the pages like someone reading a book, rescuing memories of an experienced situation that already resides in the past.

At this point we already know that overcoming depression is possible when we change certain habits, however, the road will be hard, long and in which many times we will stop moving forward to take steps backwards. However, by trying again and again, swimming against the current, following the help of a psychologist, in the end the depression will come to an end. Because if. Depression also dies when we cut off all the sources that supply it.