Quick and Easy Ways to Overcome Depression

Depression can feel overwhelming and debilitating at times but if you are motivated to make a change then you can start to feel better faster than you may think. The most important thing to do in order to move into a more positive mood is to simply have the intention to feel better. If you can intend to feel some relief then your brain will start triggering better feeling thoughts and your emotions will follow suit. The next time you feel sad try these simple techniques to start feeling better.

1. When you are feeling at your worst some typical feelings that would be surfacing are feelings or despair, powerlessness, grief, fear, insecurity and guilt. This is the bottom rung of the emotional scale. It really doesn’t get any worse than this. First, as I said before, make a true intention to start feeling better. After you sit with that intention for a minute begin reaching for the feelings of anger, rage, blame, revenge or jealousy. You may think that those feelings are just as bad but in actuality those feelings really feel better. Once you can identify with angry feelings your feelings of depression are immediately lifted and you start to feel some relief. Play around with how it feels to be angry. Pay attention to your thoughts and what type of internal dialogue is going through your head. If you feel like it, stay angry for the rest of the day or carry it on throughout the week. When you are ready to move even higher up the emotional scale make the intention to move higher and start making statements that reflect the feelings of worry, doubt and disappointment. Eventually you will start moving through irritation, frustration and pessimism. From there it is an easy step into feelings of boredom, contentment, hopefulness, positive beliefs, happiness, love and joy.
2. This next one I learned in grad school. What you need to know here is that when you are feeling joy and happiness you typically display the same type of facial expressions. A smile is on your face, and your eyes light up when positivity is running through your body. What you can do is force a smile. If you start smiling then your brain thinks there is something to be happy about and it starts shooting off neurons that tell your mind to get in a better mood. If you are having trouble forcing a smile you should try biting down on a pencil. You’ll get the same effect.
3. Another way to start feeling happy now is to sit down and take out a pen and paper and try to figure out if you honestly believe that things will get better. If you can write out some logical and rational statements about the possibility of feeling better sometime in the future then your spirits will instantly start to lift. If you feel as though you are at a dead end job and your boss is a horrible person try writing down some statements that will create hope of being able to find a new job with an employer you enjoy being around. If you are in a tight financial situation and feel as though there is no end in sight try figuring out if you will ever get to a place with less debt or a bigger savings. Once you can honestly convince yourself that things will be okay pretty soon then you will start creating positive belief systems that will get you through your sadness.

Try these techniques out and let me know how it goes for you.

About the Author:
Jeff Guenther, M.S. is a professional therapist in Portland, Oregon and counsels individuals, couples and families. Visit his website at http://www.JeffGuenther.com or email him at JeffGuentherMS@gmail.com.

How to separate Yourself from yourself

If you are struggling with an intense emotion, or a not so intense emotion, you may want to try and create some space between You and you. I capitalize the first "You" because when you can create some internal space you are actually becoming aware of your higher self, or your source or your God self or whatever you would like to call it.

Let's say you have just been dumped. You were in a relationship for a year and your partner has broken up with you for a reason you don't think is valid. You love this person and want to be with this person and it just doesn't make sense to you why he/she left you. A typical reaction is to become depressed, angry, resentful, frustrated, enraged, grief stricken, etc. You can spend some time feeling these negative emotions and spending days, weeks or months is quite typical and in some cases healthy to stay in this depressed state. But eventually you have to make a choice to feel better. Feeling better always comes down to choice. You don't have to feel a certain way if you don't want to feel it.

So let's say you have been unfairly broken up with and some typical thoughts running through your head are, "I can't go on with out him/her," "I'll never love again," "I can't imagine ever feeling better." These thoughts are normal but when they keep repeating themselves and they are the only thoughts you are identifying with on a daily basis it makes daily life pretty difficult to get through. If you can take a mental step back and take a look at these thoughts as an observer and not identify with them then your healing can begin and you can start feeling better pretty quickly.

Picture in your mind that you are watching these thoughts like you would watch a news ticker at the bottom of a 24 hour news channel. You would typically watch the ticker with a sense of disconnectedness and anything floating by on the screen would not trigger much emotion from you. You can apply this same feeling to your thoughts. Look at your thoughts from a distance or a different perspective, identify with the Observer in you and simply see the thoughts passing by. Try not to make harsh judgments about the thoughts because you are then just letting those negative thoughts in through the back door. Try identifying and becoming aware of that part of you that is watching everything unfold. That part of you is always calm and relaxed and content. If you wish, you could comment on the negative, sad or angry thoughts that pass through your mind but the comments should be Observer comments such as, "that's interesting," or "it makes sense that I would feel this way."

With practice you become better at distancing Yourself from yourself and life becomes a lot more manageable.

About the Author:

Jeff Guenther, M.S. is a profesional therapist in Portland, Oregon and counsels individuals, couples and families. Visit his website at http://www.JeffGuenther.com or email him at JeffGuentherMS@gmail.com