Depression is the second most common mental illness, after anxiety disorders, affecting adults worldwide. Although the level of severity varies, according to the World Health Organization, nearly 264 million people are affected by depression worldwide.
If you are feeling down and find that you’re having a hard time snapping yourself out of it, you need to take action right away because the longer you wait, the harder it will become. As Dr. Suess once wrote, “When you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”
In this article, we will be discussing some ideas on what to do when you are feeling depressed. Of course, these suggestions are not a replacement for professional help and should an aid rather than a cure if you are struggling with feelings of depression.
What is Depression?
According to the American Psychiatric Association, depression is a serious medical condition that results in feelings of incredible sadness. It can lead to a loss of interest in daily activities you formally enjoyed. It can lead to other physical and mental health problems as well and harm a person’s ability to function in their daily lives.
Symptoms of Depression include:
- Feelings of sadness, emptiness, hopelessness
- Loss of interest in activities you used to enjoy
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Lack of energy
- Anxiety
- Trouble focusing
- Frequent thoughts of death or suicide/suicide attempts
- Unexplained physical problems/pain
How Do I Know If I’m Feeling Depressed or Sad?
We all have bad days or go through painful periods in our lives. With normal sadness, there’s usually a specific trigger. The loss of a loved one, a bad break up, the loss of a job are a few examples of things that can make us sad. With depression, it’s a continuous emotional state that impacts all areas of our lives.
Sadness is a short term emotional state. It could be a few days, or it could be longer, especially if the cause of the sadness is the loss of someone in which you will likely be going through a mourning process. Yet even in such circumstances, your sadness dissipates in time.
When you’re sad, your emotional state is more dynamic. You’ll have moments when something prompts you to feel sad, but when you engage in other activities or spend time with a supportive group of friends or family members, your mood will elevate.
If you are depressed, it feels like you are always sad about everything. Depression can lead to feelings of worthlessness, feeling like you are a failure, and makes you feel like it is no longer possible for you to feel pleasure about anything, sadness is typically not this extreme.
What Should I Do If I Feel Depressed?
When you are suffering from depression, it can seem overwhelming and make you feel like your situation is out of your control. You may feel all alone and feel like no one cares about you. You may struggle to get up in the morning or when you are falling asleep at night. Be aware of these feelings and don’t ignore them, acknowledge them, and then take appropriate action.
Don’t Isolate Yourself
One of the first things to do if you’re feeling depressed is reaching out to other people. Don’t try to get through it on your own. Humans need social interactions. Studies have even shown that people who have formed strong friendships in their adolescent years have better mental health later in life. Studies have also shown that older adults who continue to be socially active have higher late-life satisfaction and decline less dramatically towards the end of life.
It is never a good idea to keep your feelings to yourself. Reach out to friends or a family member you trust. You may be afraid you’ll be a burden on them if you tell them how you’re feeling, but this isn’t the case. People who genuinely care about you will be willing to help you work through your feelings. Talking to someone else can help provide insight as to why you are feeling that way and what to do.
Along with talking to someone you trust, force yourself to leave your house even if you don’t feel like it. Besides the boost you get from interacting with other people, it can also help force your mind to focus on something else for a while.
Surround yourself with people who make you feel happy, and you may find it’s contagious. The people you love and who love you remind you of your self-worth even if you’ve lost sight of it yourself. If you don’t feel like you have anyone within your social circle to help you through a quick online search can help you find a support group for others who may be struggling like you.
The worst thing you can do is be silent. Your brain is a tough trap to escape from and can misinterpret the reality of the situation. Talking to someone you trust and who can view the problem objectively can be a huge help in breaking down the situation. It can help you find what’s going on underneath the surface. Others can also be of assistance in getting you help.
Watch Funny Cat Videos
When you’re feeling depressed, make a deliberate attempt to improve your mood. Whether that means watching funny cat videos on your computer, signing up for a website that offers a joke a day, watching or rewatching a favorite sitcoms do something that will make you laugh. As the old saying goes, “laughter is the best medicine,” and it’s true. Not only does it feel good to laugh at the moment, but it also has proven short and long term health benefits.
Some health benefits of laughter according to the Mayo Clinic include:
- Enhances your ability to take more oxygen-rich air into your body and stimulate healthy organ function
- Raises the number of endorphins, the body’s natural mood enhancers
- Helps decrease muscle tension
- Improves your immune system
- Relieves pain by releasing your body’s natural painkillers
Laughter is a great way to boost your mood so make a habit of doing something to make yourself laugh daily. Want an even bigger boost? Share your laughter with others. Show someone else the funny video you watched, or share with them a good joke, then both of you will benefit. Not only can you help someone else’s day a little brighter, but it can also start a conversation to help you feel connected.
Practice Good Sleep Habits
When you feel depressed, you may not even feel like getting out of bed in the morning, but do it anyway. Set your alarm and don’t keep pushing that snooze button. If you can’t resist the urge to hit snooze, move your alarm out of easy reach. When it goes off, the only way you’ll get it to stop is if you get up and turn it off, just don’t get up, turn it off and then go back to bed.
Once you’re up, stay up, don’t allow yourself to crawl back into bed. Often depression disrupts your sleep patterns, and it takes a lot of self-discipline to stay on a healthy sleep schedule. Getting up at the same time every day and going to bed at the same time every night is key to giving your body the rest it needs to help heal itself.
If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, try some natural sleep aids so that you are well-rested in the morning. Natural sleep aids don’t just mean drinking chamomile tea or warm milk and taking melatonin, though these things may certainly help.
Chamomile tea and warm milk both contain chemicals that interact with your brain and may help with sleep-wake transitions. Melatonin is a hormone that your brain releases naturally to make you feel sleepy.
Along with uses aids like the ones mentioned above, exercise can also help regulate sleep, but make sure you exercise more than two hours before you plan on going to bed, or it can have the opposite effect and wake you up. As a bonus, exercise gives you even more endorphins to elevate your mood.
Environmental factors like light and temperature also can affect your sleep. Make sure your bedroom is cool and dark. Too much light can disrupt your sleep, and lowering your body temperature will increase feelings of sleepiness.
Practice Good Self-Care
Along with good sleep habits, you need to make sure you’re practicing self-care when you’re feeling depressed. Make sure you are practicing good hygiene and eating habits. Even if you don’t want to do anything, get out of bed and take a hot shower. Basic cleanliness is a crucial factor in good health. Showering or bathing also wakes you up and makes you feel better.
Eating is another vital thing to do when you are feeling depressed, but we’re not talking high-calorie junk food here; we’re talking actual healthy food. Proper nutrition is essential for a healthy mind as well as a healthy body.
Like other organs, the brain needs vitamins and minerals to help it function and regulate itself. Junk food, frozen dinners, and other low-quality foods that are high in calories and sugar and low in nutrition can make depression symptoms worse. Strive to cook one healthy meal a day to eat or if you can’t get yourself to cook order something healthy to eat.
Get Outside in the Sunlight
If you are depressed, it may be hard enough just getting out of bed much less exercise, but did you know just sitting in the sunlight can help boost your mood? Don’t feel like going outside? No problem, pull up the blind push aside the drapes, and just sit by a sunny window. If you live in an area where winter gets dark, try a light therapy box and sit by that.
Sunlight can help boost the levels of serotonin in a person’s body. Serotonin is a hormone that is released by your brain and is associated with mood-boosting effects. When you expose your skin to sunlight, your skin begins to produce vitamin D. Vitamin D helps you build healthy bones. However, studies are now pointing to the possibility of a link between vitamin D and depression.
Although further research is needed, there seems to be a correlation between those suffering from a vitamin D deficiency and those who experience higher rates of depression. If new studies prove this, then vitamin D might be a key element to managing depression. In any case, just exposing yourself to sunlight from 5 to 15 minutes can help increase your mood.
If you have a little more energy take a walk out in the sunlight, it doesn’t have to be a long walk but, even a 10-minute walk out in the sun will give you light exposure and provide a boost to your endorphins.
Exercise
Push yourself to exercise even if you don’t feel like it. Take a walk, go swimming, go to the gym, take an exercise class whatever you want, just get moving. Although it may be a struggle to get yourself up and going, it truly is one of the best ways to relieve depression symptoms.
If you have a dog, take it out, dogs are great emotional support and always happy to take a walk. Not only will you and your dog both benefit from the exercise, but sometimes the simple act of caring for something besides yourself is motivation enough to get you going. If you don’t have a dog, volunteer to walk dogs at your local animal shelter, it’s exercise and will help you to socialize too.
If you’re not a dog person, pair up with another human exercise partner. Ask someone to be your workout buddy or even ask a coworker to take a walk with you during your lunch hour. Having someone to exercise with is a great motivator and makes you more likely to keep it up. A trusted supporter can give you the push you need and hold you accountable so that you do it regularly.
Be Mindful
When you are in the depths of depression, traditional meditation may not be an option. It can be challenging to focus for a sustained period when you’re depressed, and you may not have the energy to do it. In fact, in some cases practicing traditional meditation can worsen your symptoms because it heightens awareness of dark thoughts.
However, with proper guidance and paired with other treatments, mindfulness can be beneficial in assisting you with working through your depression. When you practice mindfulness, you take time to observe your thoughts and emotions but do so without making judgments or allowing yourself to get trapped by them.
When you become aware of those thoughts, take note, and then return to the present moment and focus on your breathing and physical sensations. Don’t try to control the thoughts or fight them; simply acknowledge them and move on. Through mindfulness, you can learn the discipline to see your thoughts for what they are thoughts and not facts of your life.
Be Self-Aware
If you are self-aware, you can separate yourself from your depression symptoms. Instead of seeing the symptoms as defining who you are, you realize they are only part of your illness. Try to think of your depressing thoughts as bad thought habits that you can break rather than something that is out of your control.
First, you need to identify the bad habit and admit that it is a bad habit. Then, you need to start replacing it with better habits. To do this, name the habit. Are you thinking in extremes without any middle-ground? Are you calling yourself names and putting yourself down? Are you downplaying positive things as flukes rather than giving them equal consideration as negative things?
Once you’ve identified the bad habit, start to replace it with a more positive one. To do this call the bad habits to question. Is the situation really that horrible? Is there really no other solution? What evidence do you have to support your doubts? Would someone without depression see it or me this way? By doing this, you’ll find your thoughts grow more balanced and less negative.
Make a Plan and Set Small Goals
Even with both personal and professional support, depression may take more than being self-aware, changing thought patterns, and practicing self-care. While all these things are helpful, sometimes affirmative actions are needed. It may not all be a matter of faulty thought patterns and unhealthy emotions; it could be a life situation that is the root of your depression.
Are you in an unhealthy relationship? Do toxic people surround you? Do you enjoy your job, or do you dread it? What about your financial situation? These are just a few things that can harm your mental health.
If you are not in a good situation, you can’t have good mental health. Even if you are functioning in the situation, it will have adverse effects on your mental and emotional well-being. You need to make a plan to change or leave it. While this can seem overwhelming and impossible task, it is a necessary one to overcome your depression.
The first thing you need to realize is that nothing will change if you don’t change it. You can’t do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Take a good hard look at the situation, and don’t be afraid to ask for insight from someone else you trust. Asking for help can be the first step in bringing about the necessary change.
Make Your Goal Achievable
If you’re deeply depressed, start with small daily goals that are attainable. Whether that’s getting out of bed and taking a shower or reaching out to one person and speaking to them, do it. Everything begins with baby steps. Acknowledge and celebrate every success, no matter how small. Just acknowledging your progress will give you a mental boost and help replace negative thoughts with more positive ones.
Plan your day with specific objectives in mind and follow through with them. By following through with those objectives, you begin exerting a little control over the situation, and you will slowly become more empowered.
Don’t expect everything to get better overnight. Understand that it will take time, patience, and persistence. Some days things will go smoothly on other days; it will be a struggle. You probably won’t succeed every day, and that’s fine. Keep in mind that it is all part of the process and don’t feed into negative thoughts and feelings, no matter how tempting.
Once you’re able to get through daily tasks with a margin of success, you can begin striving for longer-term goals. Break your long-term goals into smaller more manageable daily, weekly, or monthly tasks that keep you moving forward. Try framing your thoughts in terms of what you can do rather than what you can’t do so that you are less likely to feel overwhelmed and discouraged.
These longer-term goals may seem intimidating at first, especially if they require significant lifestyle changes, but tell yourself it can and will get better if you take specific actions and then see those actions through. Accept the fact that it will be hard, but don’t let it scare you; just focus on taking baby steps that keep moving you forward.
Seek Professional Help If Needed
We all feel down sometimes in our lives. When these feelings last for an unusually long time and don’t seem to let up; however, it is a cause for concern. Generally, if these feelings of sadness and hopelessness last more than two weeks with no relief, it may be time to seek professional help.
If your sadness is so great that it’s interfering with your ability to function normally, it is also a good idea to look into getting professional help. That’s not to say we don’t all have off days or even an off week, but when it’s a regular occurrence, or you seem to be having a lot more bad days than good, it’s time to pay attention.
You also need to get professional help if you feel the desire to harm yourself or if you are having frequent and serious thoughts of suicide. In such extreme cases, don’t wait. Seek help at once. Don’t feel ashamed to admit that the situation is too much for you to handle alone. It is not a weakness but a sign of strength to seek out the help you need.
Where Can I Go to Seek Professional Help for Depression?
If you believe you need professional help, don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Support is widely available. You just need to know where to go for it. You can search online for mental health professionals like licensed counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists in your area as a place to start. However, there are plenty of other resources at your disposal as well.
If you are employed, you may be able to take advantage of Employee Assistance Programs. These programs can offer you with free services such as confidential assessments, short term counseling or referrals. If you are a student many schools have student health centers and mental health clinics that you can visit and get assistance.
If your job provides you with a health plan, most of these plans also include counseling services. Typically, you can go to your employer or your health insurance company website and find a list of counseling and mental health services available with your insurance plan.
A local hospital can also provide mental health services and referrals. Your family doctor or local clergy member, if you are part of a religious organization, can also be an excellent resource for you. You can also ask around for recommendations from people you trust.
What Are Some Words of Advice About Depression?
If you believe you are showing signs of depression, you need to take action right away. Depression will not get better on its own. The longer you wait, the harder the recovery you will have. You shouldn’t see depression as a stigma; know that it’s one of the most common mental illnesses that affect the lives of many people around the world.
Although it’s difficult and you may feel embarrassed admitting it, you need to reach out. Go to friends, family, clergy, or healthcare professionals and share with them your situation and the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing. While it’s true, you do need to take some initiative to seek out help; do not try to go it alone. You have the resources and people available to you to help.
No matter how hopeless you feel, know that there is hope. Through the use of medication, counseling, and self-help practices, depression is treatable. Nobody likes feeling depressed, but the only way you will be able to recover is by taking action to work through those thoughts and emotions.