Five healthy ways to overcome depression

Depression is characterised by a severe and typically prolonged feeling of sadness and dejection. It is basically a state of feeling sad about everything. It makes us irritable, saps our energy and motivation, and negatively affects our ability to experience joy, pleasure and excitement.

Below are five ways you can overcome depression.

Change your mindset

If you want to cure depression, you have to start by changing your mindset. Refuse to be a weak person who lets himself or herself be beaten down by emotions you should have mastered. You should remember that you have control over your mind and body; and know that you have the willpower to say no to the feeling of depression, and rise up to do something to restore your feelings of joy, pleasure and excitement. If you don’t remember these things and do something to overcome depression, the feeling of depression might never leave you and you’ll end up doing permanent damage to your life.

Don’t forget that you might not have been able to control falling into depression, but you can control whether or not you stay in depression.

Participate in engaging activities

The worst thing you can do when depressed is to be alone. Participating in engaging activities with friends, family or people in a group you are a part of can do wonders in helping to lift you out of the pit of depression. It stops you from ruminating and letting your mind wonder on despondent thoughts. When you’re interacting with other people and participating in engaging activities, it’s difficult to dwell on repetitive negative thoughts.

Go outside to get some exposure to light

Have you ever wondered why when you’re depressed you’re more sensitive to light exposure? It’s because there is a deeper link between light exposure and depression. Usually, when you’re depressed you want to remain in a dark gloomy place to wallow, but what you don’t realise is that your brain measures the amount of light you get every day and uses the information to reset your body’s internal clock.

When there’s no light exposure, it throws your body off balance and disrupts important circadian rhythms that regulate energy, sleep, appetite and hormone levels. This disruption only makes the feeling of depression worse. It is therefore important to get light exposure (even if it’s only the natural light of a gray cloudy day) to keep those rhythms well regulated and enliven your body. You’d also notice that you will feel better than when you allowed yourself wallow in the darkness with the feeling of depression.

Physical exercise

When you’re depressed, the desire to do anything, go anywhere, say anything wanes drastically. To address this, doing physical exercises as simple as 20 to 30 minutes of brisk walking, two or three times a week, can help you overcome this crippling emotion. You should encourage yourself to move and not let the emotion of depression defeat you.

Exercise is essential in the treatment of depression because it increases the activity level of important brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, alongside the brain’s production of a key growth hormone called BDNF. Depression affects the production of these chemicals and causes them to plummet, leading to learning and memory impairments (this is why when you are depressed you feel weak, sluggish and find it difficult to remember details of things that might have happened in your direct line of vision). Exercises reverse this trend and protect the brain in a way nothing else can.

Social support

Relationships play a big part in helping to cure depression. Many hormones involved in bonding and helping behavior help reduce the anxiety and stress related to depression.

Having someone to talk to you about your feelings and having someone to talk to you out of your drowning feelings of depression can be of monumental help in dealing with depression and preventing a re-occurrence. (The Nation)