Depression is a mental illness that causes people to feel sad and lose interest in things they once enjoyed, often for no clear reason. When you want to end depression, you need to identify the reason for your depression, set achievable goals to overcome it, and implement a daily routine to stay on track. The best approach is using an eight-step process to end depression.
Here's how to end depression and stop the seemingly never-ending cycle in 8 steps:
A routine is only important if you have worthy goals you're trying to achieve. However, when you're feeling depressed, simply getting out of bed or going outside might seem like a worthy goal. And if it feels that way, it probably is. When you're depressed, set small, achievable goals to give yourself momentum.
Sometimes the best way to control your depression is to simply keep the trains moving. The only thing worse than being depressed is letting that depression throw you off your course and put your life behind the 8-ball. To combat this, get into a routine, and keep doing it consistently. Before long, you'll have occupied enough of your time with tasks that you can pull yourself right out of your cycle of depression.
Sometimes depression is physiological. You can try to put your depression in your mental mind vice and try to crush it into submission, but many times simply focusing on your body's health will do the trick just fine. The next time you feel depressed, go to the gym for a solid week and eat healthy, and then see how you feel.
Sleep is a component of your health. If you don't get enough sleep, you'll often be crabby and short tempered at best, and completely depressed at worst. For this reason, when you're combating depression, it's always important to start with a good base of sleep so you can better assess your emotions.
Depression sometimes comes about thanks to a lack of purpose in life. To combat this, try to take on more responsibility instead of less. I know it might not seem natural during bouts of depression, but like a routine, it'll quickly pull you up by your bootstraps.
You are not your thoughts. Let's repeat that: You are not your thoughts. You might be thinking negative, but you can take control and stop this from happening. The next time you're feeling negative, challenge yourself. Find joy in the moment and focus on the good rather than the bad.
Since depression is sometimes physiological, you can beat depression by taking some over the counter (OTC) supplements like 5-Htp, or tumeric. This isn't to say you should take sketch supplements, and always consult a health professional, but you can take a lot of great things for your body and mind that come in pill form over the counter at your local grocery or supplement store.
Lol at this last one, right? If you’re depressed, how can you have fun? More importantly, if you’re depressed, how can you do any of these things? Depression makes you want to curl up in a ball and keep the shades drawn ’til well past noon. Still, this makes it even more important to try something new - and try to have fun doing it.
When you’re feeling depressed, it’s usually because your life isn’t firing on all cylinders. In effect, you’re omitting one - or more - of the above ten from your life. This, of course, causes you to feel depressed, which makes it harder to commit to the list of 10, which makes you more depressed, and so on and so forth.
Do you overeat when you’re feeling down? Me too. It’s a great example of the cycle. You start feeling down in the dumps, so you stay up late and binge on some ice cream. You wake up the next day tired and lethargic, which gets you out of your routine, which makes it harder to achieve your goals, which makes you want to eat more, which causes you to wake up the next morning and do it all over again.
Depression is like groundhog day. Before long you forget what a healthy life even looks like. You feel as if this state of depression is normal, and so it subsists. And it is normal, but sustained levels of depression can be avoided. All you have to do is head yourself off at the pass.
Let’s do a test. Think about the last time you felt depressed. What caused it? What happened after?
I’ll let you think for a second…
Chances are that there was an acute event that made you feel depressed initially. Maybe you got fired. Maybe you broke up with someone special. Maybe someone close to you became ill.
From there, it became harder and harder to live a productive and fulfilling life. Which basically means that it was hard to slog through your negative emotions and focus on the list of eight, above.
This is because when you’re firing on all cylinders, you’re doing each of the eight. The feeling you get when you have maximum momentum and absolute joy comes from nailing each one. Conversely, the feeling of depression comes from the anguish felt by overlooking each of the ten.
Think back to that depressing moment again (sorry, don’t mean to open old wounds, but it’s important). Chances are that you became unable - or unwilling - to focus on maximizing the list of ten. You got out of your routine, which caused you to stop going to the gym, which caused you to eat unhealthy, which caused you to sleep worse, which caused you to repeat the cycle.
Depression is a cycle. The only way to get out of it is to break the cycle, even if it feels impossible or futile. Because when you’re depressed, most things feel as if they don’t matter. It’s up to you to break through.
I’m neurotic. Ask any of my friends and they’ll verify. I worry about stuff that rarely ever actually happens (sound familiar?).
Sometimes the crushing dread I feel about the future causes me to become depressed.
When this happens, the first thing I do is abandon my routine. “What’s the point?” I ask.
Part of my routine is going to the gym, so of course, I throw that out of the window, which causes me to lose focus on healthy eating. This, of course, affects my sleep patterns, causing me to wake up completely unmotivated. This will happen for a few days until I realize that I haven’t made any progression toward my goals.
This depresses me further so that when a buddy calls me to hang, I graciously decline. I’d much rather eat pasta and watch rom-coms, thank you very much. From there, my negative thought loops take hold and I become amazed at the fact that I ever had friends, seeing as I suck and I’m a loser.
Press the repeat button and you’ve basically seen a two-week and never-ending cycle of my depression.
What I hope you see, however, is this: Depression comes first from the abandonment of your routine. Once you get out of your daily set of activities, all is lost. You become depressed, making it harder to jump back into your routine.
A nasty cycle, I know. But still, you have the power. You’ve always had the power.
Depression is a heavy word. It’s easy to trivialize just how debilitating it can be for someone. Depression is a clinical condition, and I don’t mean to offend those who face dark thought-loops that can end in disaster.
But everyone feels some level of depression. It might not be maxed out at 10, but each one of us has a range. Some days we’re happy, and other days we’re a bit dejected and despondent. On those days, I think it’s fair to say that we’re depressed. Or at least having a depressing day, if nothing else.
It’s normal. In fact, not feeling depressed from time to time is extremely abnormal. So, if you’ve ever felt depressed in life, rejoice, because you’re a human and these things happen. But it’s important to become aware of the fact that you’ll face down days. Times when you feel as if nothing’s going (or ever will go) right. Moments when you lose your sense of direction and wonder about the point of it all.
And if you know you’ll have these days, that they’re normal, the next logical step is to figure out what makes you depressed, and preemptively deal with it. Ultimately, remember that your life is worth it and if you ever feel the need to reach out to a professional, please do. In the meantime, become a practitioner of the eight steps above and use the exercises found in the book Feeling Good.
Unfortunately, ending depression is a process and can't be done in a day. However, all journeys start with a first step, and what you can do today is put your best foot forward, consider the eight-step process to end depression, as well as use resources such as Feeling Good to help. Remember that emotions ebb and flow, and you might always feel bouts of depression. The key is overcoming them more quickly each time, strengthening your mind.
The best way to end depression naturally is to focus on the small things. Set goals you want to achieve, come up with a daily routine, exercise regularly, eat healthy, go out with friends, get out of the house, and do things that nourish your soul. It sounds lame, but this is actually how you overcome depression - working hard at it and being intentional about it.
It depends on the person, but since human emotions are largely cyclical, you may feel bouts of depression throughout your life. The key is to identify when you're about to enter a feeling of depression and devise a strategy to pull you out quickly. Then, when you face your next bout of depression, it'll feel familiar to you, allowing you to overcome it even more quickly than before.
This is where you definitely want to reach out to a professional. I know what works for me in terms of ending my own depression, but when you're deeply depressed, it's often clinical and due to a chemical imbalance, extreme imbalance in your life, or something similar. If this is the case, contact a medical professional immediately. There are people who care about you.
The key is to niche down to your basic needs. Are you exercising, eating healthy, and doing fun things with friends? Do you have fulfilling work as well as side hobbies you enjoy? Have you been touched or loved by someone recently? Answering all of these things and focusing on having goals and a routine to achieve them is a great way to end depression without medication. However, it's always good to consult a medical professional first.
To end depression, focus on maximizing each of the eight above. Place increased focus on your routine. Get in the daily habit of being generally awesome. Be the person today that you want to be in the future.
And then, eventually, you’ll face a bout of depression. When this happens, take stock of your life and see which of the ten you’re not doing. Start at square one with your routine. Force yourself back into it, even if it seems stupid and pointless. Over time, the simple act of acting like you aren’t depressed will cause you to actually not be depressed.
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