The facts are that depressed people often behave in ways that are depressing. When a treatment plan targets not only thoughts and feelings but also behavior, treatment is more effective. Because changing behavior requires willingness, and because depressed people have a tendency to convince others that their situation is hopeless, changing one’s behavior can be a big challenge! However, the willingness to try out different behaviors can actually improve and change mood.
Here are some basic treatment interventions for changing depressed behavior:
Increase your connection with the things that bring you joy and pleasure. Often, when people are depressed, they tend to withdraw or isolate. If people feel self conscious or down on themselves it is easy to get inside one’s head with negative self talk, and this can drown a person in misery. Here are some smaller steps to take towards joy:
Find three things a day that bring you pleasure, that you are grateful for, or that you appreciate (and perhaps even take for granted). Identify a buddy and share three gratitudes daily. Find more than one buddy and start a gratitude texting thread.
Rehearse positives. This means making an effortful focus to share, remember, or tell people about the things in your life that generate a sense of well being, happiness, or pleasure. The practice can be extremely small, such as seeing a wild bird outside of your window or having access to comfortable transportation. Let people know about it, even if it is small talk with strangers in an elevator.
Stop rehearsing negatives. While it may be true that not everyone likes you, or that there may be many challenging situations you are facing, interpreting everything as hostile increases a sense of feeling and believing you are defeated. It may be true that there are aspects of your stress or suffering that feel invisible to others. But if you spend the large majority of your social life ranting or reiterating your pain, emphasizing your terrible characteristics, or employing your general incompetence, it will create barriers for others to treat you as if you are competent and worthwhile.
When you do express vulnerably or life challenges to other people, be receptive to what others suggest or offer. Even if their suggestions may not be helpful, most everyone who is paying attention and trying to be helpful wants to feel acknowledged. If you improve your relationships and your connections by valuing what others have to offer and make them feel appreciated, you will be less socially isolated and thus less depressed. If you antagonize, challenge, or undermine others because there is “nothing” they can do about your situation, you invite everyone to feel incompetent right along with you.
Just because you feel hopeless doesn’t mean you have to generate hopeless outcomes. Feeling discouraged, down, sad or missing someone or something in your life is normal. Rehearsing hopeless outcomes is not.Expressing sadness openly or crying with someone is different from rehearsing negatives, convincing or arguing that your situation will never improve, rehearing hopeless outcomes, or railroading a conversation into futility. You may feel hopeless, but that does not mean you have to act hopeless. Expressing sadness generally connects people to others, while rehearsing hopeless outcomes generally amplifies hopeless feelings.
If you don’t wish to make changes, notice the impact. If you want supportive relationships, you have to behave in ways that increase or improve your connection with others. Have you burnt out relationships – or are you burning bridges – by constantly rehashing your problems on everyone else? What is it costing you to continue this behavior? What would it cost you to change it?
If there is something you can do to fix, solve, or improve a situation, why would you not do it? Depressed people often take a passive role in complaining about their lives, or convincing others that they are the only persons who experience suffering. Sometimes this results in other people picking up the slack, stepping in, or fixing/ solving problems on their behalf. Thus, depressed people can be quite keen on making people believe they are incompetent or helpless when they are not. If this is you, what is it costing you to be in this situation? What would cost you to get out of it? If you are someone who relies heavily on others to take care of you (as we are all interdependent to some degree), is there something you can do express appreciation or gratitude? Foster or enhance the connections that you have?
Learn new skills, solve problems, step up to challenges, and be proactive. When people stop being passive and start being active, they start to gain a sense of mastery, control, competence, and confidence. These experiences generally are in and of themselves a treatment for depression. It is harder to feel depressed when you feel competent, have self respect, and like who you are. Act like a person who likes who they are. Find what there is to like about yourself and let people know about it. Solve solvable problems. Stop avoiding your life. If there are things you can’t do physically, work on improving your relationships. Find joy and pleasure in others.
If all else fails, do the pros and cons of acting in ways that generate more depression. After all, it is your life. If you are the one who is miserable, you are the one who has to live inside your body. If nothing is done to change or fix a situation, there is no good reason anything should change! Nobody can actually take away your pain and suffering, but if you behaved less like a depressed person, you could actually have a better experience of yourself.