Overcoming Depression and Finding Happiness II

If you find it difficult to motivate yourself, stop prejudging and avoiding activities because you believe you wouldn't enjoy them or wouldn't be good at them.  If you force yourself to start, you will often find that you do get some pleasure from and gain some skill in the activity after all.  Don't let negative thoughts about many activities block your improvement and interfere with your happiness.  You probably have negative thoughts about lacking energy, not being in the mood, hating exercise, etc.  Replace these each time they occur with more positive, helpful thoughts such as: "I'll feel more like it once I start," "Let's just give it a try.  Who knows, maybe I'll really like it," or "Why sit here and feel bored?  I'll try ..."

Depressed people tend to overlook and discount feelings of pleasure and accomplishment, both in trying new activities and in many other areas of life.  Learn to recognize these feelings.  Develop these slight feelings and take pride in your activities.  Counter negative reactions with positive alternatives such as: "Hey, that wasn't bad.  I enjoyed it some.  Maybe if I try it a few more times, I'll really like it," and "Not bad on my first try, but I'll get better with practice.  That was kind of fun."  Repeat those activities that give you slight feelings of accomplishment or pleasure.  You can develop them into very rewarding activities.

Good social skills and a good network of friendships ranging from casual to intimate ones help prevent depression after life stresses and speeds recovery from depression.  Happy people generally have several very close friends and a number of other friends, some closer than others, with whom they can share different activities and parts of themselves.  Do you need to reach out and make more friends?

Marital relationships are often important in depression.  An appreciative, complimentary, supportive marital relationship can protect you from depression despite challenging life stresses, and as noted previously, marital problems often lead to depression.  Work on increasing the positive behaviors in your marriage.  Perhaps your marriage lacks a confiding relationship of sharing feelings and receiving acceptance, understanding, and emotional support from each other?  Sharing feelings is much more important than simply sharing facts with your spouse.  Ask your spouse to compliment you more and to say many of the things normally taken for granted, to show appreciation for the routine things you do every day.  Learn about good marital skills and put them to use in your life.

Research shows depressed people are more likely than other people to interact with their spouses and children in hostile or angry ways.  Do you yell, sulk, bring up old resentments from the past, nag, insult or use negative labels, make demands or ultimatums, or criticize with overgeneralizations?  Do you alienate other people with communication problems such as avoiding important issues, blaming, or assuming you know what another person thinks?  Another communication problem is bringing up too many problem issues without focusing on solutions, one at a time.  Of course, everyone does these things at times, but bad habits in these areas increase stress and can destroy intimacy with your loved ones.  Learn about and practice good communications skills.