Self-Management of Depression

Though sounding simple, learning to accept and change are powerful strategies that keep relationships intact. “Accepting” your partner means that you are tolerating your partner’s unpleasant or offensive behavior while at the same time trying to understand the deeper meaning of that behavior and putting it in the larger context of your relationship with your partner (Christensen et al., 2014). For example, an individual may become more accepting of their partner’s introverted nature or tendency to criticize. Do not confuse acceptance with submission. Submission is enduring offensive behavior from a position of weakness as one has no alternative. In contrast, acceptance is tolerating offensive behavior from a position of strength as you choose to do so while seeing the offensive behavior in the larger context of your relationship with your partner. Acceptance also doesn’t mean one cannot assertively differ from one's partner, resist one's aversive behavior, or try to limit it.

In layman’s terms, hope is the expectation that your future can somehow be better, no matter the present circumstances. In contrast, psychologists define hope in a more structured way so that they can measure this attribute. According to them, hope is the pursuit of your goals with the knowledge that you have the capacity and the motivation to achieve them (Snyder et al., 2006). In other words, hope has two key elements: 1. A sense of successful determination in meeting past, present, and future goals. 2. A sense of being able to generate successful plans to meet the goals. The first element is called the agency , and the second element is called the pathway , which, in layman’s terms, translates into the will and the way, respectively. These two components of hope are reciprocal and work synergistically but are not synonymous (Snyder et al., 1991). People with the will to achieve their goals may not have the ways to do it and vice versa. Both the will and the way are necessary

It is difficult not to judge yourself or others or overanalyze a situation when going through challenging times. Strong emotions emerging from the cognitive processes of judging or analyzing prevent you from using your rational mind to arrive at solutions to solve a problem or use mindful acceptance if the problem is unsolvable. In these circumstances, observing ego, a skill used in many mindfulness practices, helps you increase your self-awareness and allows you to perceive an adverse event non-judgmentally.  The word “ego” in observing ego refers to your healthy, rational, logical, and compassionate self. An important function of the ego is the capacity for self-observation. This is your ability to monitor or reflect upon your feelings, impulses, and thoughts rather than impulsively acting on them (Glickauf-Hughes et al., 1996). While your thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, and physical body change, your observing ego, also called the observing self, remains the same (Harris, 20

Procrastination is putting off things for another day or doing things that are not productive as an excuse for not doing what is essential. While some procrastinate in certain situations, it becomes a habit for others. They leave dishes in the sink, don’t respond to e-mails, don’t pay bills, put off completing paperwork, finish assignments just before the deadline, or ask for extensions. In the latter group, procrastination becomes a form of avoidance. Psychologists consider avoidance as a maladaptive coping style that relieves one from the mental and/or physical effort of doing a task, reinforcing this behavior. Procrastination can be driven by irrational thought patterns, and sometimes, these are associated with depression and anxiety. The common irrational thoughts that foster procrastination include: “Nothing works.” “This is boring.” “I don’t know where to start.” “I can’t do this.” “This is too hard.” "I am not cut out for this." “I don’t have the time to do this.” “I d

With resilience being promoted as a must-have skill set, individuals are bombarded by various pop psychology iterations of what is needed to bounce back from daily setbacks, acute adversities, or chronic stressors. However, there is no proven pathway to resilience, and we don't know why some individuals are more resilient than others. The best one can gather from research is the predictors of resilience. The salient predictors of resilience include the following: 1. Demographic predictors: Contrary to the popular notion that older adults are at greater risk following a potentially traumatic event, research suggests that older adults suffer relatively lower psychological costs than younger adults. In addition, the male gender is a consistent predictor of resilience in numerous studies, with the possible explanation being that women tend to experience more significant initial threats during a traumatic event subjectively (Bonanno & Diminich, 2013). 2. Personality predi

Clarifying one’s values and having value-based actions is one of the core tenets of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an evidence-based treatment for depression. Values are our heart’s deepest desires for the way we want to interact with the world, other people, and ourselves. They are what we want to stand for in life, how we want to behave, what sort of person we want to be, and what sort of strengths and qualities we want to develop (Harris, 2009). Values are subjective; what one may consider as a value (e.g., being famous) may be considered as being cocky by another person. Compared to thoughts and behaviors, values provide a far more stable compass to motivate you to achieve your goals, even when faced with personal adversity (Hayes et al., 2012). An exercise that may help you clarify your values and find meaning in life is to imagine that you are eighty years old, and you are looking back on your life. Then finish the following sentences (Harris, 2008): I spent too much ti