Self-Management of Depression

                                                              In today’s fast-moving global economy, the concept of a one-size-fits-all linear career path is a thing of the past. Employees have unique needs in the context of their work. Some view it as a means to an end, some as a stepping stone for career advancement, while others may consider it a calling. These three types of orientations toward work are described in more detail below (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997): 1. Job orientation: Individuals with a job orientation are only interested in the material benefits from work and do not seek or receive any other type of reward from it. Their main source of joy is outside work, and work is a means of providing resources to enjoy their time outside of work. They often wish time would pass more quickly at work and greatly anticipate w...

The oversaturated, hypermarketed, and superadvertised space of mindfulness and meditation apps makes choosing techniques that are actually helpful a daunting task. In this context, the three-minute breathing space offers a proven and simple mini-meditation comprising of three steps, each step lasting about a minute. It is one of the core practices of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), an evidence-based psychotherapy (Williams et al., 2007). The purpose of this exercise is to allow you to step back from a stressful situation, which helps you discern newer perspectives and alternatives that may not have been that apparent. It is hypothesized that mindfulness rewires our brain toward resilience and is considered a cornerstone of resilience (Graham, 2013). Although this exercise is called the three-minute breathing space, you can use it for shorter or longer duration depending on your comfort level and the situation. The steps of the technique are as below (Neff, 2011; Williams et...

On an average, most people spend more than 90% of their lives indoors (Woodcock & Custovic, 1998). Contemporary urban lifestyles along with increased time spend on screens has also led to people spending less time outdoors and disconnecting with nature. This detachment from nature takes a toll on an individual's mental health as research has shown that nature exposure has a positive influence on psychological well-being (Bratman et al., 2019). Some of these benefits include an increase in positive emotions, happiness and subjective well-being, positive social interaction, a sense of meaning and purpose in life, and a decrease in risk factors for mental illness, especially depression. In addition, a review of studies on nature-based outdoor activities showed that these interventions improve depressive mood and reduce anxiety (Coventry et al., 2021). Noticing nature is a proven nature-based well-being intervention. In this practice, you pay attention to the feelings evoked by nat...

One of life's undeniable truths is that you will face failures. How one deals with these failures depends, among other factors, on one's compassion toward oneself and one's mindset toward adapting to failure. In this context, self-compassion and a growth mindset help you overcome your harsh inner critic, especially when failures lead you to judge yourself harshly, feel ashamed, or blame yourself. This article discusses how to use these tools in these situations.   Self-Compassion Put simply, self-compassion is compassion turned inwards, i.e., how you relate to yourself in instances of perceived failure, inadequacy, or personal suffering. The three components of the compassionate frame of mind are self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness (Neff, 2011). Let’s consider the following situation to illustrate how you can use three components to deal with an adversity that makes you critical of yourself. You couldn’t meet a deadline at work despite your best effor...

What are Character Strengths? Surely, you must have come across the word “character” several times in your life – in biographies, biopics, moral lessons from your elders, etc. The Oxford Dictionary describes character as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.” The field of positive psychology defines character in terms of character strengths and gives this amorphous concept some legs. Character strengths are considered the building blocks of human goodness and human flourishing. They are the foundation of optimal life-long development and thriving (Park & Peterson, 2009). In psychological terms, character strengths are those aspects of personality that are morally valued, and good character is not the absence of deficits and problems but rather a well-developed family of positive traits. They are substantially stable and manifest through thoughts, emotions, volition, and action and are influenced by both genetics and environment (Niemiec, 2013). Character str...

Anger is a normal emotion that we all experience in our daily lives. Not all anger is bad; it can help you focus on self-defense, mastery, and control, especially when you perceive that your goals are being blocked (Linehan, 2015). But anger can also become problematic if it is disproportionate to the triggering situation, leads to aggression or destruction, or occurs too frequently. People differ in how they express anger. What may make one individual angry may not be perceived as anger-provoking by another individual. In Aristotle's words, which ring true even today, "Anybody can become angry-that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way-that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."  While it may not always be possible to predict when one may get angry, trying to understand the reasons behind this variation in the expression of anger would help one become mor...

What is overthinking? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines overthinking as "to put too much time into thinking about or analyzing (something) in a way that is more harmful than helpful." Surprisingly, even a non-psychological lexicon considers overthinking more harmful than helpful. In psychological jargon, overthinking usually involves misinterpreting or misattributing situations, past events, memories, and even feelings. Some common types of overthinking patterns, also called irrational thoughts or cognitive distortions, include all-or-none thinking (always/never thinking), jumping to conclusions without substantial evidence, disqualifying the positives, magnifying things out of proportion, catastrophizing (assuming the worst-case scenario), taking things personally, using negative self-labels (e.g., “I am a loser”), and should/must thinking (imposing rules on yourself or others). While we all engage in these overthinking patterns periodically, sometimes these irrational...

Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you lost touch with your surroundings and felt intense joy and satisfaction after the activity was over? Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this experience of highest satisfaction as being in a state of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). According to him, an individual in a state of flow- Exactly knows what they have to do moment by moment, either because the activity requires it, or because clear goals are set at every step of the way. Gets immediate feedback on their performance either from the activity itself or from their internalized standards. Feels that the activity matches with their skill set, it being neither too hard and nor too easy so as not to lead to anxiety or boredom, respectively. Athletes, painters, and other creative people have described this state as an ecstatic feeling or a feeling of contentment. The person in a state of flow pays undivided attention to the task at hand to the ex...

If you are human, you will have problems. Having problems means that you are normal, and solving them means you are a happy normal! While the traditional therapy approaches focus on the “why” of a problem, Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) moves the focus from the “why” of a problem to “how it can be solved.” Evidence suggests that SFBT is effective for treating mild or moderate depression and has also been widely used as a life-coaching strategy (Gingerich & Eisengart, 2000; Kramer et al., 2014). Here are five questions used in SFBT that you can ask yourself to find solutions for problems that impede your goals (Grant & Greene, 2001; Simon & Berg, 1997). 1. The miracle question: The miracle question goes like this: “Suppose one night, while I am asleep, there is a miracle and the problem that I am facing is solved. However, because I am asleep, I don’t know that the miracle has already happened. When I wake up in the morning, what will be different that will tel...

What is Measurement-based Care? Measurement-based care is extensively used in medical conditions and involves matching treatment interventions with the outcomes for those treatments. For example, a provider would periodically measure fasting blood glucose or glycosylated hemoglobin in an individual with diabetes to make adjustments to the treatment plan, including medication and lifestyle changes. Measurement-based care fosters self-management by making the individual aware if they are on the right treatment plan or if they need to modify it in collaboration with their provider. While measurement-based care has been proven to improve outcomes for medical conditions, mental health, unfortunately, has lagged behind in adopting it as a regular practice. Measurement-based care in depression is an algorithmic application of published, accepted, clinical guidelines and consists of four steps (Morris et al., 2012): Step 1: Screening: Your provider may use one of the several available tools ...

Anxiety tends to be pervasive and it can interfere with your daily life. A helpful technique to prevent worry from distracting you from the task at hand is to create a fixed daily “worry time” and postpone your worries to that time (Lewinsohn et al., 1986). The purpose of this activity is not to avoid thinking about the things that worry you, but to let you decide when the best time is to focus on the worries. Individuals with anxiety, especially generalized anxiety disorder, have excessive worry about many different aspects of their daily life and this lack of a specific trigger for anxiety makes it harder for these individuals to gain control over their worries. Worry time offers a way for these individuals to gain more control over their anxiety through a psychological process called stimulus control. When people with generalized anxiety disorder worry throughout the day, the worry becomes associated with many places, times, and/or situations. Over a period of time these places, tim...

What is Mindfulness? If your notion of mindfulness is a practice starting with a phrase like, "Take a deep breath and close your eyes," then you have mostly bought into the myth that the only effective way of practicing mindfulness is guided meditation .  However, if you know what mindfulness entails, you can incorporate it in your daily routine in an informal way without relying on popular apps that have commercialized a practice known to humans for thousands of years.  Mindfulness-based interventions are well-validated treatment approaches that not only promote well-being and resilience but also have been found to be effective in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and substance use disorders (Wielgosz et al., 2019). Mindfulness has two components: (a) orienting one’s attention purposefully to the present moment, and (b) approaching one’s experience in the present moment with curiosity, openness, and acceptance (Bishop et al., 2004). The state of mindfulness is described as ...