Self-Management of Depression

With resilience promoted as a must-have skill set, individuals are bombarded with 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 are 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 predicto...

The word "acceptance" has been thrown around as a coping style, especially in situations one cannot control. However, what needs to be clarified is that acceptance comes in all sizes and shapes, ranging from radical acceptance to practical acceptance. This is where mindful acceptance , as propounded in the evidence-based  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) , offers a more structured way of putting acceptance into practice. Mindful acceptance is a self-management style that helps you accept your thoughts and emotions at face value without doing one of these six things that your idle mind is programmed to do during downtime: Dwelling on your thoughts or emotions Analyzing or overanalyzing your thoughts and emotions Judging yourself or others Avoiding situations that remind you of specific thoughts and emotions Suppressing your unhelpful thoughts and emotions by forcefully trying to push them out Trying to get rid of negative thoughts and emotions by distraction or other in...

Popular social media posts and self-help books extol the benefits of correctly naming our emotions, reproducing a lengthy menu of emotional labels to choose from. This is a good exercise in cultivating emotional intelligence through self-awareness. In this context, expressive writing is a simple and proven tool that expands on this facet of self-awareness to use writing as a tool to regulate emotions. Expressive writing involves engaging in deep and meaningful writing about a stressful life event or trauma (Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999). It is hypothesized that the act of converting emotions and images into words changes the way a person thinks and organizes about a stressful situation. By integrating thoughts and feelings related to the stress or trauma, an individual then can develop a more coherent narrative of the experience.  The instructions for expressive writing are as under (Gortner et al., 2006):      “For the next 3 days, write about your very deepest tho...

When it comes to exercising, we have our usual litany of excuses, and some of the familiar ones include: “I don’t have enough time.” “I am too out of shape.” “I am too sick.” “I already get enough exercise.” "I don't have the right kind of equipment." “Exercise is boring.” “Exercise is painful.” “I am too embarrassed.” “I am afraid that I might fall.” “I am too tired.” “I will look silly.” “I am afraid I will hurt myself.” “I am too old.” “It is too cold or too hot.” “I will not do it right.” If you find yourself using one of the above excuses for not exercising, then one of two things is happening here. First, you may be making wrong assumptions about your ability to exercise (e.g., I don’t have enough time, exercise is tedious or painful, or I am too embarrassed). Second, if the issue is genuine (e.g., it is too cold or too hot, or I don't have the right kind of equipment), then you may not have done enough to find a solution. While changing your wrong assumptions a...

Emotional intelligence has become a modern-day buzzword. Academics, self-help coaches, and management pundits have written millions of words and filled hours of airtime explaining the meaning and importance of emotional intelligence. But when it comes to enhancing this trait, one is left with the arduous task of sifting through a mountain of psychobabble to tease out pragmatic, easy-to-use, and workable strategies.  So, what is emotional intelligence? In psychological terms, it is one’s ability to engage in sophisticated information processing about one’s own and others’ emotions and the ability to use this information as a guide to thinking and behavior (Mayer et al., 2008). In plain English, it means using your emotions intentionally and intelligently to improve your well-being. Emotional intelligence increases with age and experience. Research shows that people with high emotional intelligence are likely to be more socially competent, have better quality relationships, and are v...

Much has been written about the benefits of mindfulness. While there are several ways to practice mindfulness, the image that comes to most people's minds when they think about mindfulness is of a person in a yoga pose, breathing mindfully. Well, mindfulness certainly goes beyond these stereotypical characterizations across popular media. There are practical ways to approach mindfulness that appear less amorphous than some traditional practices, and this article discusses one such practice. Before we delve into the details of this particular practice, it would be prudent to first define what mindfulness exactly means. In simple terms, mindfulness is moment-to-moment awareness of your present experience with curiosity, openness, and acceptance. Knowing what you are doing while doing it is the essence of mindfulness practice (Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Mindfulness is not approached with an attitude of getting to someplace better, or getting something, or fixing what we don’t like. Min...

What Constitutes Resilience? When adversity strikes, we are reminded to be "resilient." But what does it really mean to be resilient? For starters, resilience is not a single entity but a broad array of abilities for constructively and positively adapting to risk, adversity, or some monumental negative event (Dunn et al., 2009). Implicit within this definition are the two critical components of resilience – experiencing an adversity and a positive adaptation to it. Positive adaption has variously been defined, and the general consensus is that it connotes not only an absence or low levels of psychological symptoms (e.g., anxiety or depression) but also competence to meet societal and cultural expectations (Masten, 2001). The good news is that resilience is not a personality attribute that is fixed but is a dynamic process that individuals can develop (Luthar et al., 2000). In other words, no one is “born” or “naturally” resilient; it is something you learn and develop o...