Depression and Sadness

Although positive activities and behaviours are important to us and are in line with our values, they can often feel tough to tackle when the time comes. Having a clean and organised home may be desirable, but it can still take a while to do the dishes and get everything put away. We humans often tend to do what feels best and easiest in the moment, and lying on the couch can undeniably win over washing dishes in the short term, but mountains of dirty dishes rarely do wonders for the mood in the long run! In other words, it is good for us to adopt a more long-term mindset and actually deal with the difficult activities, even if they take time.

Here are some tips to help you get started on tough tasks and deal with feelings of resistance:

1. Divide activities into smaller parts and do one part at a time. For example, when you have washed all the glasses, you have achieved an intermediate goal and can give yourself a pat on the back for it. The plates and cutlery can be another intermediate goal that also deserves encouragement.

2. Plan a reward that you will give yourself after achieving a goal or an intermediate goal. The reward can be something you really want to do, buy or otherwise treat yourself to. The important thing is that it acts as a carrot for you, motivating you to tackle the activity that feels difficult.

3. You can also plan your day's positive activities to take place after the challenging activity, to let the positive activities become a reward and a motivation booster. If, after washing dishes, you are going to meet a friend or watch an episode of your favourite series, the dishes can feel easier to get done.

4. Plan the more trying activities for times when you have the best conditions to get them done. If you often feel tired and low in the evening, it is better to plan the housework for immediately after dinner so that you can spend the rest of the evening on something you find uplifting and fun.

5. Also try to increase your chances of dealing with the difficult tasks by preparing yourself. You can rinse the dishes immediately after eating so that the leftovers do not dry out.

6. In the same way, it is often helpful to try to remove any obstacles to getting started with difficult or unpleasant jobs. If you usually get stuck with your mobile phone in your hand, you can switch it off until you have washed up, and only turn it back on once you’re done. 

When you have depression, it is common for your brain to travel along dark and gloomy paths. It's like looking at yourself, other people and the world at large through a negative filter so that then most things seem grey and overcast. This habit of seeing everything in a negative light easily becomes another negative spiral that both perpetuates and exacerbates depression. Focusing on the negative and sad things in life lowers your mood, which in turn makes you more likely to interpret what is happening around you negatively.

Because what you think affects how you feel and act, it is important to try to break this negative thought pattern - we have thus come to the C (cognitions) in CBT, which is about paying attention to unhelpful thoughts and relating to them in a better way.

In the first step, you will learn to become more aware of what you are thinking. In the next step, you will learn different strategies for dealing with thoughts.