2. Regular exercise is very helpful to relieve stress, depression and anxiety. If your physician puts you on anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds, once you start to feel better and have more energy, get out and move your body. It’s important to move your body to get your emotions moving through your psyche, rather than sticking in your heart and mind. Don’t forget that the best exercise at this time keeps your mind busy too. Competitive sports or circuit training or walking a course against your best time – it doesn’t matter what you do, but it’s important that you do something.
3.Monitor your thoughts. Do not say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say out loud to another person. It’s important to stop beating yourself up. Self-deprecation is a huge part of stress, depression and anxiety. If you catch yourself thinking self-deprecating thoughts (telling yourself you’re useless, worthless, stupid, hopeless, boring, ugly, and a loser) then say, out loud, ‘cancel, cancel’. Sounds silly but it breaks up the path of your thoughts through your neurons. Those thoughts have formed a neural network or neuronal pathway and are easily repeated. But like any path, if you choose a different way (in this case to think) that path will break down and you will be free of those thoughts.
4. Isolation is another problem experienced by stress, depression and anxiety sufferers. There are always times when we just want our own company. But these times can become dangerous because they allow us to brood and get into negative thinking. Not good. Instead, use isolation positively. Occupy your mind by tackling a jigsaw puzzle, a logic problem, a crossword, read a book or perform a hobby such as painting, playing a musical instrument or whatever it is you have an interest in. In this way, isolation will help you to grow instead of causing you further pain. These activities feel like a waste of time but they’re actually helping you break up that neural pathway, or habit of thinking, and heal.
5. Television, radio and newspapers can all supply you with a daily hit of negativity and help lower your mood. In the main, they concentrate on the negative side of life: crime, corruption, war, scandal and natural disasters and can give a distorted view of reality. Give yourself a break from this negative drip feed and avoid them completely for one week. You may find, like I have, that they have no place in your life after that. Trust me, you won’t miss them.
All of these problems are serious mental health problems. But if you implement these five quick tips as soon as you start to feel these condition, you can usually avoid the debilitating states they cause. And they will help you break the cycle, often with the help of therapy and/or medication if the illness is more developed.Please give them a try, they’ll all help to boost your mood levels very quickly indeed.
