How to Handle a Depressed State of Mind

When, an overwhelming sadness surrounds you, you enter a state where you don’t know about your own feelings. You don’t find anything interesting, enjoyment baffles you and you can’t muster a single positive thought. It’s like a dark and bottomless abyss. You keep falling in it, but don’t have the motivation to look up and find a way out. This is depression. An ultimate destroyer, it perishes dreams, hobbies and lives of many.

There are many topics, many medications and many ways to get out of the depressive state of mind. However, many still find it hard to come out of that. And, they are right. It is hard.

Dealing with depression on your own is not just a mountainous task, it’s also nigh impossible. However, there is a way to stabilize your mind when you are in a depressive state. Only then, the healing can finally begin.

Dealing with depression on your own

To this day, there is a social stigma surrounding depression. People aren’t willing to openly talk about it because they are afraid of being judged. And they are right. The world is full of too many judgements and not many solutions. Therefore, if you seek to handle depression without medication, you should go ahead. Here are some general tips to help you:

1. Get in a routine: Depression is a state of peaceful chaos. An oxymoron that does nothing and stops you from doing anything. Your days start and end in lazy disarray. To control this chaos, you need to get in a routine. By adding structure to your life, you start your attempt of building yourself up.
2. Set daily small goals: Negative emotions put you in a cage of the “no-win” belief. It makes you unable believe or comprehend success. The practical way to come out of this cage is to set small goals daily; ones that you can achieve. Achieving these small goals invigorate your desire to win and is a way how you motivate yourself in life.
3. Exercise to gain focus: Depression shrouds your mind under dark clouds of uncertainties – causing no goal in sight to focus on. If your mind can’t find a goal, let your body find a goal for it. Exercising focuses your mind. By physically exerting yourself, you give your mind something that it cannot shy its focus from.
4. Eat healthy to feel good: “A man’s heart is through his stomach”, a saying, while unrelated to the topic of this article, speaks truth. Depression makes your heart sink, making you lose the sense of happiness. Your body than acts to ineffectively emulate happiness by becoming gluttonous. Doing so does the exact opposite and your heart sinks further. Control what you eat and your body will energize – making you feel better.
5. Sleep more: To control the peaceful chaos of depression, you must find a way to relax your mind. And there is nothing more relaxing that losing yourself in dreams. Sleeping is how your body performs your internal functions. Its how your body recharges and comes up with new ideas, new aspirations and new look at life. If your depression is mild, a good night’s sleep can make you forget all about it.
6.  Use logic: One thing that you must always know about depression is this “Your mind doesn’t control you, you control it”. It’s a spiritual way of looking at your own self. Challenge the negative thoughts that come by implementing logical thinking. Logic gives you answers and when you have answers, your mind relaxes. Using logic to curb stomp negative thoughts is the principle way of dealing with depression in college students.
7. Take charge: Depression makes you act lazily. If something doesn’t interest you, you don’t pursue it, and when nothing interest’s you, you don’t do anything. However, when you know you are depressed, you have to actively act against how you feel. Take charge and pick up responsibilities. While it won’t treat depression at home (because nothing does), it will remind you what life is about: meaning. Find meaning and you mind calms, stabilising your mental state.

Dealing with depression doesn’t mean suppressing or eradicating it. There is no way you can handle depression alone. The above steps are merely to put your life on track. They will make you aware of your own predicament and then, you can act upon it.