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​Counseling and EMDR Therapy in San Diego      Tel: (858) 366-3624
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Managing a depressed mood

6/4/2014

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The following are a few quick tips for managing a depressed mood:
1. Continue with Therapy. Therapy helps to clarifying and gain insight to some of the possible causes of sadness.
2. Keep Doctor Appointments. If you are taking medication, take the medication as prescribed and talk with your doctor if you are not obtaining the desired results or feel worse while taking the medication. You can also work with your therapist to help monitor medication effectiveness and side effects. Continue therapy while taking medication. 
3. Exercise. It's important to maintain exercise even though you may feel too depressed to exercise. Try to take a short walk or practice yoga, stretching or some other preferred exercise. The goal is to help lighten the mood, not run a marathon. It's good to get a little sunshine too.
4. Maintain Regular Meals. When depressed, overeating is common but so is a lack of appetite. Create a food diary to track what and when you eat to maintain balanced nutrition.
5. Journal. Writing about your feelings is helpful to get negative thoughts out of your head and onto paper.  If what you are writing is too personal, write it and then shred it. You can also write all the negative thoughts that occur frequently.
6. Reinforce Positive Messages. The minute the thought "I can't do this"  comes to mind, immediately say "STOP" or "STOP IT" and then say "I CAN do this." 
7. What to Avoid.  Try to avoid negative people, messages and the tragic news. While you are working to improve your mood, pay attention to what you allow into your life. If you have toxic friends, you may want to minimize the time spent with them and you can turn off the news and watch something or read something that you find inspirational or motivational. 
8. Review and Revise your Boundaries. Assessing your current boundaries is always a good idea. If boundaries were good but declined to poor, the outcome may be more stress. Improve your boundaries by limit setting, stick to your plans and read more material on how to set and keep boundaries. 

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