Do you feel the agony of leftover holiday blues?
You know how this goes. You gave the holidays your full emotional and financial attention, but somehow, you feel ripped off in the deal.
You might still feel the verbal digs from hurtful in-laws. Or, do you worry about the credit card bills that have begun hitting the mailbox?
As you try to clean up your slightly chaotic house, you vow to hold onto your sanity.
To fight depression and regain your mental balance, try the following tips:
n Go over your blessings in detail. Paying attention to what’s right is a good way to feel better. Make a list if you have to.
n Don’t allow others to spoil your happiness. We all have strange relatives who love to flaunt their success or demean us in some way. Send them out of your brain by refusing to dwell on them.
n Use humour to curb your stress. Haul out some old movies that provide you with a few laughs. Or, share some crazy holiday stories with friends who are depressed, too.
“The best way to lift up your spirits is to change your focus for the better,” says a psychologist we’ll call Angie.
“My patients will be sharing lots of in-law Christmas horror stories with me over the next few weeks. I’ve learned that talking too much about these incidents only makes matters worse.”
Angie says she emphasizes that we all control our thoughts. We can choose how to spend our thinking time.
“I advise people to wear a rubber band around their wrists,” says Angie. “When you think of something unpleasant, snap the rubber band and say, ‘;No!’ Do this silently, of course.”
Then, redirect your thinking to something pleasant, Angie advises.
Any of us can “think” ourselves into a deep depression fairly quickly. How? We can simply make a list of what’s wrong and dwell on these issues.
