Depression Doing the Thinking

It has been estimated that we have in the range of 25,000 to 50,000 thoughts a day.  If they are predominately negative, imagine how many negative thoughts you generate daily--thousands upon thousands.  That is the case with depression.

One of the features of depression is pessimistic thinking.  The negative thinking is actually the depression speaking.  It is what depression sounds like.  Depression, in fact, manifests in negative thinking before it creates negative affect.

Most depressed people are not aware that the despair and hopelessness they feel are flowing from their negative thoughts.  Thoughts are mistakenly seen as privileged, occupying a rarified territory, immune to being affected by mood and feelings, and therefore representing some immutable truth.  But feelings are not facts, they are just feelings.

Compounding the issue is that negative thinking slips into the brain under the radar of conscious awareness and becomes habitual.  People come to generate negative thoughts so automatically they are unaware that they are happening, and that most of the time it is actually a choice they are making.

One of the most powerful actions that can be taken to combat depression is to understand how critical the quality of your thinking is in maintaining, and even instensifying your depression--and that the quickest way to change how you feel is to change how you think.

Often enough you can't control how you feel, but you can almost always control how you think.  Thought-processing errors contribute so much to depressed mood.

It is possible to take action and to change patterns of thinking on your own, without necessarily turning to anti-depression medications.  Following are six action strategies that will bring results in breaking out of the negative thought patterns that maintain depression.

• Know that is possible to control the quality of your thinking.  Controlling the quality of your thoughts contributes more to how you feel than any other factor.  It is a rather widespread belief that you have to change your feelings in order to change how you think; it actually works just the opposite way.
• Keep track of how many negative thoughts you are actually having.  This is most easily accomplished by keeping a "thought journal."  You write down as many instances of negative thinking at the end of the day as you can remember. Write down names you call yourself, when you label yourself as worthless or helpless or hopeless.  Keep track of generalizations you make in which you take a singular bad event and project in onto the future.  Write down instances when you use terms like never or always, or when you think black and white thoughts.  It helps to ask a loved one or a trusted colleague to point out to you instances of negative thinking, and then record them.
• After getting an idea of the negative thinking and its frequency, identify the situations that trigger wuch thinking.  Writing them down helps you to focus and to be aware of your triggers.  Often,  certain types of events are particularly likely to set off a chain of negative thoughts, such as a perception of being ignored or not responded to, or a negative remark or an actual setback at work. 
• Practice converting negative to postive thinking.  Some people like to think of it as "flipping a switch."  Think of a light switch, and mentally switch it from the down position to the up--to the "light."
• Utilize a partnership strategy.  Tell your partner or trusted colleague that you think you are sounding too pessimistic in your thinking and that you want to be more optimistic.  Ask them to help you out be gently cueing you when you are sounding negative, and then asking you to instantly convert it to a positive statment.
• In keeping your diary of negative thinking, create a separate column for writing the corresponding positive thought.  "I'm too old" vs "I'm getting better and wiser with age."  If you do this for a few days, you will get the hang of converting negative to positive thinking.

              By Hara Estroff Marano, published on July 01, 2001, and edited, with original thoughts, by Robert E. Davis.