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How Not to Be Depressed: What I Learned from Reading Feeling Good
Depression may not be something we’d like to openly and seriously talk about. It can even take a certain amount of courage and vulnerability to acknowledge this feeling within us, but life can be tough, and depression sometimes does occur when we’re facing challenges and difficulties in our job, our family, our school, our relationships that feel insurmountable. How can we maintain a positive, upbeat attitude without letting hardship knocks us into depression? How can we maintain a healthy mind, so that we can be resilient no matter what life throws at us?
I recently finished the book Feeling Good written by Dr. David D. Burns. Reading it has been hugely beneficial because it has equipped me with the knowledge and tools to identify and combat depression. I highly recommend it and believe that you can benefit from it too, even if you’re not depressed.
Thoughts → Feelings & Behaviors
Dr. Burns is an expert in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT. I’d come across this term quite a few times before, and this book gave me a deep dive into its underlying theory.
CBT is premised on this idea that our feelings and behaviors stem from our cognition, which is our mental activities and thoughts. Depression, in fact, is caused by our distorted thoughts. By changing our thoughts, our way of thinking, we can reverse depression.
At first, I was a bit unsure if changing the way we think could really lead to that much of a change in our feeling, but after practicing some of the tools introduced by the book, I was able to feel less heavy when something upsetting happened. The challenges and difficulties were still there, but I became more observant of my negative thoughts: I learned to catch them, talk back to them and challenge them when they popped into my head. My mood seemed to get better, and I could deal with the situation from a more grounded position, with a more positive mindset.
The 10 Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive distortions are the negative, inaccurate thought patterns that lead to our depression. The book mentions 10 of them, which include all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filter, disqualifying…
