BEST LIFEHACK FOR DEPRESSION IVE TRIED!!
Let me know if you try it or if you want any ideas for what to include!! Ilysfm and stay safe angels xxx
Ok so I have diagnosed clinical depression and basically what I've learned is that depression is viewed by some as a result of faulty cognitive functioning. Beck theorised it works as a triad of negativity; negative self schema (view of the self), negative view of the world, and negative view of the future.
When I told my therapist I felt like I wasn't living up to how I wanted my life to be, she suggested I instead think about an idealized distant future life, realistic enough to be technically possible but not in any way related to my current life or the current world. She said make it as detailed and specific as physically possible, spend as long as I need on it.
So I opened PowerPoint and Pinterest and spent hours over multiple days making a super specific mood board for my future life, covering every aspect I could think of. When I told her I'd done it in the next session, she told me to write a list of broad changes between my life and this abstract future one and then, predictably, she told me to find routes to each of these changes and then to further break them down into tiny incremental steps I can take - starting in the long term and then moving toward the present.
eg, scrolling on Pinterest, find a pretty plant, download it and put it in powerpoint, write next to it 'have garden with this plant', then next to it 'own house with garden' 'job with enough money to buy house' 'good grades to get high paying job' 'study more often to get good grades' 'clear desk and sort out backpack to make studying easier', eventually it will become 'clear desk and sort schoolbag so I can have this pretty plant!!'
I started this about 6 months ago but I still find myself adding to the mood board at least once a week, and even if I'm not doing any of the changes I should, it at least provides some direction for what life could be and smaller steps for how to achieve it.
I fully understand that it's hard to motivate yourself to do this (I hyper fixated on it for a few weeks at first lol) but you can literally just do it on your phone in tiny amounts and even though the future can seem bleak and empty you WILL find something that seems pretty or interesting or appealing somehow that you can just copy into your powerpoint.
It essentially helps you find your 'why' for everyday life, making the future seem slightly more positive, and if you do some of those actions you might feel better about yourself too!