It’s normal for each of us to feel blue or sad. When our best friend moves away, or we lose a job, or we receive a poor mark on a test, we all feel disappointment or hurt. We may be despondent, and it may even get us down for a few days.
Depression, however, lasts much longer. Plus, it’s so pervasive, that it can interfere with your daily life routines, and it can even adversely affect your relationships with family, friends, and acquaintances.
Where sadness is something we feel about one thing, depression is something we feel about everything. Where sadness is a normal emotional state, depression is an abnormal emotional state. Where sadness subsides relatively quickly, depression persists for long periods.
One of the most difficult challenges when dealing with depression is finding motivation and improving your mood, even just a bit. Here are 9 ways to cheer up when you’re depressed:
1. Get some sun
A 2007 article in Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience reported that sunlight is “an effective treatment for nonseasonal depression, and also reduces depressed mood in women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder and in pregnant women suffering from depression.”
2. Write in your journal
American researchers published an article a few years ago in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, showing that journalling can be an effective tool in managing mental health.
3. Smile
American researchers found that people actually experience the emotions they practice, and the memories they recall corresponded to their practised memory. In other words, those who smile actually end up being happy—even several minutes after the exercise—and they typically recall happy memories rather than angry or sad ones.
4. Exercise
A study in The Primary Care Companion – Journal of Clinical Psychiatry showed that those who walk, jog, weightlift, and do flexibility training find a reduction in their depression symptoms. Some participants in the study saw mental health benefits lasting up to a year after the study.
5. Be around happy people
Harvard researchers spent 20 years following over 4,700 people to study the long-term effects of social networks. These are the old-fashioned social networks of friends and loved ones who we engage and socialize with. They discovered that when we surround ourselves with many happy people from our network, we are more likely to become happy.
6. Talk to someone
Dr. Richard Raskin, a private-practice psychologist in the United States specializing in stress management, thinks that talking through what you’re dealing with can be key to managing it effectively:
It’s important that you don’t let yourself become isolated. To the degree you can reach out, you reach out. Just get the process going with somebody, and then you may be able to add one or more people. Yes, it’s difficult to do this when you are depressed, so it’s best to set up this network during a time when you are feeling well.
7. Sing
Researchers at the University of Manchester studied a group of 10 participants to find a connection between loud music and pleasure. They discovered that music above 90 dB (typical for a concert or night club) can affect the sacculus, an inner-ear organ designed to help us stay balanced but that happens to also be tuned to sound frequencies found in music. What this means is that the loud music, including singing, may be causing the hypothalamus to mimic a response similar to that invoked when we swing, go bungee jumping, or ride a free-fall waterslide.
8. Get a hug
University of Carolina researchers studied 59 women to see how their bodies would respond to hugs from their partners. They measured oxytocin and blood pressure levels before and after the participants received a hug from their partner. Participants who reported receiving frequent hugs from their partners showed higher baseline levels of oxytocin and lower blood pressure levels.
9. Create art
In 2008, American researchers at Boston College published a study in Motivation and Emotion, exploring whether creating visual art can help repair mood in the short term. They discovered that while drawing didn’t “make mood any calmer or any more intense”, it seemed to repair negative mood. Art for art’s sake may not be enough to boost mood. If we want to use art to get out of a funk, we need to focus on creating something positive.
Do you have tried and tested natural ways to improve your mental health? Let us know in the comments below.