How to beat depression with CBT
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How to beat depression with CBT
Over 18 million Americans are depressed. Many depression sufferers are completely unaware of it. They just go about their lives with no idea that they could be feeling a lot better and enjoying life a lot more.
Even though it's probably not something you think about, your mood is a huge factor in your life. Feel bad; you'll do less, be less motivated and create less opportunities to make life better.
Thoughts can cause emotions. Seems obvious doesn't it? But what's not obvious is that by changing the way you think you can vastly improve how you feel. The main aim of CBT is learning to identify irrational, distorted and unhelpful thoughts and replace them with helpful ones.
Negative Automatic Thoughts
These thoughts often come from deep beliefs we have about ourselves and the world, and they are usually just one way of looking at a situation. In CBT you learn to catch these "Negative Automatic Thoughts" and challenge them. When you get good at it, you start to have less of these thoughts and as a result you feel better. You may have many negative and unhelpful thoughts every hour without noticing, causing you to have a low mood without knowing why.
Self-Monitoring
Monitor your activities hour by hour, note how much pleasure and satisfaction you got from the activity. Use this information to identify activities that are unhelpful or helpful to you, then...
Activity Scheduling
Schedule activities that give you good satisfaction early in your day. Schedule the ones that give you more pleasure later in the day.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is about combining the behaviour changing (scheduling activities etc.) and cognitive (learning to challenge irrational thoughts) parts.
For a guide to getting started, visit cbtexplained.com
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