Staying happy when times are tough

Life is never perfect (as a reformed perfectionist, I now know this is true!) But for some of us, it's more imperfect than for others. The following circumstances can be a reason:

• being homeless
  


• being out of work
  


• chronic illness
  


• chronic pain
  


• lack of money (particularly when coupled with lots of bills!)
  


• social isolation
  


• living in a war zone.

You get the picture! Barbara Fredrickson has found the happinss is most likely when people feel three or more positive emotions to every negative emotion. Does this apply to negative events too? Is happiness more likely the more positive circumstances we have in our lives? I'm not sure, but I suspect the answer is 'yes'.

In my own experience, being ill, out of work, having money problems and being socially isolated have made it harder to be happy. (I'm thankful to say I haven't ever had to cope with being homeless, in chronic pain or living in a warzone, but I feel for those who do.) But I've also found that negative circumstances don't make happiness impossible - it's a matter of having to work harder to create and maintain the happiness.

I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish about this. Having problems sucks, and when every second phone call seems to be from the taxman, the bank or someone you owe money to, it can be hard to see the world as a sunny place. I know this from personal experience. But in my view it's worth trying, simply because depression is painful and happiness is a whole lot more fun. Look at it this way - it's bad enough having crappy circumstances without feeling depressed into the bargain.

So here are the things I've found help create and maintain happiness in the tough times:

• having a plan for each day, just a list of tasks that can be realistically done (by you - not superman!) each day. I find it helps give focus and increase motivation
  


• having some goals for life that you're working on, such as finding a job, improving health, or creating something
  


• spending time with people you feel close to - this is a biggie
  


• exercise and getting out in natural light are always great for boosting mood, if you can manage them, especially in places of natural beauty



• writing down the positive things that happen each day and what you achieve e.g. I did the dishes, my friend called. Some people prefer to do this weekly but I find that when times are tough, daily works best to help prevent (or offset) a focus on the negatives. I also do way more than 3 each day - as many as I can think of and have time to write



• planning events that could bring pleasure, whether with others, or alone.

It's all about building up the positives in life so they start to outweigh the negatives, as well as noticing the positives when they happen. There's nothing like a lot of negative circumstances to set off negative, depressing thinking. Finding meaning in life also helps to get me through the tough times, in the form of goals I want to achieve, that give me a reason to get up in the morning.

CBT - Chocolate Behavioural Therapy

Yesterday was a tough day. The threatened mortgagee sale, with the consequent strain on my relationships with family members as we disagree on how to deal with it, and the uncertainty about where I will live, became a threat to my happiness. By early afternoon I was feeling completely miserable. Luckily I had an appointment for a free mammogram that got me out of the house. One of my tried and true techniques for lifting my mood is 'do something - anything' so I knew that simply getting dressed and going out would help. I barely talked to the poor radiologist, worried that one kind word would lead to me losing control and sobbing into the x-ray machine. After the x-ray what I most wanted was a packet of chocolate mint slices - I was sure that would make me feel better!

But before taking such drastic action I headed off the to the park. It was grey and raining (which didn't do anything for my mood!) but the dogs seemed happy to run around while I sat in the car and had a good cry. By the time I joined the dogs the rain had cleared (from both inside and outside the car!) and, with a warm hat and scarf, it was reasonably pleasant. I took a bag to pick up pine cones for the fire, and managed a walk right round the soccer field, quite a long way for me. I knew the bright light and exercise would help my mood, and by the time we got back to the car I felt a lot better.

But not so much better that I had changed my mind about chocolate mint slices! I don't know what it is about chocolate, but it does have a miraculous effect on my mood. (Shame about the disastrous effect on my teeth.) I was moderate in one respect - I bought the budget version! Back home with my spoils I decided to go on with my financial management activities, as I knew achieving something there would make me feel better too. I find behavioural techniques marvelous because they involve so little thinking and inward looking, and actually help me get things ticked on my to do list as well! But to lesssen any feeling of drudgery I watched some funny television programmes while I worked on my laptop.

A bath followed by a UPO (unexpected positive occurence) did the final work on lifting my mood - a friend called and after a heart to heart with her I felt a lot better. When I woke up this morning I heard the sound of the dawn chorus with joy and excitement rather than the sinking feeling I'd had the day before. So I think it's firmly established - chocolate works! Although behavioural techniques can be quite helpful as well.

All the different types of effective therapy for depression

In Tuesday’s post I wrote that there were more types of therapy out there than you can shake a stick at. I should have said ‘effective therapies’ i.e. things that are proven to make you feel better. It’s amazing how many approaches have been evaluated and found to work. Just to give you an ideas, here are all the ones I know about:

• Behavioural therapy (focus on activity, particularly planning activities for the day and pleasurable activities)
• Cognitive therapy (using lumped with behavioural therapy and called CBT for cog behav therapy, involves identifying and changing key thinking errors)
• Interpersonal therapy (IPT, involves improving relationships)
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, with a focus on accepting feelings as they are)
• Mindfulness (awareness of experiences and sensations without much conscious thought)
• Aerobic exercise (e.g. walking, running)
• Anaerobic exercise (weight lifting and other resistance exercise)
• Bright light (from the sun or a light box)
• Omega 3 fatty acids (ideally in the correct proportion to omega 6 fatty acids. In our modern diet we tend to get too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3, which is what causes the problems)
• Therapeutic life style changes (TLC, involves a return to an earlier way of life with more exercise, a diet higher in Omega3 fatty acids and more social contact and support)
• Antidepressant medication
• Positive psychology techniques such as using a key personal strength in a new way, making a note of good things that happen, responding positively to others’ good news, savouring positive experiences/ sensations and attending to positive, uplifting media such as films.

You can see from this list why I said that if you don’t find one approach that you feel comfortable with or works for you there’s always another! I haven’t even mentioned the things that I and other people have found helpful that haven’t been confirmed as effective by research yet.