Areas › Low mood and hard feelings
Low mood and hard feelings
Feelings are information before they are problems. The practices here are about naming what you feel accurately, sitting with what will not move yet, and acting on what matters to you even on the days nothing feels like anything.
What works for this
Behavioural activation
The strongest self help evidence in this whole field says the way out of a flat heavy state is through what you do, not through what you think. You act first and the feeling follows, which is the opposite of what the state tells you.
One move, today
Choose one small thing you used to do and do it today without waiting to feel like it. Ten minutes is enough. Waiting to feel like it is the trap.
What matches
5 practicesPoint at the body. 'Your hands went up just then', or 'you put your head in your hands', gives a feeling something solid to stand on.
Feelings argued about in the abstract go round and round. A gesture you both just watched is much harder to dispute, and it opens a door: what was…
When someone goes quiet and you can see they have gone inside, that is not your moment to help. Stay still and let the silence run.
You will feel the pull to summarise, to check they are alright, to bring the other person back in. All of it lands as an interruption. Give it a few…
You can say what an SSRI does in one sentence. It blocks the doorway that carries serotonin back out of the gap between two nerve cells, so more of it stays there for longer and is likelier to be picked up.
Worth being able to say plainly, because most people are carrying something vaguer and more frightening than that. It also sets a fair expectation.…
Serotonin syndrome comes from stacking, and the second agent is usually something nobody thought to mention: a migraine tablet, a cough medicine, a herbal remedy for low mood.
Triptans, tramadol, dextromethorphan, linezolid and St John's wort all count, as do other antidepressants. Someone who mentions in passing that they…
Before telling someone what you have noticed about them, ask whether they want it. Do you mind if I offer something back to you? Then describe only what you saw, plainly.
Close attention is not neutral for a person who grew up being watched for a reason. Asking first turns being observed into something they agreed to,…