If you need help now someone to contact, by country

AreasLow 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 practices

Narrow these down

Six to eight weeks is what an antidepressant needs before it can be judged. The first fortnight will mostly tell you about side effects.

The transporter is blocked within hours, so the delay belongs to slower changes further down the line. In practice that means picking a date four to…

LongerWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 12:110One line of research

Coming off an antidepressant is a piece of work in itself. Plan it slowly with the prescriber rather than stopping on the day you feel well.

Some, venlafaxine especially, leave the body fast enough that a missed dose is felt within a day: dizziness, strange electrical sensations, a mood…

LongerWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:127One line of research

A few treatments are only given in a clinic, with someone sitting with you afterwards. The chair and the hours are part of the treatment rather than paperwork.

Esketamine is the current example. It is a nasal spray, given on site, with a monitoring period of about two hours afterwards because blood pressure,…

LongerWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 94:1One line of research

With the fast acting treatments, the plan for what happens afterwards matters as much as the treatment itself.

Electroconvulsive therapy can shift severe depression quickly, and without something in place afterwards the relapse rate is high, which is why…

LongerWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 12:110One line of research

Sometimes the honest answer is that there is nothing in your surroundings to feel good about. Changing them counts as treatment, not as running away.

A life with no friends nearby, no work that means anything and a steady drip of criticism will produce low mood in most people, and skills practised…

LongerWhen everything feels flatParts workQur’an 8:24One line of research

Learn this in order