Lots of people get depressed during the holidays and winter months. There are numerous reasons a person might experience depression, but during the holidays, two things in particular may affect a person’s mood: cognitive dissonance and Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. Check out my blog post to learn more.
A few weeks ago BuzzFeed observed a mental health awareness week. They posted several well made videos about mental health. Usually I choose one or two videos on a topic and incorporate them into a blog post, but BuzzFeed made so many good videos that I’ve decided to just compile some of them here. I hope one/some of these speak to you in a useful way.
We tend to invest more emotional energy into negative experiences than we do positive experiences. In psychology this is known as the negativity bias. We have evolved the negativity bias as a way to keep us safe from harm, but sometimes it can get us into trouble, leading to pessimism, depression, and PTSD. News outlets capitalize on the negativity bias by primarily reporting on negative events in the world. Contrary to popular belief, in many ways the world is getting better, not worse.
Sometimes our pasts haunt us and have a negative effect on how we interact with the world. This can be an important theme in therapy.
Do you have anxiety or depression in your life? Sometimes when it comes to problems like anxiety and depression, it can be hard to separate the symptoms from the individual. Often times it is the goal of therapy to help people separate themselves from their symptoms, recognize that they don’t define them, and to take the power away from anxiety and depression.