symptoms
of depression
how depression works
overcoming depression
thinking styles
Develop an optimistic thinking style - overcome depression
People with depression tend to have negative, pessimistic thinking styles. Learning to have a positive, optimistic thinking style lifts mood, and even makes people more successful!
Our thinking or explanatory style describes how we explain the good and bad things that happen to us.
Imagine the scenario of not doing well in an exam. Typically a depressed people will explain this in the following way:
Internal: I am to
blame
Global: Everything that goes wrong is my fault
Permanent: It will always be like this.
An optimist would explain the same event differently:
External: I was unlucky,
the subject I knew well didn’t come up.
Specific: It only relates to this specific incident, I’ll do well
in the other exams.
Temporary: It’s only temporary, things will improve.
For good events, the pessimist will say:
External: I was just
lucky.
Specific: It was just on that occasion, I’ll fail the other exams.
Temporary: It will change, more things will go wrong.
How an optimist will explain a good event:
Internal: I deserve
to do well.
Global: I deserve to do well in all the exams.
Permanent: I’m talented I will carry on succeeding.
When you have negative thoughts, notice your thinking style and replace it with what an optimist might say, even if at first you don’t believe it.
For more information
on thinking styles I thoroughly recommend Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.
