7 Surprising Habits You Might Develop Because of Depression

Do you consider yourself knowledgeable enough to spot the signs of depression when you see it? If you are someone who often reads our articles, watches our videos, and frequents other psychology-related self-help websites or journals, then you might answer yes. And while we’re certainly grateful for the recent mental health awareness movement that’s been happening all over the world, there might still be a lot left for us to learn about the true nature of depression.

We also made a video on the surprising habits you might develop because of anxiety:

Writer: Chloe Avenasa
Script Editor: Vanessa Tao
Script Manager: Kelly Soong
VO: Amanda Silvera
Animator: Yussie Feng
YouTube Manager: Cindy Cheong

References:
American Psychological Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – 5th Edition. APA Publishing.
Chen, X., Sykora, M. D., Jackson, T. W., & Elayan, S. (2018, April). What about mood swings: Identifying depression on twitter with temporal measures of emotions. In Companion Proceedings of The Web Conference 2018 (pp. 1653-1660).
Glatt, M. M., & Cook, C. C. (2007). Pathological spending as a form of psychological dependence. British Journal of Addiction, 82(11), 1257-1258.
Creasy, K. (2020). The Problem of Affective Nihilism. In The Problem of Affective Nihilism in Nietzsche (pp. 87-106). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

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How You Can Effectively Cope With Stress

During stressful periods, it can be difficult to relax and think about what you should do next. When stress gets severe enough, all you want to do is run away and hide from it. There are tons of ways to battle stress. There are some great suggestions on how you can get rid of stress.

Don’t let your emotions get bottled up. Find a way to release them and you won’t feel as stressed. Some people feel better after venting to a friend, others prefer to write to get their feelings out. If you’re sad, cry for a bit. If you’re angry, try hitting a punching bag for a few minutes. If your emotions aren’t being pent up, you won’t be as stressed.

If you’re in a stressful situation, before you doing anything rash, stop and count to ten. This will give you a moment to relax and cool down. It’ll prevent you from doing something you might regret and instead letting your mind calm down enough to make rational choices.

Smile your way to being stress free. Smiling shows that your are happy. But did you know that smiling can also make you feel happy and relaxed. When you smile you transmit nerve impulses from your face muscle to the center of the brain that tells you that you are calm. If you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed take a minute to smile.

A great tip that can help you keep your stress levels down is to stop procrastinating. If you have projects that need to be completed, you should make sure you finish them on time. Procrastinating might feel comfortable at first, but it will ultimately lead to a lot of stress.

Your mind can easily become cluttered, which is a fast track to stress, if you attempt to think about more than one thing at a time. Instead of focusing on many things that you need to do, focus on only one at a time so you will be able to accomplish it easier.

A great way to manage stress in your life is to console in a loved one. It is important to seek the guidance of those who know and love you the most. While they might not have a professional background in stress management, they know what is best for you.

Exercise away the stress. Exercise uses your pent up energy in a positive way to de-stress your body. Find an exercise routine that suits you, try cardio, jogging, cycling or weight training and sweat out the stress! You will be giving your body a great workout and using the negative energy caused by stress to do something positive for yourself.

To identify hidden sources of stress in your life, start keeping a stress journal. Each time you find yourself feeling stressed out, make a note of it in your journal. Record what happened, how it made you feel and how you responded to the stressful event or situation. This will allow you to spot patterns of stress over time so you can develop an effective long term stress management plan.

One great way to deal with stress is to take up reading as a hobby. This is important because sometimes, reading a book can immerse you more than watching a movie or anything else could. If the book is engaging enough, you may shortly find yourself in your own world, free from all that ails you.

Stress is given the nickname of the silent killer. This is because many people do not even realize that it is something dangerous and so they take no actions to try and reduce it. The truth is that stress release cortisol, a chemical which accelerates your heart rate eventually leading to heart problems.

One way to deal with stress at work, is to have others assist you with your work via delegation. This is important because you have people there to help you and you should make the most out of your resources. Of course, this may not work for everyone but for those who have it as an option, it is extremely important to take advantage of.

If you are a teenager or twentysomething, playing video games like Final Fantasy can relieve stress. Focusing on the action in the game, helps to relieve you of current problems that are consuming your mind. You can play alone, or with some friends, as a means to reduce stress.

Participating in arts and crafts activities will help relieve stress. Free your mind of work deadlines and financial worry by immersing yourself in arts. Try your hand at painting, drawing, carving, writing, sculpting, or any other free-form creative endeavor.

A good tip that can help you reduce stress is to stop multitasking and just focus on doing one thing at a time. Multitasking might save you time but you’ll end up with a big headache. Avoid all the stress by just focusing on finishing one task at once.

Define your objective and there is no doubt that you will know the results that you are after. When you set a goal that you want to reach and you focus on that one thing, your mind will influence your actions and you will produce the results that you want to get.

Try visual imaging techniques to lower the stress in your life. Visualizing a relaxing situation can be very helpful with reducing stress levels. Various research studies have proved this to be true. Take time to close your eyes and imagine you are somewhere happy and calm where your troubles are wiped away. This of a steaming, scented bath or a tropical vacation where you are lazing away on the golden sands for example. Closing your eyes and imagining something peaceful for a moment will help you become less stressed.

It is imperative to not think too much about what’s going wrong and let your stress bring you down. Take control of all aspects of your life, ridding it of stress.