Cognitive Flexibility, Multiple Solutions

 How to recover from depression

Cognitive Flexibility; Advanced Perspective; multiple Solutions, thinking of alternative, understanding of perspectives, different representations of one entity. Scientific reasoning, skills of argument. Earthquake 

Cognitive Rigidity; Simple Perspective; being a prisoner of own thoughts, sun circling around flat earth, theories become intuitive and are not usually accessible to conscious reflection. Earthquake - Planet Earth on the horn of a bull.

1 Are there skills that people have that serve to insulate them against depression?

Patterns of self organization

2 Are these skills identifiable, learnable, teachable?

3 Can we prove scientifically that when people learn these skills that it makes a difference (reduces frequency and severity of episodes, shortens episodes, reduces relapse?

 Reality Testing

Go outside myself in order to know whether this is really what’s happening?

Cognitive Rigidity; being a prisoner of own thoughts

Cognitive Flexibility; multiple solutions

00:29:12               Simple example. I call you up. You’re not home. I leave a message. “Hi, it’s Michael. It’s 10:00am. Call me back.” It’s now 10:00pm at night, and you haven’t called me back. If I’m a depressed person, what is my predictable attribution or explanation for why you didn’t call me back? “You don’t care about me anymore.” That’ll cheer me up, but it doesn’t stop there. Then it goes to the next level of, “How come people don’t care about me? Why aren’t people ever responsive to me? Why aren’t people every staying my friends?” The next thing you know, this person’s built this up and built this up until it’s literally a suicidal crisis because you didn’t call them back.

00:30:03               That’s how it works. That’s the internal orientation. Training people to generate multiple explanations, why didn’t this person call back? Could be this. Could be this. Could be this. Could be this. Could be this. Which one is it? I don’t know. To master the art of recognising what you don’t know instead of making stuff up and then actually believing yourself.

quality of decision-making strategies,

following heart, just following feelings, they’re going to make mistakes.

00:31:11               So, for example, I can say to my depressed client, “I can see from all the cobwebs all over you that you really don’t move much, and knowing that exercise has a treatment success rate that matches anti-depressants with a much, much lower relapse rate, it really would be a good idea for you to exercise.” Invariably, my client says, “I know, but I don’t feel like it.” Bad decision.

00:31:46               Your friends say to you, “Wow, you are really bummed out. You are depressed. You need help. Go to the doctor,” and you say, “No.” Bad decision. You go to the doctor. The doctor says, “Here’s the name of three therapists. Pick one. You need help.” You take the names, promptly crumple them up, throw them away. Bad decision. That’s what I mean by stress generation. How many decisions do you make in the span of a day, and this is what we find. This comes out of the field of affective neuroscience, which is just a fancy title for how do moods influence decision-making processes?

Basically, rumination involves negative thought patterns that are immersive or repetitive. Many people slip into rumination when they are trying to process their emotions, but they become “stuck” in negative patterns of replaying past hurts without moving toward solutions or feelings of resolution.

I'm stuck due to my parents. Job, happiness. Bad day

Take action. 

We're more than our past history.

Create possibilities.

The unexamined life isn’t worth living.

Global approach and  linear thinking can be an effective problem solver interchangeably. 

Unrealistic Expectations (most of the time, unknowingly); Our expectations are the filter for how we judge everything. If I’m doing what you think I should do as a speaker talking about depression tonight, then you’re very happy with me. If I’m not doing what you think I should do, then you’re not happy with me. Our expectations are the filters for how we make judgments about anything, whether it’s a movie that we see, whether it’s a restaurant that we go to, whether it’s a party that we go to, and it begs the question, how do you know whether your expectations are realistic? What happens so commonly is a pathway into depression for so many is that they have unrealistic expectations. They don’t know they have unrealistic expectations, so they’re always walking around hurt and disappointed.

If you really love me, you win a lottery. 

"If you won the lottery, would you still love me?"

Spouse, student, friend, job, relationship, business; must know the limits. Can he / she do?

Getting professional help is an important thing to do. Blind spots, good value in having trained eyes and ears on what you’re dealing with.

Don't wait for the crisis point.

The ability to make good decisions is important. 

Shop for good professional. Available. 

Every depressed person on average affects at least three other people negatively. 

Physical exam. 

Strive to learn about your vulnerabilities and develop ways to manage them. 

Learn to distinguish facts from feelings, beliefs from facts. Sleep is such a critically important issue. 

Challenge yourself 50 times a day. Reality testing, such a critically important skill. Exercise: easy, available.

Do fun things and do them often. Dare to be superficial.

Get and stay connected to other people. Learn to relax. Relaxation processes, meditation, visualization, guided imagery, hypnosis, any kind of relaxation process is going to be beneficial. Be goal-oriented in the important areas of your life. But again, they have to be realistic goals. If you can’t do the flow of steps, if you don’t know what the steps are, then you’re caught up in that ‘you wish, but you don’t really have a plan.’ Prioritize and problem solve. Get support. Get help. Don’t wait.

Don’t dwell on the past. 

Don’t compare yourself to others.

‘Manage your moods’ self-regulation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU

https://psychlopaedia.org/health/how-to-prevent-depression-full-transcript/

Leaders should focus on strengths, not weaknesses.

It is a human failing to not pay serious attention to a problem until it is in the “critical danger” zone, but you don’t have to go through that type of failing.

The most powerful antidepressant tool is knowledge.

Learning about depression is an essential first step in the direction of overcoming it. There is plenty of evidence to show that when people are more knowledgeable about depression, they build better recovery programs and thus are more likely to not only recover but also recover more quickly.

Skills work better than pills.

https://yapko.com/about-depression/