Struggling with persistent dark thoughts? Learn expert-recommended ways to reframe your thinking and improve your mood.
Since people with bipolar disorder spend three times as many days depressed as elated, it is the lows more than the highs that cause people to seek help.
When my clients are living with bipolar depression, one of the most helpful things I can do is show them how to manage their negative thoughts. Here are seven strategies that can help you improve your mood, too.
1. Separate What You Feel From What Is Real
Feeling depressed often means feeling hopeless and helpless. It’s critical to understand that these views are symptoms of bipolar depression and do not reflect reality.
In other words, it’s the depression talking, not an objective picture of your situation. Remind yourself that the bleak outcomes you foresee for yourself are due to your mood clouding your judgment.
Then think back to a time when you were grounded and optimistic about your future. Tell yourself that what you thought then about your life was more accurate versus your mood now, which is blurring your vision.
2. Stop Mind-Reading and Focus on the Facts
Too often, we decide how people feel about us in the absence of evidence. For instance, if you automatically assume that someone didn’t say “hello” because they don’t like you — rather than, perhaps, because they didn’t see you — this is mind-reading.
RELATED: 4 Strategies to Overcome the Cycle of Negative Thinking
When we are depressed, it’s easy to explain a person’s behavior as an expression of negative feelings about us, rather than noting the countless factors — which have nothing to do with us — that influence others’ behaviors.
It can help to fold a piece of paper into three columns. Then:
- In the first column, write down the behavior that discouraged you. (The person did not say “hello.”)
- In the second column, write down your automatic interpretation of it. (They must not like me.)
- In the third column, write down multiple alternative explanations for their behavior. (They didn’t see me, and so on.)
3. Stop Stating Overgeneralizations Like Always or Never
How many times have you concluded, on the basis of a single failure, that you will always fail?
Don’t fall prey to overgeneralized thoughts, such as No one cares about me and I’m never going to be able to get a job.
Instead, let the words always, everybody, never, and nobody serve as red flags that you’re probably overgeneralizing.
4. Focus on the Positives Instead of the Negatives
When we concentrate on the unfortunate aspects of situations and filter out the positive — dwelling on games lost and forgetting our victories — we do ourselves a tremendous disservice.
If you find yourself focusing on your limitations, envision what a friend might say to contradict your negative thoughts — or ask someone.
5. Stop Catastrophizing and Thinking of the Worst-Case Scenarios
Catastrophizing involves noticing one unfavorable fact or unfortunate situation and making it mushroom in your mind. This then leads to a chain of hypothetical circumstances which will inevitably end in disaster.
For instance, observed symptoms of a cold may lead to an imagined death from pneumonia. Or, a minor mistake at work may result in the nightmare of getting fired.
When you predict calamities, consider how probable each event is and how likely it is that they could actually occur together.
6. Replace Black-and-White Thinking With a Gray Continuum
Black-and-white — or all-or-nothing — thinking involves inappropriately categorizing objects, situations, or people into one extreme or another.
When you are depressed, it is easy to think of yourself as a total failure or as completely worthless. Instead, remind yourself that the world is made of shades of gray, and people who are all-good or all-bad are rare.
7. Remind Yourself That Your Thoughts and Feelings Are Temporary
One day, a client suffering from depression told me he was thinking of taking his own life. I empathized with him, but reminded him that depression is not a permanent condition — even though a common symptom of it is the illusion of permanence.
Realizing that his state was temporary made it easier for my client to endure it.
RELATED: 20 Unexpected Signs of Bipolar Depression
Identifying and correcting distorted thoughts is a learned skill, just like anything else. If you “overlearn” this skill — that is, learn it more thoroughly than necessary — when you are stable, you will be better able to apply it when you are stressed, depressed, and not thinking as clearly.
Remember, a powerful, proven tool for reducing depression — namely, modifying your own thoughts — lies within you. With practice, you can use it to help rescue yourself from depression.
Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking
- Kupka RW et al. Three Times More Days Depressed Than Manic or Hypomanic in Both Bipolar 1 and Bipolar 2 Disorder. Bipolar Disorder. August 9, 2007.
UPDATED: Printed as “Talk Therapy: 7 Ways to Manage Depressive Thoughts,” Winter 2011