In previous posts, we looked at the importance of giving ourselves time outs, as well as other techniques to manage stress and anxiety. Another great way we can keep things like stress, anxiety and depression from building throughout the day is to start bringing mindfulness into our everyday life.

We often talk about two broad categories of mindfulness practice. Formal mindfulness involves setting aside some time specifically for practicing mindfulness as we do when we engage in mindfulness meditation. Informal mindfulness, on the other hand, refers to finding ways to incorporate mindfulness into our daily lives. Read the rest of this entry »

On the main part of my webpage, I describe cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), or cognitive therapy, as a type of therapy that focuses on the relationships and connections between our thoughts, feelings and actions. This sounds simple, but what does it mean? In this post, we’ll look at what’s behind cognitive behavioural therapy in a little more detail.

In the CBT/cognitive therapy model, we recognize that we are each affected by the environment in which we live. This environment involves both our current situations (family, friends, job, culture, various stressor and supports, etc.), as well as our past (our family history, past relationships, previous successes and failures, etc.). Read the rest of this entry »

In a couple of recent posts, we looked at some things you can do to help stop stress and anxiety from becoming overwhelming, and to give yourself a breathing time out from stress, anxiety and depression. In this post, we’ll look at a couple more techniques you can use to manage stress and anxiety, and to help your emotions from becoming overwhelming if you’re experiencing depression or anger.

The first is called the Three Minute Breathing Space, and it was developed as part of the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy program for people with depression. Like the Breathing Time Out, it’s a way to bring your attention to the present, give yourself a break from whatever stress or emotions have been building up, and then return to the rest of your day, more refreshed and focused on the present. Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous post, we looked at the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) model of the vicious cycle of depression involving thoughts, feelings, behaviours, memories and physical symptoms. One of the first steps in overcoming depression is to put and end to this vicious cycle, and gain some momentum that can help you cycle in a positive direction.

Just as automatic negative thoughts result from and contribute to depression, by engaging in more neutral and balanced ways of thinking, we can begin to stop the vicious cycle involving negative thoughts and depression. Cognitive therapy provides an effective tool to help break out of negative patterns of thinking. As our thoughts become less negative, we begin to feel less depressed, and as we become less depressed, our thoughts about ourselves, our lives and our future become less negative, and so on.

In the cogntive behavioural therapy (CBT) model of depression, one of the reasons that breaking out of depression can be so difficult is that depression generates vicious cycles involving a number of aspects of your life. Once you get stuck in these vicious cycles, they can be hard to break.

According to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), when you’re experiencing depression, you will tend to have automatic negative thoughts about yourself, the world and the future. This pattern of negative thinking you deeper into depression. This brings about further negative thoughts; which lead you to feel even more depressed; brining about more negative thoughts; and so on.

In another post, we looked at the vicious cycles involving thoughts, behaviours, feelings, memories, and physical sensation that contribute to depression. When you’re experiencing depression, all of these aspects of your life interact with each other, generating a downward spiral bringing you deeper into depression. Negative patterns of thinking often have a adverse influence on behaviour; distressing physical symptoms often effect our feelings, leading to sadness and despair; and so on.

Describing this downward spiral of depression in The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Depression, a workbook based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Kirk Stroshal and Patricia Robinson note that:

Our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are closely related. Our thoughts affect how we feel and what we do; our feelings affect the way we think and act; and our actions affect our thoughts and feelings.

For instance, if we’re feeling anxious, we’ll think the worst is going to happen and act in ways to avoid doing anything that could provoke anxiety. If we’re feeling depressed, we tend to have very negative thoughts and withdraw from others, and these thoughts and behaviours make us even more depressed.

Cognitive therapy, also known as cogntive behavioural therapy or CBT, utilizes these relationship between your thoughts (also called cognitions), your actions (or behaviours) and your feelings or emotions. Because our thoughts, our feelings (or moods or emotions) and our actions (or behaviour) are so closely linked, making changes in any one of these areas tends to bring about changes in the others. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mental Health Foundation in the UK has developed a Be Mindful webpage that is an excellent resource for information about the benefits of mindfulness. The following quote is from their webpage:

How you handle the way you feel plays a big part your mental health. In difficult times, it is not unusual to focus solely on negative thoughts and feelings and become consumed by them.

 

Mindfulness helps you change the way they think, feel and act. It helps you to break free from a downward spiral of negative thought and action, and make positive choices that support your wellbeing. Read the rest of this entry »

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a relatively recent type of therapy that combines aspects of cognitive therapy with the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program created by Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBCT was developed to help people struggling with depression, and it is also helpful in treating anxiety and low self-esteem.

The following description of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and how it helps people overcome depression is taken from the MBCT webpage of Mark Williams, one of the developers of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. His book The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness expands on the information below.

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