First Step In Treating Depression

First Step In Treating Depression

Hi, Dr. Mark Aggressi. I’m I’m here in my office in Palm Beach. And today I want to talk about depression and behavioral modification. And what does that mean? So I treat a lot of depressed patients. That’s roughly half the patients that I see. And what is the biggest problem? They say, “Hey doc, I can’t even get out of bed.” So the concept here in behavioral modification is behavior precedes thought. And what does that mean? You have to go through the motions. And once you go through the motions, the thought, the positive thoughts follow. So what does that mean? So they say, “I can’t get out of bed.” Well, we have to take baby steps. First, sit up. push yourself to sit up, then to stand up, and then to get out of that bed. If you have depression, you should set an alarm and get out of the bed. Do whatever it takes to get out of that bed at a certain time every day in the morning. I would set your alarm when the sun gets up. I don’t care if you slept, you didn’t sleep. You can’t control when you go to sleep. You can only control when you wake up. And with depre with depression, you need to get up when the sun is up. You’ve got to use everything you can muster to get yourself out of that bed. And yes, you need to exercise. You need to get sunlight. But that may be very difficult initially, but just get out of your house and move around outside in the sun for even the shortest period of time. And each day try and increase it and that will give you the psychological benefit of positive thinking. So the behavior of just getting out of your bed and getting outside and moving around will lead to positive thoughts. It’ll lead to hopeful thoughts, positive thoughts, thoughts that fight depression. That’s called behavioral modification. Then what do you do? You have to come back. You have to try and eat something healthy. And then it’s critical to to groom yourself, shower, dress yourself, and you have to get out of the house. The house is deadly for depression. If you isolate, that’s another area that’s problematic for people with depression. You have to get out of the house. So whether you’re going to go to the market, some people go to AA meetings, some people go to their therapists, make up some reason to get yourself out of the house and at least interact with people. I’ve gone through all the other things you need to do, the supplements you need to take, therapy you need to do, the medications you need to take, exercise, that will all work. But the real challenge is getting out of bed and getting out of your house. This is just a little caveat that I tell people that this is the battle you have to win. That’s just a brief little therapy note for patients.

In treating depression, we must first consider behavioral modification. In terms of the psychology of the human mind behavior proceeds thought process. Meaning you must fake it till you make it. Mean you must do the behavior and act like a healthy person and healthy thoughts will follow. What that means is You must battle in the morning to act healthy. That means getting out of bed going outside and moving your body in the sun. Then returning grooming yourself, preparing yourself for the day and doing one thing. This is the first step in the treatment of depression. I have gone through important supplements, the importance of exercise, the importance of hobbies, the importance of medication And the importance of different type of Psychotherapy.
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