Help You Help Me

 

One of the most effective ways to help get out of a depression, whether it be from the death of a loved one, a breakup, or we're just feeling the blues, is to do something for someone else. This seems almost counterintuitive but appears to be true: when we are depressed and might feel like we need help and support more than ever, what can actually be most beneficial for us is to help someone else. And here are a few reasons why. 1. When we are depressed, we get lost in a sea of self; our thoughts and emotions are focused inward and not in a good way. We lack confidence, tend to feel regret and ruminate over past mistakes, and we can engage in very negative and hurtful self-talk (self-talk is the ongoing internal conversation we have with ourselves). Doing something helpful for someone else takes us out of the negative sea of self and turns our focus outward. The negative energy inward is inverted and becomes positive energy outward, and the result is that we begin to feel more positive energy going inward again. 2. Doing someone a favor or getting involved in community service makes us feel productive and useful. When we are depressed, we feel down about ourselves and become less active in all positive aspects of our lives. The result is a diminished feeling of self-efficacy and a feeling of uselessness. By doing something tangible for others we once again feel useful and remind ourselves of our ability to be helpful and productive. 3. The social isolation and loneliness it produces can be one of the most painful aspects of being depressed. Doing community service or helping a friend rekindles our feeling of connection to other people, our community, and humanity as a whole. Not only do we feel connected to those we interact with in the process, but we once again feel like we are part of something bigger, which is in and of itself comforting and calming. We are taken out of our negative self-state and our focus turns to others and the world at large, which is a relief for our psyche. And of course, doing community service is not just helpful to get us out of a depression, but rather doing community service regularly can help serve as a buffer to feeling down and getting depressed in the first place. There are tons of ways to get involved in community service: feeding the homeless, reading to children at a local hospital, picking up trash at a neighborhood park, and the list goes on and on. Find a way to serve that resonates with you and make it a part of your weekly routine. And the next time you're feeling down, do yourself a favor and do someone else a favor.