July 28, 2026

Dealing with Depression* 16 Ways to Help Yourself

1. First, acknowledge that you are important. You don't deserve to be depressed. You are worthy of asking for help.

2. Depression must be talked about. Share your feelings with someone who you know is a good listener; a trusted family member, partner, or friend. Don’t worry about what to say. Whatever comes out can help reveal what is wrong and relieve your loneliness.

3. Try to understand why you’re depressed and recall how long ago you first felt depressed.

4. Let yourself cry. Tears can be a healing release. Crying is often considered a sign of weakness, but not allowing yourself to cry can be much more painful.

5. Please don’t make depression worse by punishing yourself with guilt. This only increases negative feelings of unworthiness. Be patient; try to be good to yourself, even in small ways.

6. Do not fight the feeling that “I want to be completely alone. I just want to curl up in a little ball or jump in a big deep hole and not come out till it’s safe.” This is a stage you may go through many times in the process of healing.

7. Consider adopting a companion animal, such as a cat or dog. Pets will improve your mental health, ease feelings of loneliness and provide unconditional love. Dogs require daily exercise which will motivate you to become more active by taking them for walks, while cats are more independent and require less special care and space.

8. Eat healthy food. Over time, fast-food, convenience food, snack food and many “comfort” foods can deprive your body and brain of the healthy nourishment they need in order to deal with both mental and physical challenges. Paying attention to the quality of your food is one of the good things you can do for yourself.

9. Do some regular low- to medium-intensity physical exercise, such as swimming, walking, gardening, flexibility routines, or any form of sustained movement that will help your brain generate good feelings.

10. Follow healthy guidelines for restful sleep, such as keeping a regular bedtime and waking schedule. Definitely avoid heavy meals and screen time before going to bed. Instead, wind down with soothing music, meditation, or prayer.

11.  Avoid alcohol and other mood-altering substances, which can act as depressants, or conflict with prescribed medications.

12. Ask your physician to review your supplements and medications and recommend any helpful changes.

13. Build quiet relaxation into your daily routine, such as yoga, guided meditation, naps, prayer, etc.

14. You might be following most or all of the preceding suggestions and still not feel much better. Don’t be discouraged. Some forms of depression, especially when lasting over a prolonged period, don’t improve quickly even with the support of family and/or friends. That is the time to seek professional help. Please do it; it is never a weakness to take this step. Some types of depression require medication, which should be prescribed by a psychiatrist.

15. Psychological therapy looks at depression as a state of mind. Several common kinds include:

Counseling: a counselor is trained to listen to you and to understand what is causing your feelings.

Behavioral Therapy: it focuses on what we do in our lives and counselling will include suggestions for change.

Cognitive Therapy: the therapist helps identify which pessimistic and self-derogatory thoughts led to your depression and teaches you how to substitute them with more positive thoughts.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: this is a combination of Cognitive and Behavioral approaches, tailored to the patient’s individual needs.

16. Are you experiencing suicidal thoughts? This is an alarm signal to seek help without delay. Deeply depressed individuals may consider ending their lives in order to escape from unbearable emotional pain, believing that nothingness would be a better alternative. They often feel like complete failures as human beings and that the world would be better off without them. But recurring suicidal thoughts also show that while parts of you may want to give up, other parts of you want to keep going and heal.

Don’t wait . . . Call your confidential local help line immediately.

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* The recommendations above were adapted and excerpted by Mohamed Elmasry, PhD from Dealing with Depression by Gerrilyn Smith and Kathy Nairne (2nd ed. 1995, Women’s Press).

Smith and Nairne are Clinical Psychologists with the UK National Health Service (NHS).

Dr. Elmasry is the author of iMind: Artificial and Real Intelligence (Routledge, 2024) and co-author of Dementia: Evidence-based Lifestyle Guidelines (Barnes & Noble, 2025) with Kareem Bannis, MD Geriatric Medicine.