When we’re feeling down or depressed, it’s common to stop doing things that we used to enjoy. This tends to makes us feel even worse, leading to a nasty whirlpool of feeling even more worse and doing even less. Behavioral activation is a way to boost your mood by getting you to start doing enjoyable activities again. It works by encouraging you to start small with things you used to like doing, such as taking a walk, playing a game, or even just chatting with a friend.
The idea is that by doing these things anyway, even though you don’t necessarily want to, you start to change the way you feel rather than waiting for your feelings to change what you do. You jump-start your mood by getting yourself engaged in life again. As you start doing more enjoyable activities, your mood continues to improve. You start feeling better overall, and the wheels begin to turn in the other direction.
Behavioral activation is especially helpful for people struggling with depression or other mood disorders. It’s also a good option for those who find it hard to motivate themselves or who have low energy levels. Because it focuses on taking small steps and building on successes, it can be a great way to help people break out of negative patterns and start feeling better.
If you’re struggling with your mood, give behavioral activation a try. It can be a simple but powerful way to start feeling better and getting back to enjoying the things you love. If you’d like to learn more, or need help getting started, visit my contact page.
Michael D. McVey 
That’s nice advice Mike, thank you. Not exactly related, but have you come across the idea of interoception yet in your work? More of body-feeling thing but connected to activating the brain too and manipulating the neural passages to help us feel better (literally vs feeling better, if you see the distinction there?).
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Dude that sounds like chatbottery gibberish or teenage hooliganism
Well that was a mess. But re: interoception, what I meant to say was I came across this quote recently: “Your body is part of your mind, not in some gauzy mystical way, but in a very real biological way. This means there is a piece of your body in every concept that you make, even in states that we think of as cold cognition.”
I would just say that I don’t know why we have to push the biological way as the very real one when the gauzy, mystical explanation is just as valid. Just another way of saying mind over matter.
That’s wicked. What the heck was the comment before? Did you get hacked? Ha ha. Dumb question. Love your response. Cool quote too.
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div dir=”ltr”>I used the reply to ema