We all know that when we feel depressed, we have less energy to try any self help techniques the books recommend.

Being depressed makes us feel tired, unenthusiastic, unable to connect and to see much joy in anything. We are prone to negative thoughts and it takes too much energy we haven't got to pull ourselves out of the state we are in.

When I really feel at rock bottom, I have one simple technique which I use, in sheer desperation.

It is very simple and works..for me at any rate.

Every time a negative thought comes into my mind, (pretty often, once a second), I immediately replace it with a positive thought. If nothing positive comes to mind, I will say "Stop no that's not right, forget it"

Apparently positive people or rather those not prone to depression automatically think like this. For instance my husband, who against all the odds is cheerful nearly all the time (yes, it can be quite irritating) is sometimes forced to confront a negative problem. He'll spend as little time as possible dealing with it and then more often than not, I will hear him whistling. He will have forgotten all about it! Maddening but true and maybe we can learn from this behaviour.

I guess one could use my negative/positive technique before one reaches desperation point but it's too exhausting to do this all the time and not natural. It only helps me when I really need to take drastic action.