5 Tips to Reduce Holiday Depression

While war and poor economic conditions begin to affect people all over the world, more and more people suffer with depression. The more we focus on news events and the business climate, the more we are depressed. Whatever the reason you feel is the cause of your depression, the following five simple tips guarantee you reduce it significantly.

1. Do not read newspapers.

Newspapers publish negative stories most of the time. Even in peaceful periods, newspapers will find the worst in humanity and place negative stories on display in order to promote sales and subscribers. Stories focused on War, rebellion, death, destruction, doom and despair abound in the newspapers.

Stop reading the newspaper and reduce the negative input to your brain.

2. Turn off your television.

Watching and listening about the horrible economy and the losses associated with War will add to depression. In fact, you guarantee the feeling of helplessness. Helplessness allows depression to nurture. If you really need to watch or listen to these kinds of news stories, promise yourself you will bury yourself in the documentaries that are sure to follow in the next 5 or 10 years. A way you can eliminate most of the negative input to your brain is by setting it aside for a date somewhere in the future. I guarantee in the future, you will not find it very interesting.

When visitors come to your home, make sure you turn off your television and keep it off. News television broadcasters are fighting for your guests' attention as they promote despair, war, death, and destruction with many headline news interruptions. Those little banners that run across the bottom of the screen achieve your attention and they take hold of your consciousness. Television will diminish your positive spirit.

3. Say good things about others

My Mother always says, "if you can't say anything nice about others, don't say anything at all." However, when you find yourself in a conversation and a relative says, "Remember Uncle Phil?" " He was an alcoholic" Respond with " yes, Uncle Phil was an alcoholic and he was the most charitable person, I have ever met."

Connect your friend's negative statement about Phil with a positive one. Set yourself up to find the positive in anyone's statement and you will keep negative thoughts and depression from overtaking your life.

4. Get physical exercise

Adults forget about exercise when suffering from depression. Make sure you are exercising daily and sending more oxygen to your brain cells. The result of exercise will improve your health as well as your attitude.

5. Breathe deep and relax.

Practice the following breathing exercise to relax your body and mind.

Breathe deeply and relax. For 3 minutes each hour take a short mental vacation.

You can engage in this exercise while you are standing in the checkout line at the supermarket or when listening to others while talking on a telephone. You can complete the exercise at home or at work.

Take three deep breathes and relax. As you inhale, concentrate on calm and peaceful thoughts. You may think about relaxing by a mountain, by the ocean or comfortably in your favorite room at home.

As you exhale, concentrate on pushing any tension out of your lungs.

Focus on positive images in your life. Focus on laughter, love, excitement, and hope.

Keep breathing in and out in this pattern until you feel better. If you practice the exercise often, you will notice wonderful changes in your outlook and in other aspects of your life.

Reduce your depression now! Enjoy your holidays, family, your friends, and your life.

About The Author

Wayne F. Perkins is a clinical hypnotherapist and author of "How to Hypnotize Yourself Without Losing Your Mind." offers hypnosis scripts for a variety of problems.

"My mission in life is to help you achieve your mission in life."

http://www.wayneperkins.net/; wayne@wayneperkins.net

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Vice President Dick Cheney pauses during an interview with the Associated Press at the White House in Washington Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal," he said.



Palestinian demonstrators use sling-shots to hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against Israel's military operation in Gaza, in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah,Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. Israel resumed its Gaza offensive Wednesday after a three-hour lull to allow delivery of humanitarian aid, bombing heavily around suspected smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt. Despite the heavy fighting, strides appeared to be being made on the diplomatic front with the U.S. throwing its weight behind a deal being brokered by France and Egypt. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)AP - The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two, as the threat of a wider conflict emerged with Lebanon. With violence unabated in Gaza, key Arab nations and Western powers reached an agreement Thursday on a proposed U.N. resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire between the two sides and moved for a vote late Thursday night.



President-elect Barack Obama speaks about the economy, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)AP - President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.



In this Jan. 5, 2009 file photo, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff leaves U.S. District Court in Manhattan after a bail hearing in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)AP - The many Bernard Madoff investors who withdrew money from their accounts over the years are now wrestling with an ethical and legal quandary.



U.S. General David Petraeus, the commander overseeing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, talks during a conference in Rome December 9, 2008. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)AP - U.S. policy to win in Afghanistan must recognize the poor nation's limitations and its neighborhood, especially its intertwined relationship with U.S. terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan, the top U.S. military commander in the region said Thursday.



Directors of the BART transit agency listen to public comments on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, in Oakland, Calif. Speakers criticized the agency for its handling of a New Year’s Days incident involving a BART police officer who shot and killed unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)AP - In grainy cell-phone videos played over and over on the Internet, police officers force an unarmed black man to the ground and hold him face-down on a crowded train platform. Suddenly one of the officers draws his gun and fatally shoots the man in the back — then looks up.



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Israeli soldiers take their positions during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip January 8, 2009, in this picture released by Israel's Defence Forces (IDF). (Doron Keren/IDF/Handout/Reuters)Reuters - Recovery teams ventured into battlegrounds of the Gaza Strip on Thursday to gather bodies from the rubble, and Hamas officials said the Palestinian death toll in Israel's 13-day-old offensive had risen to 765.



President-elect Barack Obama at a news conference in Chicago, December 7, 2008. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama warned on Thursday the U.S. economy could stay mired in recession for years without bold action and he urged lawmakers to work day and night to pass a massive stimulus plan.



People taking the Long Island Foreclosure Tour arrive at a foreclosed home for sale in New Hyde Park, New York in this May 17, 2008 file photo. Citigroup could soon agree to principles that would let troubled borrowers save their homes through bankruptcy, sources familiar with the talks said on Thursday, while industry groups are easing their opposition to the plan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Financial giant Citigroup Inc will support a proposal in Congress to rewrite U.S. bankruptcy law to help troubled mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Thursday.



U.S. General David Petraeus, the commander overseeing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, talks during a conference in Rome December 9, 2008. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)Reuters - The United States and its allies share some interests with Iran when it comes to stabilizing Afghanistan, Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. military's Central Command, said on Thursday.



Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gestures as he announces former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as his choice to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago, Illinois December 30, 2008. (Frank Polich/Reuters)Reuters - A legislative committee on Thursday recommended the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing widespread abuse of power including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.



Bernard Madoff is escorted from Federal Court in New York January 5, 2009. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)Reuters - Accused swindler Bernard Madoff had signed checks totaling more than $173 million in his office desk ready to be sent out before his arrest, U.S. prosecutors said in court papers on Thursday asking a judge to jail him.



Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (L) delivers remarks after being announced as the new Democratic National Committee chairman by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in Washington, January 8, 2009. (Jim Young/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama named Tim Kaine as head of the Democratic Party on Thursday, rewarding an early supporter with a high-profile political post even as he continues to serve as Virginia governor.



A customer shops at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Rogers, Arkansas, June 5, 2008. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other top U.S. retailers delivered disappointing December same-store sales and profit warnings on Thursday, sparking fresh recession concerns that hit stock and currency markets.



A wounded Palestinian is carried into Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital. Diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza conflict intensified Friday with Western and Arab diplomats agreeing to call for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the two-week-old war rose past 760.(AFP/Yassr Saymeh)AFP - Diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza conflict intensified Friday with Western and Arab diplomats agreeing to call for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the two-week-old war rose past 760.



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