End Depression - Pit One Neural Pattern Against The Other

 

I am a cognitive behavioral therapist, a board-certified therapist. I became interested in this field after being diagnosed with manic depressive disorder. They now call it bipolar. The old term is still my preferred choice. It's more descriptive and honest. The term bipolar is too vague to give any clues as to the cause of someone's illness.

I refused to take medication for my depression. I was determined to find another treatment if possible.

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My bipolar disorder was exacerbated by my graduate studies in psychology and psychiatry. It wasn't until I studied neuroscience that I discovered the key to getting out of depression. It is important to compare one neural pattern with the other. Let me tell you.

The neural pattern of depression is one neural pattern that you create in your brain. Because every time you have a depressive thought, you build that neural pattern.

This is true for all thoughts. Every thought that you think is permanently etched in your mind. Repetition of the same thought over and over again builds up stronger neural patterns. Thinking is similar to exercising. To make a muscle stronger, you exercise it over and over. To make a thought dominant, you think it over and over. The brain follows the current dominant thought.

A strong depressive neural pattern can lead to severe depression. It triggers and throws us into painful depression. We can't stop thinking about our pain over and over again, making it more powerful and leading to a depressive episode.

Depression only occurs in a part of the brain, the emotional. Concentrating on depression causes all of our neural activity to surge up in the subcortex. Our neocortex (the thinking brain) is not sufficient to lift us from our emotional despair. We are unable to think in a straight-forward cognitive manner. Only our emotional pain can be endured.

Since depression is cyclical, we start to feel better. The brain develops cognitive thoughts and the neural activity starts back up in our neocortex. We regain our cognitive faculties and are able to regain control of our lives. The cycle continues until the next episode of depression.

We can do more than wait for learned association slowly to get us out from depression. These incipient cognitive thoughts can be forced to a stronger neural pattern - a pattern strong enough to defeat our depressive neural patterns.

You could do this! You can choose to have a positive thought, even when you are suffering from depression. You could even make that thought powerful enough to defeat the depressive thought.

Who said so? Neuroscience supports this assertion. Neuroscience can tell us things that our psychiatrists cannot. If we think another thought than the one that is depressing, and do this repeatedly, our brain will begin to follow the cognitive thought and stop following the emotional depressive thought.

This means that the brain's thinking and emotional parts will both be active. Guess what happens to depression when the brain stops following the negative thought? It stops.

Depression is a mental illness that you must believe in your brain to be true. You can make your brain stop thinking about depression by using a cognitive thought rather than a depressive one.

It is difficult to choose to think a cognitive thought over a depressive one. Brainswitching is a technique that switches your attention from the subcortex towards the neocortex.

Brainswitch can be done by choosing, in advance, some non-emotional cognitive thinking. It could be a math problem or a nursery rhyme such as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," or even a nonsense phrase such as "green frog" or "hippity jump."

When depression strikes, grab the nonsense phrase immediately and continue to think it over and over until you feel better. The nonsense thought will become so dominant that your brain will follow the new direction of the thought and will eventually turn away from the depressing thought.

Brainswitch is a constant part of my life. For example, this morning I woke up depressed. So I tried the nonsense exercise "1,2,3,4, who are we for?" It's an old high school song. Within five minutes, I was up, dressed, and started my day. I didn't have to brush my teeth. To end depression, you must pit one neural pattern against another.

The exercise neural pattern is compared to the old habitual depressive neuro pattern. Repeating the exercise makes the exercise neural pattern dominant, and the brain follows the current dominant thought. The brain stops following the path of depressive thoughts. Your depression will end if your brain doesn't think it.

Brainswitching is criticized by some because it doesn’t permanently cure depression. Depression can come back and you will have to endure some moments of depression before you start a mind exercise. You must continue using the techniques to stay free from depression.

You are also building helpful neural patterns that will make it easier to use the nonsense exercises.

Brainswitching is not the same as taking antidepressants for the rest my life. I have to live with the horrible side effects. The meds cease to work after a while. They can cause tolerance and you will need to increase the dosage or add another drug. The full extent of side effects is unknown because pharmaceutical companies edit research before publishing it and settle lawsuits outside of court.

Despite all the practice and study, I still find myself in a depression-prone mindset from time to time. I insist that DOWNER THINKING is not an option for me. I immediately choose another thought to replace the negative one. My depression won't set in, so it doesn't last longer than five to six minutes.

To do this, I have to forget the fear and pain of depression. This takes courage and practice. Depression is a constant, overwhelming feeling. It can be very hard to ignore depression and change your thinking. You need to get rid of stress and depression and focus on a dumb exercise. It is possible. It's possible.