Positive Event Scheduling: A Method for Decreasing Depressed Mood in Parents

Often times, when people start to feel sad or depressed they stop doing fun things and start spending more time by themselves at home. The truth is, this generally makes feelings of sadness and depression worse. Getting out and doing positive things can make people feel better. If you are feeling sad or depressed and have stopped doing fun things, making an effort to do enjoyable things could make a difference. Follow the steps below:

• Make a list of enjoyable activities. This could include things like bike riding, shopping, going dancing, going to a friend's house, or going to a festival. It may be that you feel that nothing is enjoyable anymore. Even if nothing sounds fun, try very hard to list out what used to be fun for you.
• From the list, pick one fun activity to do the follow week. It is best to pick activities that get you moving around (like bike riding). Physical activity releases brain chemical called endorphins that help people feel good.
• Get out a calendar. Pick three days over the next week that you will do the enjoyable activity. Mark those days on your calendar
• Do events as scheduled. It is very important that you actually get out and do the scheduled positive events. You may not want to do the scheduled positive events. Sitting around the house may sound a lot better. But push yourself to get out and do the events. Commit to trying it for at least a little while!
• Record feelings. On the calendar, write down how you feel at the end of each day. You could use a rating from 1 (feeling really sad and awful) to 10 (feeling wonderful and happy). Do this on days with enjoyable activities and days without enjoyable activities.

Do these steps for at least four weeks. Try doing a different positive even each week. At the end, look back at your ratings of feelings each day. Look to see if you felt better days when a positive event was done. If you find a positive event that makes you feel better then commit to doing that things regularly in the future-even when sad feeling arise.