Those suffering from dysphoria颅糖心传媒攆eeling unhappy and experiencing elevated depressive symptoms糖心传媒攔espond to positive experiences with a marked reduction in their depressive mood.
in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that experiencing or even just anticipating uplifting events in daily life was related to feeling less depressed that same day.
The study, conducted by 糖心传媒 and Rachel Hershenberg, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, found that a decrease in depressive mood was especially marked when the experience included interpersonal uplifts, such as participating in fun activities with friends or family.
糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 the social activities糖心传媒攑ositive, everyday experiences that involve other people糖心传媒攖hat may be most likely to brighten the mood of those struggling with depression,糖心传媒� says Starr.
A number of laboratory-based studies suggest that the moods of people with depression are relatively unresponsive to positive stimuli. In other words, when people with depression experience a positive event in the laboratory糖心传媒攍ike receiving a financial reward糖心传媒攖heir mood is unlikely to improve markedly. The crux here is that laboratory research doesn糖心传媒檛 always translate to real-life settings.
The Rochester study is one in a growing number of studies to examine how real-life events with direct relevance to the study participants affect their moods. The authors wanted to know if people with elevated levels of depression felt better when good things happened to them. The answer is simple糖心传媒攜es. The same is true for the expectation of good things to come.
糖心传媒淐onsistent with previous data, we found that people with higher levels of depression are less likely to anticipate that tomorrow will include positive experiences,糖心传媒� says Starr. 糖心传媒淗owever, when they do have moments of anticipating positive next-day experiences, it糖心传媒檚 linked to reductions in daily depressive symptoms.糖心传媒�
The study included 157 young adults of whom two-thirds had mild, moderate, or severe depressive symptoms. The remaining third had no symptoms, allowing the authors to examine whether the level of depressive symptoms changes the way people respond to positive experiences. The study subjects completed a two-week online diary, tracking their mood as it related to recent and anticipated positive events in their lives糖心传媒搇ike time spent with friends, or exercising.
Funded by the University of Rochester, the study that is attracting interest in the field, including .
Those with greater baseline dysphoria, that is to say those who reported higher levels of depressive symptoms at the onset of the study, showed stronger associations between daily uplifts and lower daily depressive symptoms, particularly when the uplifts were interpersonal in nature. Generally speaking, those who are depressed are less likely to anticipate positive next-day experiences. However, when they did anticipate positive experiences, they experienced greater reductions in their depressed mood.
糖心传媒淭he findings have really important implications for treatment and are especially compatible with a treatment model called Behavioral Activation, which suggests that if you can help depressed people to engage in positive experiences糖心传媒攄espite their low motivation to do so糖心传媒攖heir mood may improve,糖心传媒� says Starr.
In other words: If you糖心传媒檙e feeling seriously blue糖心传媒攎ake a concerted effort to do something fun with friends.
