Out of the Darkness: Tools and Techniques for Managing Anxiety and Depression

Whether you’re grappling with anxiety or depression (or both at the same time), it’s essential to recognise that the impulse to alter your current emotional state is a shared experience.

This includes the need to change or escape the unpleasant emotions and behaviours that often accompany these conditions.

Attempting to lift your spirits and feel better is a natural response to distress, and it takes a lot of bravery to seek ways to enhance your mood or alleviate anxious feelings, particularly when you feel bogged down by them. 

Perhaps you go for a walk. Binge-watch your favourite Netflix show. 

You may even turn to alcohol or drugs, engage in self-harm, or indulge in excessive screen time or overeating to help you numb, avoid, or escape the negative thoughts swirling around your mind, making you feel helpless and miserable.

It’s important to remember that any effort to improve your emotional health is a fundamental aspect of your humanness. 

Often, it is a positive indication that you’re striving for a better state of being, which is a good thing.

However, what we often do to escape or avoid troubling thoughts or symptoms can be counterproductive to our health and well-being, not the desire for change itself.

As psychologist Joel Minden explains:

“We’ve all had experiences where we think we can do something to make ourselves feel better, and it doesn’t work in that moment. It can be really frustrating and defeating when people work so hard to try to change their emotions,” Minden said, “if they’re just not able to do that very effectively.” We can end up believing “that we don’t have coping strategies, or that we can’t deal with difficult emotions, or that we’re stuck and there’s no way out of it.”
(Psychology Today, 12 Active Ways to Conquer Anxiety and Depression, Seth J. Gilihan, PhD, 9 February, 2021.)

Minden explains that one way to feel better is to do what you can to ”live your best life with whatever emotional experience you’re having.”

This means accepting your current emotional state, acknowledging that it’s a part of your experience, and making choices that align with your values and goals, regardless of how you feel.

The above might seem difficult to digest at first, but if you think about how your symptoms thrive, it’s often in moments when little to no action is taken, and you end up feeling stuck in your own head.

Unlike animals, humans experience a wide range of emotions, from joy and happiness to anger, sadness, and guilt. The latter often feels uncomfortable, making us want to run from the negative thoughts plaguing our existence.

Minden says that conquering anxiety and depression doesn’t mean getting rid of these feelings.

He explains that a much more helpful approach is to relate to your emotions instead of trying to control them. This can mean sitting with and observing your feelings instead of trying to change or avoid them.

This article explores various tools and techniques for managing anxiety and depression so that you can get a better handle on your symptoms, explore the root causes, and begin to feel more like yourself again.

In the meantime, if you’re struggling with symptoms of anxiety or depression, you don’t have to suffer in silence; help and support are available.

Both conditions, as unpleasant as they can be, are highly treatable, and with the proper support and care, you can find relief from your symptoms and regain control over your life.

Tools and techniques for managing anxiety and depression

If you’ve been struggling with depression or anxiety for a while, you may have tried many different things to make yourself feel better and improve your symptoms.  

But if what you’ve tried hasn’t worked or it’s not been as effective as you’d hoped, chances are you feel worried or even hopeless that you’ll never find relief or happiness again.

However, often, it takes some tweaking and exploring different methods and approaches before individuals start to see an improvement in their depression or anxiety symptoms.

What works for one person may not work for another, and often, it’s a case of trial and error before any breakthroughs occur.

Here, we will explore several tools and techniques to help you manage your anxiety and depression symptoms, allowing you to build resilience, find healthier alternatives to coping, and ultimately recover and thrive.

1. Define what the best version of you looks like

Anxiety and depression often tell us different things that can have an impact on how we feel and manage our lives.

For instance, anxiety may tell you that something is dangerous, like riding a packed train where you may end up catching the flu or getting into a new relationship after the last one wounded you so severely. 

There is this kind of “fight and flight energy” present in anxiety disorders that makes individuals want to avoid or run from a potentially dangerous or harmful situation. 

Anxiety sufferers have this perpetual “what if” voice in their heads, telling them to “be careful” or not do something that could equate to joy and connection, like meeting up with friends or getting into a new relationship.

A good analogy for understanding anxiety is that it can be like a straw that slowly sucks the colour and fun out of a person’s life,  making everything around them smaller and smaller until their symptoms box them in, isolating them away from the rest of the world.

Depression, on the other hand, keeps us frozen, taking us into a more hypo-aroused “down-regulated state,” which is where symptoms like exhaustion, chronic fatigue, low mood, and lack of motivation tend to live.

Both conditions limit our capacity to see the good in others, the world, and especially ourselves, making it almost impossible to see the best version, in fact, any version of ourselves that isn’t clouded in a thick fog of difficult or painful symptoms.

When anxiety or depression symptoms kick -in, and the temptation to avoid or numb  flares up, a practical way to manage these feelings is to consider the following:

What kind of life do I want to live? 

Do I want to live a life fueled by avoidance and fear, where giving into caution may mean missing out on things I enjoy or care about?

Or shall I get curious and see what happens if I override these feelings?

All this may sound easier said than done. 

However, asking these questions and taking action instead of trying to control your emotions can be instrumental, as movement of any kind can change the direction of your thoughts for the better and, over time, how you feel and behave.

Plan to take at least one action each day, no matter how big or small, and you will likely notice a difference in your mood and anxious thoughts.

2. Remind yourself that “love wins”

The Beatles were definitely onto something with their hit song,” All You Need Is Love.”

Fear and love are polar opposites – as one gets bigger and more expansive, the other shrinks and grows smaller.

Practising self-love and loving others can help combat anxious thoughts and improve mood.

When your symptoms of depression or anxiety heighten, psychologists recommend that you look for opportunities to meet the needs of others.

By shifting their focus onto other people in a positive and loving way, individuals can temporarily take the heat off their symptoms.

Conversely, they may even begin experiencing the love and support of others in return, which can significantly reduce anxious thoughts and feelings.

3. Cultivate resilience

A cognitive-behavioural therapist once said, “Certainty is the opposite of life.”

For anxiety and depression sufferers, it’s common to look for reassurance, some kind of certainty that they won’t get hurt, betrayed, or sick again.

However, if you are in the ring, you will occasionally get hit or wrestled to the floor.

Inherently, pain is an inevitable part of the human experience.

So, when feeling depressed or anxious, it can be helpful to focus on your aliveness – the fact that you are still here, meaning that anything can happen, even good things.

As well as the above – practising positive mantras can also be an effective way to cope with anxious or depressed thoughts. 

For instance, when you first get out of bed in the morning, you could say to yourself:

“Today is going to be a good day” or “Whatever challenges come my way,  I have the strength and resilience to overcome them.”

Certainty may be difficult to obtain, but one thing’s for sure – life is full of ups and downs, and how you manage these challenges is entirely in your control. 

And this knowledge alone can be empowering.

4. Confront your fears

Confronting your fears is slightly trickier as it requires you to go against every thought, gut instinct, and feeling in your body. 

Difficult, yes. But impossible? Absolutely not.

Avoiding whatever scares you may seem like a good idea at the time; after all, if you feel anxious or depressed, one of your default behaviours will likely be to seek safety and security.

The desire for safety is entirely natural, especially if you have a history of trauma or other experiences of adversity. 

However, this can often be a double-edged sword. 

Why?

Avoiding the “thing” that makes you feel scared or uncomfortable can strengthen your fears, making your world smaller and more limited.

The key here is to start off small by exposing yourself to your fears in tiny increments. 

For example, instead of avoiding a social situation that induces your anxiety, like a work event, decide to go, but only for an hour.

Ensure you only stay for the time you can manage; otherwise, you might become overwhelmed, triggering more fear and, you guessed it, more avoidance.

You may find that exposing yourself to one fearful task or action each day eventually allows you to move through avoidance, which, over time, desensitises you to your fears.

Other helpful tools and techniques for managing anxiety and depression may include:

• Increasing your time outdoors.
• Cultivating kindness and gratitude towards others and yourself.
• Engaging in treatment such as talk therapy or some form of trauma treatment like EMDR or Schema Therapy can be effective for those with a history of chronic stress and adversity.
• Drawing on the support of family, friends, and the community. 
• Engaging in a new exercise routine such as running or attending the gym.
• Eating healthy, nutritious foods.
• Getting at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.

Out of the darkness: Depression and anxiety treatment in South Africa – How we can help 

At White River Manor, we provide personalised, comprehensive anxiety and depression treatment to individuals struggling with these issues, integrating the following therapies and approaches into a well-rounded, root-cause-focused recovery plan:

• Behavioural therapy, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, helps you explore and address unhelpful thoughts and behaviours that cause or worsen your depressive or anxious symptoms. This treatment teaches you how to reframe negative thoughts and behaviour patterns, allowing you to develop healthy coping skills, particularly during times of stress.

• Trauma-informed treatment – such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing), allows you to safely reprocess traumatic memories and experiences that may fuel your anxiety or depression symptoms. Once reprocessed, you will no longer feel the same level of distress about your past, which can help you find peace and contentment in other areas of your life, improving your mood and making you feel less anxious.

• Mindfulness therapy – helps recalibrate your nervous system through practices like yoga and deep breathing. Being mindful allows you to slow down and observe how your thoughts drive your emotions and behaviours. By practising present-moment awareness, you can observe how you may get caught up in rumination, resistance, and distraction and discover new perspectives and behaviours, improving your overall health and well-being.

Other effective treatments for anxiety and depression may include:

• Group therapy.
• Family and peer support groups.
• Music and art therapy.
• Aftercare programs to help you stay on track with your recovery after treatment.

The key thing to remember is that you are not alone. 

Our multidisciplinary team is always here to listen and offer help and support to those who need it. 
To learn more about how we treat anxiety and depression, contact our professional team in South Africa today, who will gladly help.