Overcoming Depression & Low Mood Resources

Understanding How We Feel
The Five Areas Vicious Cycle – Helps people understand their own vicious cycle and the connection between their thoughts, feelings, physical symptoms and behaviour.

Understanding How We Respond to Physical Illness
Common Physical Symptoms Checklist – Identifying common physical symptoms seen during stress and low mood.

Making and Reviewing Plans
Planner Sheet – Making clear plans.
Review Sheet – Reviewing what happened, so your client can Plan, Do and Review.

Testing Change
Mood Scale – Test out the impact of altering what you do on how you feel.

Behaviours – Doing Things That Make You Feel Better
Activity Diary – Record your activities and rate their impact on how you feel.
The Things You Do That Boost How You Feel – Record the things you’ve enjoyed, given you a sense of achievement or helped you feel close to others. You need to do more things like this.
Things You’ve Stopped Doing Checklist – Helps remind you of activities you’ve enjoyed in the past which you might want to plan to reintroduce into your life.

Behaviours – Avoidance
Face It Planner – Plan to overcome fears and build confidence in a step by step way.

Behaviours – Things You Do That Help, or Trip You Up
The Things You Do That Help Checklist – A range of activities that re good for you and good for others too.
The Things You Do That Mess You Up Checklist – Sometimes our responses can trip us up and make us feel even worse.

Thinking – Noticing Extreme or Unhelpful Thinking
Unhelpful Thinking Styles Checklist – Seven unhelpful thinking styles that make us feel worse emotionally and unhelpfully affect what we do.

Thinking – Changing Extremem or Unhelpful Thinking
Changing Extreme and Unhelpful Thinking – A step by step approach to identify and change extreme and unhelpful thinking. (4 sides)

Practical Problem Solving
7 Steps to Problem Solving – Helps you have a clear plan to tackle external problems step by step.
Paul – 7 Steps to Problem Solving – Example: Paul wants to be less irritable when relating with his partner.
Julia – 7 Steps to Problem Solving – Example: Julia needs to get a new school uniform for her son, but doesn’t have enough money.

Family and Friends – How to Offer Help
Unhelpful Things from Family and Friends Checklist – A checklist of backfiring behaviours by others that are well-meaning but can trip you up.
Helpful Things from Family and Friends Checklist – Helpful activities that are good for you and good for those around you.
Family and Friends Avoidance Checklist – Topics, people and activities that those close to you may unhelpfully avoid.

Planning for the Future – Relapse Prevention
What to do and what not to do Checklist – Summarises some key lessons of activities to do and avoid in order to stay well.

For Members of the Public