Wanting to stay positive when you’re depressed sounds contradictory. It might even sound impossible, but it’s not. I fed into my depression for a long time before I realized I could start changing my mindset. In this article, I will share with you some tips I learned along the way to help stay positive even when depressed.

Four Ways to Stay Positive When Depressed

1. Express Gratitude to Stay Positive When Depressed

If I am being honest, I used to be a fairly ungrateful person. I lived with a victim mentality and chose to constantly feel sorry for myself. This obviously never helped me feel better. If anything, it made me feel worse.

When you struggle to be grateful, start small. Are you mostly healthy? Do you have a place to live? Do you have people who love you? There are always reasons to be grateful, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I like to journal every teeny, tiny thing I can think of to be grateful for when I’m feeling down.

You may not immediately feel better, but if you make this a daily practice it will help you find a way to stay positive when you’re depressed.

2. Focus on Yourself

Focusing on myself is probably one of the most important things I did to help me stay positive when I was depressed. I started finding healthy recipes to eat, working out, meditating, reading about personal development, and journaling.

It can be hard to find the motivation to start taking care of yourself if you feel depressed. Keep in mind that action creates motivation. If you take action, even if you have to force it, you will be more motivated to take action again.

3. Pay it Forward to Stay Positive with Depression

If you want to make yourself feel good, make someone else feel good. Paying it forward is so much more than just buying someone coffee in the Starbucks line. You can make someone happy with something as simple as a compliment.

Think of a few times throughout the day you can make someone’s day a little bit brighter. In return, you will feel better too.

4. Listen to Happy Music

One thing that can instantly change my mood is music. I can go from feeling down in the dumps to happy within 10 minutes when I listen to music (Mindfully Choosing Music for Playlists Improves My Mood). Focus on the lyrics, listen to the different instruments, and shift your attention to the songs that are playing. For me, when I listen to songs that make me happy, it helps me to take my mind off of anything that’s going wrong.

Don’t just listen to the music, dance to it. Moving your body is a great way to get you into the present moment.