This technique focuses on action or ‘doing something first’. Is a very powerful technique if you’re stuck ruminating. Ruminating is when your thoughts go around in repeating circles or when you get stuck focusing on distressing feelings.
How could it be helpful?
Our mood is closely tied with the activities we do. Sometimes people get stuck in a pattern where they keep thinking about problems or focusing on distressing feelings. This can lead to a viscous cycle where they avoid activities or avoid connecting with people. Behavioural activation aims to break that cycle by taking action instead of ruminating. It is often used to support people who feel depressed.
How to access?
Although many health professionals will do this with you, it’s a simple technique that you can do by yourself right now.
Here are some suggestions:
- Identify the activities that are enjoyable or meaningful to you. Some resources have lists of activities to give you ideas.
- Track what you do each day to see if there are things or emotions you are avoiding. It will also help identify enjoyable activities that you can do more of. It can help to record how you feel before, during, and after doing them on a template like this one.
- Reflect on what is important to you (e.g. your personal values, family, creativity, health) and choose one or two activities to try that feel meaningful to you. This can help you feel a sense of fulfilment and achievement when you do the activities.
- Commit to doing just five minutes of an activity. At the end of the five minutes, you can decide if you want to keep going or stop.
Real experiences
"Committing to doing just five minutes of something really helped me. I find it hard to get focused. I can see lots of things that I could be doing and tend to start doing something, get distracted by something else, and then before I know it I look around and have piles of half started tasks around me. And that makes me feel even more overwhelmed and frustrated. When I tried the five minute technique, I set a silent timer on my phone for five minutes. It was just enough time to get me a bit further through the task. Sometimes I got locked-on and spent ages on the task, and other times I stopped when the five minutes was up. But it helped me to get more done overall, and made me feel less useless and like I couldn’t do things."
- Michael