Post by Somebody: Exercise & Building Self Esteem

Depression can devastate your self-esteem, which has been defined as the value or worth you place on yourself and the pride you feel in yourself. Self-esteem also involves accepting your shortcomings, limitations, and even failures. Therefore, knowledge and acceptance of yourself - both your good and bad characteristics - lay the groundwork for developing a healthy sense of self-esteem.

Low self-esteem can keep you from achieving goals and enjoying life fully. Before you can build your self-esteem, just as in the section Thinking Positively, it is helpful to identify and write down negative feelings you have about yourself. Many people with depression tend to focus on these negative feelings. Do you:

Feel different from others?

Feel afraid to interact with others?

Believe you are unable to achieve your goals?

Have feelings of guilt and shame?

Find you're unable to trust your own ideas?

Feel as if people think there is something wrong with you?

Believe you're not as good as other people?

Feel guilty about the effects of your depression on other people?

Write down any other negative thoughts you uncover. Again, sometimes writing your thoughts makes them seem more concrete-and easier to deal with. After you've listed your negative thoughts, the following techniques may help you improve your self-esteem.



Develop the habit of thinking positively about yourself



Just as suggested in the section on Thinking Positively
http://www.prozac.com/next_steps/thinki ... avId=3.2.5 , write a few sentences to describe what a good person you are, and list positive things about yourself. Be sure to include your special abilities and accomplishments. Don't use any negative words (for example, rather than write "I don't steal," write "I am honest." For example:

"I am a wonderful, unique, and valuable person. I always do the best I can and am competent and responsible. I am honest and trustworthy."



Enjoy your day



It is important to do things you enjoy every day. Too often, we spend our time doing things we don't enjoy, and we don't save time to do the things we like. Make an effort to do an activity you enjoy each day - something that makes you happy and makes you feel better about yourself. Read a novel, play a musical instrument, listen to your favorite music (sing along!), or work at a hobby.



Put laughter in your day


Rent a funny movie, watch a funny TV show, have lunch with a friend who makes you laugh, or read an amusing book.



Do something nice for yourself



Treat yourself as a special person. Buy yourself a gift, take the afternoon off, spend time with a friend, or put flowers in your home or office. Treating yourself like the wonderful person you are is a good way to affirm your self-worth.

It's up to you to change your attitude about yourself, but it's not always easy. You can increase your chances of success by doing things that reinforce the changes you are trying to make. The activities below may help you feel more worthwhile, more productive, and happier with yourself.

Keep in contact with friends and family.

Take a class or go to a workshop to learn something new.

Seek counseling.

Exercise (always talk to your doctor first before attempting any new exercises).

Do some small project you've been putting off.

Avoid people who make you feel bad.

Make a list of other activities that help you feel better. Try to do at least one of these things each day. And when you go to bed at night, remind yourself of all the accomplishments you've had today!

http://www.prozac.com/next_steps/self_esteem.jsp?reqNavId=3.2.6

One of the things that help in increasing self-esteem is working out
and generally exercising. I personally exercise only a few minutes a day (like ten minutes for various muscle groups, I don't exercise all of them though:P). Also, if you think that going to the gym is time consuming or whatever you can always buy some home equipment (some of them are really good, cheap and don't require a lot of space). In any case any type of exercing or sport will probably do.

Why does exercing help? Well, because it contributes to a person's general well being, it tones the body, helps to improve sleep patterns, improves flexibility. All these gains that require the person's persistence and patient (about a month of training before noticing changes to the body for the newbies) make seeing life from a more positive and confident prospective, make feeling better about one's self.


This is based on the idea that if you spend some time copying the behaviour of confident people, you will eventually become self confident yourself. For the purpose of boosting self esteem, copy the posture they use, tone of voice (loud, soft, deep...), gestures, the way they dress, the way that they interact with others etc.

You can find more information on this, in the second week's tutorial of the free email course, provided by http://www.self-confidence.co.uk

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This is based on the idea that if you spend some time copying the behaviour of confident people, you will eventually become self confident yourself. For the purpose of boosting self esteem, copy the posture they use, tone of voice (loud, soft, deep...), gestures, the way they dress, the way that they interact with others etc.

You can find more information on this, in the second week's tutorial of the free email course, provided by http://www.self-confidence.co.uk

yes i'm sure working out does help to an extent, but for me it's not about getting fit i'm a small enough at it is and don't need to loose weight.. so the self esteem issues aren't regarding that at all.

Yes it makes you feel good, but for me that's not the answer... it helps, but that's all it does.


Workout when your depressed, now that works, gets your endorphines going.

Exercise has been a life saver for me. It seems to moderate my moods more than anything I have ever tried--and boy did they try a lot of on me. They turned me into a zombie, but I still had my fears and poor self esteem.

When I got into good enough shape to work out really hard for more than an hour at a time, I found that I did have control over my violent mood swings. If I wanted to control my mania or get out of a desire to kill myself, I just had to work out. Most people would never want to work out as hard as I do, but I really, really being controlled by my moods.

A side effect of all my exercise is that I got in good enough shape to walk on trails in national parks and see some of the most beautiful scenes in the world. Once I walked over 20 miles across the Grand Canyon--down one side and up the other. It was a spirtual experience. Again all this beauty is not for everyone, but it made me happy.
James

I have tried working out and i'm still fat it doesnt help i can't do sports at school because i can't do morning practises i want to i want to have the chance of feeling like the star player i want to be the one who gets reconized but if i did make then team i would probably be the water girl

Rent a funny movie, watch a funny TV show, have lunch with a friend who makes you laugh, or read an amusing book.

- sadgurl

What if horror films make you feel better. Yes that does sound weird, but I can explain. I tell people, you don't think your problems are as bad, when you're watching someone being chased by a maniac with a chainsaw.

Some people enjoy horror films...


I didn't come up with this information, another member did, I just reposted it for him..

I'm leaving this one post from this asshole up so people can see what we're being hit with. Sadgurl and I have removed more than 500 posts from this jerk under dynamic (faked) IP addresses.

I suggest you contact the contact for the primary domain name linked from these spam posts. His name is Eric Polerecky and he can be reached at the following email addresses.

eric@quiecom.com
eric@polerecky.com
EPolerecky@zipform.com

I sent him the following email to all three email addresses.

Eric,

Psychforums.com has received more than 500 posts during the past few days from texasholdemcentral.com as well as several other gambling oriented websites I assume are owned and operated by the same jerks. I have included the stats below to show the size of the problem.

I am getting sick and tired of deleting these emails and will be speaking with our lawyer on Monday.

Make this stop now.

Best regards,
Sean Bennick
Vice President/COO
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