Behavioural Activation……..

I suppose most people procrastinate at sometime in their lives especially when needing to fulfil onerous tasks. At school I was always leaving my homework to the last minute unless it was a subject I enjoyed

Since becoming ill with depression and fibromyalgia my procrastination has reached epic levels. Being so tall I have difficulty buying coats with long enough sleeves so I thought I’d have a go at making myself a full length winter coat. I chose a pattern and ordered the required materials back in March. It is now October and I still haven’t made a start. I keep making plans to start on a certain day and end up dithering and making excuses. It is the same with my reborning (making hand painted realistic dolls); I started my current doll back in August and haven’t worked on it since my surgery.

I sometimes think I’m like this because of my perfectionism i.e. while I’m not doing the activity I’m not making any mistakes. I always feel better about myself when I’m being productive and I wish I could motivate myself more.

Behavioural activation is a branch cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that aims to help people engage more often in enjoyable activities and develop or enhance problem-solving skills. One of the symptoms of depression and chronic pain is a loss of interest in activities that were previously enjoyed. These activities are seen as not being worth the effort and this creates the vicious cycle seen below:

Behavioural activation involves looking at any obstacles to participation in activities and making strategies to overcome them. This may involve breaking the activity down into smaller, more manageable steps. It is often helpful to keep a record of thoughts and feelings while doing activities. This can be used to identify what worked and what didn’t with the goal of finding a positive solution to problems encountered. The ultimate aim of behavioural activation is to shift the person from the cycle shown on the left of the diagram to the cycle on the right thus releasing them from the inaction that made their depression worse.

There is a course on behavioural activation that I can attend locally so I think I’ll go and enrol now.