Last Updated on December 16, 2021 by

Everyone in the world must feel sadness in his/her life and very few of them learn how to overcome sadness. It can also be called melancholy, grief, nostalgia, grief, discouragement, desolation, emptiness, misery, etc.

All these expressions refer to feeling sad, either by a loss, by lack of luck, by feeling that life has no meaning or for other reasons.

The first thing you should know about sadness

Sadness is an emotion and it is normal that you want to overcome it since it is an unpleasant state; it decreases your energy and also often worsens relationships with others. So you must know how to overcome the sadness.

When it’s a real problem

The biggest mistake you can make to feel this way is to isolate yourself and spend days locked in your house without wanting to interact.

This will cause sadness to increase and that it can develop into a serious mental illness like depression.

Behaviors such as seeing photos of your ex, watching sad movies, listening to sad songs, locking yourself in your room, not going out, etc., will only cause sadness to increase, so try to avoid them.

Another thing you should not avoid doing in excess is to reflect. As Victor Frank explains, thinking too much about the motives of sadness (a rupture, a loss of a loved one, the loss of work …), does not help to get out of sadness, but rather fosters it.

I do not want to say that you have to deny that you are sad. You simply have to accept that emotion as something normal and act. The important thing is that you know that it is a way for the body to tell you that something has happened that damages you and that you have to act.

Most frequent causes Of Sadness

It is likely that some of these things happened to you:

• Loss of health.
• Loss of any person.
• Loss of employment or having a job you do not like.
• Do not have children.
• Loss of animal.

The difference between depression and Sadness

Depression has specific symptoms that define it and make it different from simply feeling sad also called the depression of sadness. It can be said that being sad is normal, but having depression is a much more “powerful” sadness, with other additional symptoms and is considered a disease that needs to be cured. 

Some symptoms are:

• Inability to enjoy leisure activities.
• Inability to do simple activities.
• Irritability, extreme sadness, anxiety.
• Negative thoughts.
• Lack of energy, changes in appetite, sleeps problems.

Now that you know the differences between sadness and depression (see the symptoms of the previous point), I can comment on some statistics of the latter, so you realize the importance of preventing it:

• Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and contributes significantly to the global burden of disease.
• Depression is a common mental disorder that affects more than 350 million people in the world.
• Depression affects women more than men.

How to Overcome Sadness

1-Act

The best way to solve your sadness is to act. That is, you have to find activities to do and to make you stay entertained.

If this activity involves socializing much better. Examples are: doing sports, going out to the movies, taking walks, signing up for courses, staying with friends…

2-Find a reason

Victor Frank is a psychiatrist who spent a lot of time in a concentration camp. In Man in search of meaning, he described how while some people let themselves die or committed suicide, others fought to survive.

There are many reasons to go ahead and feel like acting and overcoming sadness:

• Achieve an important goal.
• Your family.
• Help others.
• Thank the luck to have what you have.
• Learning new skills …

3-Give another meaning to your experiences

Experiences have no particular meaning. It all depends on the meaning you want to give each one.

For example

If you lose a job you may think that you are a failure and that you will not find a better job. But you may also think that it is an opportunity to find something better, to undertake or to go abroad in search of opportunities.

If you have suffered abuse, you may think that you are unhappy and will influence the rest of your life. Although you may also think that it is an experience that has helped you to be stronger.

If you fail an exam you can interpret it as not having enough intelligence or that failure will make you learn and prepare better next time.

4-Work your self-esteem

You may feel sad because you do not like yourself, that is, you have low self-esteem. In this case, you will have to work little by little to improve that perception that you have of yourself.

• Be aware of your critical voice.
• Do physical exercise: you will improve your appearance.
• Do not seek approval from others.
• Remove the “should” or “you have to be”.

5-Play Sports

In the first point of this section, I asked you to act, not to stay at home or locked in your room

Sports are fundamental for physical and mental well-being. Even in some studies, it has been found to have the same efficacy in depression as psychotherapy or medication. Some of its benefits for psychological well-being are:

• Releases endorphins: the hormones of well-being.
• Delays mental deterioration (memory, attention, perception).
• Improves sexual performance.
• Improves sleep quality.
• In group sports, you can socialize.
• Aerobic activity increases the ability to learn new information and retain it in the long term.
• It can improve memory and attention.
• Increases life expectancy.

Now, what do you think? Why you are sad? What do you do to remedy it? You can give an opinion below. I’m interested. Thank you!