One of my favorite ‘tricks’ came from a psychotherapy client I worked with years ago. He suffered from episodic bouts of severe depression. After a while, he figured out a way to handle the depression while working a complex career position. When he woke up in the morning, if he felt the symptoms of depression, he would pretend that he was an actor in a movie. After he would shower, he would stare into his bathroom mirror and shout out loud to himself Action! He would then act as if he was a non-depressed movie character.
The point of this exercise was to temporarily get out of his depressed mode and act as if he were a non-depressed business person going to work and completing his daily routine. I thought this was a clever short term psychological technique of not allowing the depressive symptoms to overtake his life. Many times, people will allow the symptoms to keep them from functioning in their daily lives, making the symptoms even worse, a vicious circle soon occurs.
Sometimes, if you act as if long enough, you become that role…for good or for bad.
see also No Stupid Questions: Does “As If” Thinking Really Work? (NSQ Ep. 12)