Depression is a common mental health condition that affects millions of people around the world. While there are many different treatment options available, not all of them work for everyone. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a relatively new treatment option for depression that has been shown to be highly effective for many people. In this article, we will discuss what TMS is, how it works, and the main benefits of this treatment. We will also help you decide if TMS is the right treatment for you.

What Is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation treatment that uses magnetic fields to stimulate the nerve cells in the brain. TMS is typically used to treat depression, but it can also be used to treat other conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The TMS treatment is usually used when medication and therapy have not been effective. It can be an effective treatment for people who are struggling with depression and are looking for an alternative to medication.

How Does TMS Work?

During a TMS treatment, a magnetic coil is placed against the head near the forehead. The coil produces magnetic pulses that pass through the skull and stimulate the nerve cells in the brain. The stimulation of these cells can help to improve mood and ease symptoms of depression. These magnetic pulses stimulate the nerve cells and help to improve communication between different areas of the brain. TMS is usually given five times per week for four to six weeks. Most people start to see improvement in their symptoms after two to three weeks of treatment. This improvement can last for several months or even years after treatment is completed.

The Main Benefits

There are many benefits of TMS for people who are struggling with depression. The main benefit is that it is a non-invasive, drug-free treatment option. TMS does not require surgery or any type of anesthesia, and there are no side effects associated with the treatment. TMS is also a very effective treatment option for people who have not responded well to medication and therapy. In some studies, TMS has been shown to be more effective than medication in treating depression. Another benefit of this treatment is that it can be used in combination with other treatments such as medication and therapy. This can help to improve the effectiveness of the overall treatment plan. Additionally, TMS is a safe and well-tolerated treatment option with a low risk of side effects.

Is This The Right Treatment For You?

If you are struggling with depression, then TMS may be the right treatment for you. However, it is important to speak with your doctor or mental health professional to discuss all of your options and find the best treatment plan for you. TMS is not right for everyone, but it can be an effective treatment option for many people. If you have tried medication and therapy without success, then TMS may be worth considering. You should also keep in mind that TMS is a long-term commitment and will require several weeks of treatments before you start to see improvement in your symptoms. If you are ready to commit to a long-term treatment plan, then TMS may be the right option for you. It’s important to consider the cost of treatment as well. TMS is typically not covered by insurance, so you will need to pay for the treatments out of pocket. The cost of TMS can vary depending on the number of treatments you need and the location of the treatment center. However, many people find that the cost of TMS is worth it when compared to the cost of medication and other treatment options.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, don’t hesitate to reach out for help. Depression is a serious condition that can be difficult to overcome without professional help. If you are struggling with depression, then transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) may be a treatment option worth considering. TMS is a non-invasive, drug-free treatment that has been shown to be highly effective for many people. If you are ready to commit to a long-term treatment plan, then TMS may be right for you. Speak with your doctor or mental health professional to discuss all of your treatment options and find the best plan for you. Make sure to do your research as well and be sure to ask lots of questions so that you can make the best decision for your mental health. We hope that this article was helpful!

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“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

A very common problem that can drag your self-esteem down or build up so much anger that steam may start to come out of your ears is to take things too personally.

And so you may try to grow some thicker skin and let criticism, negativity or verbal attacks just wash off of you.

But that’s often easier said than done.

So in this week’s article I’d like to share 6 habits that really work for me – at least in most cases – and helps me to reduce the stress, anger and hurt in my life.

I hope they’ll be useful for you too.

1. Breathe.

Just focus on your breathing for a minute or two (or for a few breaths if that’s all the time you got).

Focus only on the air going in and out of your nose. Nothing else.

This simple exercise helps you to calm your mind and body down a bit.

It helps you to create a bit of space between you and what has just happened and by doing so you’re less likely to have a knee-jerk reaction and to, for example, lash out verbally at the other person.

Going about things this way makes it easier to respond to the situation in the way you may deep down want to.

2. Get clarification.

Don’t jump to conclusions based on what you may have just misunderstood and let that drag you down into anger or to feeling sorry for yourself.

Instead, ask questions if possible to help clarify a bit about what the other person meant.

And, if you can, explain how what he said makes you feel. We have different perspectives and ways of communicating and he might not, for instance, realize that it came across as a bit harsh or rude.

3. Realize that everything isn’t about you.

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that criticism or verbal attacks you receive are about you or something you did.

But it may simply be about the other person having a bad day, week or year. Or about how they are miserable at their job or in their marriage at this time.

And so they release some pent up emotions and tensions at you who is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Remind yourself of this when you wind up in a situation where you are likely to take things personally.

4. Talk it out.

When something gets under your skin and you start to take it personally then you can get stuck in a negative spiral of sinking self-esteem that just gets stronger and stronger.

Break out of that or prevent it by letting what happened out into the light. Talk it over with someone close to you and let your friend share her perspective on what happened.

Maybe she knows something about how the person that verbally attacked you is going through a tough time.

Or she could just listen and through that help you to sort things out for yourself and ground you in a more level-headed perspective on what happened.

5. Ask yourself: is there actually something here that could help me?

This one can be a tough one to ask yourself. And it may not always lead to something.

But by asking it you can sometimes empower yourself.

You can find one or more steps to take to improve whatever the criticism was about. You can start moving forward again and regain confidence in yourself and in what you can do.

Instead of getting stuck in inaction and in replaying what happened over and over again in your head.

This one can be especially helpful if this is the fifth or tenth time you have heard the same thing from people. Then there might be something here you would like to work on (even if that might not be so fun to face).

6. Improve your self-esteem.

I’ve found that as I’ve learned to improve and keep my self-esteem steady things don’t get under my skin as often. I don’t take them so personally and I keep a healthier perspective and distance to them.

And so they tend bounce off quicker and not drag my day or week down.

One simple way to start improving your self-esteem today is to be kinder to the people in your own life.

You can:

• Help them out practically in some way.
• Listen when they need the help of a friend to find a better perspective.
• Give a genuine compliment.
• Encourage when most of their world may be discouraging.

The way you treat other people is how they will most often treat you too in the long run.

And, more importantly for your self-esteem, when you are kinder towards others then you tend to treat and think of yourself in a kinder way too.

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When you get disappointed then it can hurt. Sometimes a bit. Sometimes a lot.

It can drag you down into a negative funk for days or even weeks.

But if you learn how to deal with that disappointment in a healthier and more helpful way then it can be less a lot less scary and painful and actually a springboard or learning experience for further personal growth.

That’s at least been my experience in the past decade.

And in this post I’d like to share 12 steps, tips and habits that I’ve learned over the years and that help me to both handle disappointment and to reduce the situations where I get disappointed in the first place.

1. First, accept how you feel.

Disappointment hurts. And that’s OK.

Don’t try to push it away. And don’t try to hide it under a big smile.

I’ve found that it works better to not be swept away by such tempting impulses.

But to instead accept how I feel. To let it all in and to hurt for a while.

Because if I do then it will go quicker and in the long run be less painful to process what has happened.

If I on the other hand reject how I honestly feel then those emotions can pop up later and at unexpected times. And make me moody, pessimistic or passive aggressive.

2. Remember, you are not a disappointment.

Just because you may have been disappointed, had a setback or made a mistake and disappointed someone else doesn’t mean that you are a disappointment or failure.

And this situation that you’re in right now won’t last forever. Even if it might feel that way today.

The truth is:

• Just because you were disappointed today or you disappointed someone doesn’t mean that you’ll be or do that tomorrow or the next time.
• This does not label you as a disappointment (unless you choose to put that label on yourself).
• If you keep moving forward and you keep taking action then you’ll move on and you’ll improve.

3. Learn from it.

Instead of getting lost in the pain and negative emotions that can come from a disappointment choose to see it more as something you can learn valuable things from (and something that’ll help you to grow).

You can do that by asking yourself better questions.

Questions like:

• What is one thing I can learn from this?
• How can I adjust my course to avoid this disappointment in the future?
• What is one thing I can do differently the next time?

Maybe you learn that you can likely communicate better the next time when you’re in a similar situation or working together with someone else on a task or project.

Or that you need to give yourself a better balance between rest and work to avoid mistakes or to think more clearly.

You might even realize that you need to make a bigger change in your life and start spending less time – or no time at all – with someone who has disappointed you too many times (or always makes you feel like a disappointment no matter how hard you try).

4. Remind yourself: disappointment will happen if you go outside of your comfort zone.

Who is never disappointed? Or never feeling low about a setback or a mistake?

The people who never really go outside of their comfort zone.

Everyone who is now successful and you may look up to have had his or her share of disappointments and failures.

Setbacks and sometimes feeling disappointed is a natural part of living your life fully. A sign of you trying to grow and improve your situation.

I’ve found that just keeping this fact in mind helps me to stay strong and to more easily handle my own stumbles and setbacks.

5. Refocus on what you still got in your life.

To move on shift your focus to what you still got in your life.

The people, the passions and the things you sometimes may take for granted like a roof over your head and clean water.

Tapping into gratitude in this way helps me to put things into perspective and to not let a disappointment overwhelm me and derail my whole week.

6. Talk it over with someone close to you.

Getting a healthier and wider perspective on what happened is, as already mentioned, a vital part of dealing with disappointment in a better way.

And one of the most powerful ways to do that is in my experience to let it out into the light and to talk it over with someone close to you.

By venting as your friend just listens you can release that inner pressure, sort things out for yourself and accept what has happened instead of trying to push it away or ignoring it.

And if the two of you have a conversation about it then you can see the situation through someone else’s eyes and from another perspective.

This person can help you to ground yourself and to not make a mountain out of a molehill. And the two of you can together come up with the start of an action-plan for how you will move forward.

7. If your expectations are of perfection, then adjust them.

If you demand or expect perfection from yourself or from other people then you’ll often be disappointed.

So adjust your expectations a bit.

If you’re disappointed in what you did, what someone else did or how a situation turned out in your life ask yourself:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even 5 weeks?

That’s one thing that has helped me greatly to not make mountains out of molehills and to adjust my own expectations.

Another helpful thing is simply to remind yourself that if you buy into myths of perfection then you will hurt yourself and the people in your life.

Because such myths that you may have picked up from movies, songs and simply what the world or Instagram highlight reels are telling you will clash with reality and tends to:

• Cause much stress and suffering within you and in the people around you.
• Get you stuck in procrastination because you become fearful of being disappointed or disappointing someone else once again.
• Harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. because your expectations are out of this world.

Keeping this reminder at the forefront of my mind – and sometimes written down on a piece of paper – has definitely helped me to adjust my expectations and reduce my own suffering and disappointments.

8. Take a break (and find other ways to reduce your stress levels as you move forward).

Just focusing on your goals and working towards them all the time can cause unnecessary stress and make you lose your perspective.

And sometimes you just need a break to get over a disappointment. So take some time to rest up, recharge and to have some fun.

After you’ve taken that time off from your goals and dreams you’ll likely be in a better place to accept and learn from what happened and to then move forward once again.

When you’re in this more level-headed place then also take a bit of time to see how you can plan for a better balance between work and restful downtime.

I’ve found that when my balance between those two things is in order then it is usually quite a bit easier to handle setbacks and things not going as I’d like in a more constructive and mentally centered way.

9. Get outside of your own head.

If you know you have a tendency to get stuck in mulling over a negative situation for too long and going down into a downward spiral then get out of your own head and thoughts bouncing around in there.

Two ways to do that and to focus your attention outward is to:

• Help someone out. Help a friend plan for a party or a meeting at work. Or help him with moving boxes and other stuff into his new home. Or simply be fully there and listen to her as she vents about a disappointment in her life.
• Exercise. I find that lifting weights or going out for a long walk is a great way for me to focus outward once again, to renew my energy and to sharpen my focus.

10. Find energy and motivation again with the help of others.

Lift your spirits, up the motivation and your positive thinking with the help of others.

It could be with the help of conversations with friends, family or co-workers.

But also help from other people further away in the world (and sometimes in time). Renew that focus and motivation to keep moving towards your dreams with the help of for example:

• Books (motivational ones or perhaps biographies of people you look up to) and podcasts.
• Movies, TV-shows and Youtube-channels.
• Online forums and social media channels.

Spend anywhere from 10-60 minutes with one or a few such sources to find new energy and a shift in your thinking.

11. Find a small step to start moving forward again.

After you have accepted the situation, perhaps learned a thing or two from it and upped your motivation again start to move forward.

You don’t have to take a big and bold leap though.

When I’m in this place myself I usually try to come up with at least the start for a small action-plan for how to go forward. I do that together with someone – like for example my wife – or on my own.

Then I break that plan down into small action-steps. And get to work with the first of those steps.

If I start procrastinating on that step then I break it down into even smaller steps and take action on one of those.

12. Improve your self-esteem.

Improving my self-esteem has helped me to avoid getting dragged down too far into self-criticism and negative emotions after a disappointment.

It has also helped me to not get disappointed in myself as often as I used to but to handle a setback with a more level-headed mind and more emotional stability.

This also makes it easier to not blame others to feel better about myself and to learn more from this situation and get better results the next time.

So how do you improve your self-esteem?

A couple of the most helpful tips and habits I’ve found are:

Write down 3 things in the evening that you appreciate about yourself.

Take a couple of minutes at the end of your day to ask yourself: What are 3 things I can appreciate about myself? 

Write down your answers in a notebook, on your laptop or a smart phone. This will help you to start focusing on the positive things about yourself and to stop being so self-critical.

Stop falling into the destructive comparison trap.

If you compare what you have, what you’ve done and who you are to other people and their lives then you’ll most often start to feel depressed and bad about yourself.

Because there’s always people ahead of you.

So choose another way of comparing instead. Start comparing yourself to yourself. See how far you’ve come. What you’ve overcome. And focus on how you’ve improved your results.

Those are just two helpful habits for improving your self-esteem.

You can also use much of what you find in this article such as being constructive in the face of adversity, being kinder and more helpful to others, not thinking that YOU are disappointment just because of one setback and replacing perfectionism with something healthier.

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One of the most destructive daily habits I carried with me for a long time and I think is a very common one for many people was the thought habit of catastrophizing.

What is catastrophizing?

This is when you build up a nightmare scenario of how everything could go totally wrong in some situation and imagine a big catastrophe in your mind.

You may have a presentation tomorrow and your mind starts to pull up a scenario where you have left your notes at home, you make a fool of yourself, you are embarrassed in front the whole company and your boss yells at you for 20 minutes after the meeting.

Scary stuff for sure.

So how did I learn to handle this one?

Let me share 7 steps that have really helped me out.

Step 1: Loudly say stop to your inner critic.

The catastrophe that has started to brew in your mind comes from your inner critic.

He is telling you: “You will fail because it is what you always do.”

Or that you have not prepared enough.

Or that your boss will not be pleased with your presentation for some reason or other.

Or all of that.

So stop the inner critic quickly. In your mind, as soon as these thoughts pop up, shout:

“NO!”

Or: “NOPE, we are not going down that path again!”

This will disrupt that train of thought and help you to start feeling more level-headed again.

Step 2: Focus on your breathing.

After disrupting the thought be still for a minute or two. Sit down if you can.

Focus on just your in-breaths and out-breaths. Nothing else.

This will calm your body down from the stress and it helps your mind to think more clearly and to return to what is happening right now in this moment instead of being lost in future nightmares.

Step 3: Look to the past for the truth.

Think back to your past.

How many times in the past have these catastrophe scenarios that your mind throws at you actually become reality?

Never or very few times I would imagine. That has certainly been the case for me.

So remind yourself of the actual facts from the past to calm yourself down even more and to draw yourself back to the more centered version of yourself.

Step 4: Talk it through and get input from a level-headed friend.

In many situations in my own life the first three steps have helped me to snap out of the catastrophe scenario and to think more calmly and clearly.

But sometimes that combination isn’t quite enough. Maybe there are still some lingering negative thoughts and inner tensions that could start snowballing again.

If that’s the case then one thing I like to do is to let the catastrophe out. I talk it over with someone close to me.

By doing so, by just venting and having someone listening for a few minutes I can often see the situation for what it truly is. And so I calm down.

Or the person listening can help out me out a bit more if needed and lend me his or her perceptive.

That helps me to ground myself in reality again and it has also helped me many times to find a solution or a first step that I can take to start changing this situation into something better if that is needed.

Step 5: Stop making a mountain out of a molehill.

Another thing that often helps me is to ask myself a question that lets me zoom out and see if I’m honestly just making a mountain out of a molehill here (or out of nothing at all).

So I ask myself:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even in 5 weeks?

The answer is usually that it won’t. Even though it might at first seem that way when you’re in a stressed out and anxious headspace.

Step 6: Say stop to yourself when you know you simply can’t think straight.

When I’m hungry or I need to go to bed and get some sleep then I know from experience that I’m vulnerable to catastrophizing and pessimistic thoughts.

So what do I do?

I tell myself this:

No, no, no, we are not going to think about this now. We will think about this situation or challenge later, after getting some sleep or food.

Doing that simple thing helps a lot.

Because when I’m not hungry or I’m well rested once again then my issue that I was getting worked up about will most often be small to non-existent when revisited with some clear-headed thinking.

Or it will at least be a lot easier to find a solution or a plan to improve things if there’s actually a real challenge here that I need to face.

Step 7: Reduce any weekly input that pushes these disaster scenarios into the forefront of your mind.

The people and the other sources out there like TV, social media and various websites or forums have a big influence over your thinking.

So be careful about what you let into your head on a daily and weekly basis. Ask yourself:

Is there a person or source in my life that strengthens my catastrophizing habit?

Examples of such sources could be someone who is very pessimistic or news online or a social media platform that you find is feeding too much negativity into your mind.

When you’ve found something like that in your life ask yourself:

What can I do this week to spend less or no time with this person or source?

Then take action on that and spend the time you’ve now freed up during this week with one or a few of the most optimistic sources / people in your life.

Do this – in the coming weeks or months – with as many sources as needed to piece by piece build a healthy environment for yourself and for your thoughts.

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