IMO the best remedy to any down moods is to own a dog. Even thinking about it gives me joy.
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That reminds me of when I went to see a therapist years ago to say ‘I’m depressed, I need drugs’. She said you are not a depressed person, you are just going through something awful and you are reacting to the situation.
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Exercise is tremendously helpful to reduce depression and the general frustrations of life, which turned inward turn to depressive thoughts as well.
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Yes.Everything about a dog makes you feel better, from the constant live and affection they show when you come home to the exercise you get walking them everyday!!
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Exercise (or just long rucking), Sauna, Red Light, Eating Healthy, Be Present, Hugs, and Don’t Borrow Future Worries.
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I am not my brain.
The brain is a weird thing. It will involuntarily offer up dark thoughts, destructive thoughts and drag me into it’s alternate reality.
I have found that by understanding that my brain wants to harm me, I take control and stop those thoughts by focusing on my reality, and I end up in a better place.
By learning how to disarm those thoughts, by recognizing what they are and where they came from, I find I spend more time in a good place 
Just because something in my life is difficult doesn’t mean I can allow my brain to drag me down.
It took me a long time to get to that point of understanding the battle between my reality and what my brain presents as it’s reality.
My reality, while often difficult, and has on occasion been severely dysfunctional (like all humans) is filled with a lot of joy, happiness, accomplishment and gratitude.
For those who do have more serious issues in this area, all the other suggestions about exercise, diet, drugs, counselling etc are quite often necessary and truly beneficial. For me it’s a matter of understanding that not all my thoughts are my own or my reality.
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Haha! Wishful thinking!
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He is right in that OCD, stress and lack of sleep can change thinking patterns to the worse compared to baseline.
Neither a new concept and not my concept I learned this in another way in 1983, to separate the conscious and sub-conscious mind and use the conscious mind to “program” the sub-conscious. CBT was conceived in the 60’s
That’s also when I learned the concept that we are “3 selves”.
Interestingly, these responses mirror the current debate raging in the neuroscience community on this very topic. Some scientists believe that there is nothing but the brain—that it controls what we think, who we are, our values and actions. To them, the mind simply does not exist. Rather, it is the brain that changes itself, not us or what we do. The other camp, which my mentor and co-author Jeffrey Schwartz and I are part of, believe that the mind is intimately connected with, and can exert some pretty powerful effects on, the brain. In short, we believe that people are so much more than what their brain is trying to tell them they are and that the brain often gets in the way of our true, long-term goals and values in life (i.e., our true self).
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Of course it not a new concept! Cogito, ergo sum! But if you are brain dead you know what happens regardless of a connection, if any, between mental and physical 
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Well said! I wrote something similar here . . . you are not your emotions, you’re the observer of your emotions:
https://www.stoicsimple.com/you-are-the-observer-a-stoic-mindset/
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There are a surprising number of people in that category walking among us
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