There are mornings when the body wakes but nothing inside us wants to get up. It is not that we do not know what we have to do. And yet the distance between the thought and the action feels enormous. As though every step required more energy than we have. Depression is not only sadness; just as often, it is stillness. A message left unread, a plan that falls through, a meeting with friends cancelled on the pretext of tiredness — not physical tiredness, but a deeper kind that does not lift however much we rest.
We often wait to feel better before we move and make plans. A therapeutic approach called behavioural activation proposes the reverse: move first, even minimally, and let the mood follow. In recent years this approach has increasingly been studied in digital form too, through mobile apps.
Why don’t I feel like doing even the things I used to enjoy?
Is this simply laziness or a lack of willpower? It is the question many people carry inside them, with guilt, before they realise that what they are living through has a name. Habits that once gave us satisfaction now feel like nothing, and are accompanied by hours spent staring at a phone screen without even remembering what we were looking for; by putting off until tomorrow, every day, and tomorrow never coming.
This withdrawal is not a choice, and it is not simply an absence of activity. Often it is the way the organism tries to protect itself when everything feels too demanding or too stressful. For a while it reduces the strain, but the longer it lasts, the fewer opportunities we have to encounter people, moments or experiences that might remind us that something inside us is still alive. And we notice that the less we do, the less satisfaction we take from the life around us, and the less satisfaction we take, the harder it becomes to get moving again — a cycle that feeds itself.
What is behavioural activation?
Behavioural activation is a gradual return to activities that matter to us — not necessarily pleasant ones, but meaningful ones: a call to someone who cares about us, ten minutes of walking with no destination, tending a few plants, cooking something we like. The logic is deliberately reversed: we do not wait for the mood in order to move; we move first, even minimally, and let the mood follow. This does not mean we are “tricking” our brain. It means we are offering it new experiences. The brain does not change only because we think differently; it changes because we live differently. Every small action is a new piece of information: that contact with the world is still possible.
Do apps and digital programmes really help?
This question now has a fairly clear answer from research. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis examined seventeen randomised clinical trials of digital behavioural activation interventions (mobile apps, websites and messaging) in adults with symptoms of depression. The findings showed a significant reduction in depressive symptoms at 2, 3 and 6 months, improvement in behavioural activation itself and in quality of life, as well as a reduction in stress (Jia et al., 2025).
The finding that deserves particular attention is that these benefits tend to fade over time. At 12 months, the difference from the control group was no longer statistically significant. This does not mean digital interventions are not worthwhile; it means they work better as a first, accessible door towards change than as a complete solution in themselves. The same research did not find correspondingly clear effects on anxiety or on general functioning — which suggests that logging an activity on a screen does not replace the relationship and the understanding offered by a live therapeutic encounter.
The cycle that gets stuck: a Gestalt perspective
In Gestalt therapy we speak about the cycle of contact and awareness: a need emerges within us, we recognise it, we move towards it, we meet it, and then we withdraw with a sense of satisfaction, ready for the next need to emerge. In depression, this cycle often gets stuck precisely at the point of moving outwards: the need is recognised — we may feel the loneliness, the wish for meaningful contact, the desire for something beautiful — but the step towards it is never taken, and we remain in withdrawal (Perls, Hefferline & Goodman, 1951).
From this perspective, behavioural activation is not merely a technique for managing symptoms; it is an attempt to unstick the cycle, to give the body back the experience that moving towards something can lead to a real emotional shift. But action alone is not enough — we also need to feel it: the Gestalt emphasis on the “here and now” invites us to notice what is happening in our body at the moment we take a small step, rather than simply getting it done. Without that awareness, the activity remains empty of feeling; with it, it becomes living experience again.
In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky describes a man trapped in ceaseless self-observation and doubt. Continual analysis takes the place of action, and every possible movement seems to be cancelled before it has even happened. Although the work does not describe depression in today’s psychiatric sense, it captures with striking accuracy an experience many people recognise: knowing what would do them good, yet feeling powerless to take the first step.
Depression convinces us that nothing has meaning before we do anything at all. Experience, however, often shows the opposite: sometimes meaning does not precede movement; it is born within it.
When depression needs professional help
When a lack of interest, fatigue or sadness lasts more than two weeks and affects daily life, work, relationships or sleep, it may be time to speak to a mental health professional. If thoughts appear that life is not worth living, it is important to seek help immediately; in Greece, the Suicide Intervention Line (1018) is available twenty-four hours a day.
On some days the first step will not be going for a run, organising our life or going out with friends. It may be opening the window, watering a plant. Having a shower, sending a message to someone we have been thinking of, or making a phone call we have been putting off.
Behavioural activation does not ask us to feel good straight away. It invites us to create small openings so that something different can happen. Every small act is a reminder that our relationship with the world has not been lost for good; it may have grown weaker, but it can also be rebuilt.
References
- Jia, E., Macon, J., Doering, M., & Abraham, J. (2025). Effectiveness of Digital Behavioral Activation Interventions for Depression and Anxiety: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 27, e68054.
- Perls, F., Hefferline, R., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. Julian Press.
- Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press. (original edition 1946)
- Dostoevsky, F. (1864). Notes from Underground.
