I have decided to dedicate a post on Thursday to therapy, and offer you the many tips I have learned on the couch. They will be a good reminder for me, as well, of something small I can concentrate on. Many of them are published in my book, “The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit.”

This directive not only applies to those depressed and anxious persons whose therapists have told them that they smell … you know, like my therapist did a few years ago. But also to folks who need to trick their brain into believing that they feel great!

Taking care of yourself—starting with soaping up your skin and shampooing your hair—is usually a no-brainer when you’re feeling good. Not so when getting out of bed feels like completing an Ironman at age 85. But that first effort—of putting your left foot on your bedroom floor followed by the right foot—can thrust the momentum in the right direction, so that your brain starts to follow your body toward good health.

Thus, showering and scrubbing your armpits is one way of “faking it til you make it,” and it’s been my experience that after you fake serenity and sanity for a few 24 hours, your limbic system, the brain’s emotional center, begins to chill out a tad.

Until your next shower … which is … a day later?