While facing Monday, most of us may feel depressed. How can we overcome the depression? Here are the tips for you.

List things you desire to do

Instead of focusing on the dull or difficult tasks that lay ahead of you, think about all the good to come. 【小题1】 A good place to start is to think of one thing you are excited about for each category: at work, after work, and at the weekend.

Sleep to energize

【小题2】 Take a nap to energize or get to bed earlier tonight to make up for lost sleep. It’s worth taking this into account on Sunday to avoid a lack of energy on a Monday morning.

【小题3】

Though this may seem trivial, don’t underestimate the power of an outfit. In fact, psychologists conclude that the strong link between clothing and mood suggests we should put on clothes that we associate with happiness, even when feeling low.

Set a pleasant schedule

After a weekend of fun and taking it easy, it might be best to keep Monday’s schedule a little lighter than other days. 【小题4】 It means that instead of facing the most complicated stuff on a Monday, put some time into the easier tasks. Reduce Monday blues and any anxiety or stress by allowing yourself to do Monday with more ease. 【小题5】

Electronic heroes

As an internet influencer, there seems to be nothing special about Miquela Sousa. The 19-year-old lives in Los Angeles, US, posts pictures of herself sporting fashionable looks, and has just made her way into the March edition of Vogue magazine. But Miquela isn't real – she is a computer-generated character.

Her fans don't seem to mind – she has 855,000 followers on US social networking platform Instagram. And her first single Not Mine – yes, she ''sings'' too – also reached No. 8 on music streaming (流媒体) platform Spotify last August.

It's kind of curious that in a time when authenticity (真实性) and ''being real'' are valued more than ever, ''fake'' celebrities like Miquela are appreciated and seen as icons (偶像).

Perhaps the reason for Miquela's popularity lies behind the fame of a similar star, Hatsune Miku. This 16-year-old animated singer from Japan has held singing concerts not only in her home country but also in the US and China.

Even though Hatsune's no more than a 3-D figure projected (投射) onto the stage, her fans are more than willing to pay to actually see her ''in person'', because to them, she's better than human singers. ''She's rather more like a goddess: She has human parts, but she transcends (超越) human limitations. She's the great post-human pop star, '' wrote reporter James Verini on Wired magazine.

Critics may say that 3-D stars could never replace the authenticity of humans, but when it comes to being authentic, are humans really the best example of how to do it? Most of us edit our photos before posting them online, and we tend to create a fantasy that we're living a perfect life by letting people only see the brighter side of it.

''Miquela is no less real to me than any other internet stranger with whom I've interacted (互动), '' wrote reporter Leora Yashari on the website Nylon. “Her existence in itself represents a new breed (种类) of influencer – someone who is breaking the boundaries (界限) of what is real and what is fake. ''

The concept of learned helplessness was first coined by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier in the late 1960s during a series of experiments with dogs.

The researchers placed dogs in a situation where they were subjected to unavoidable electric shocks. After these initial experiences, the dogs were later placed in a different situation where they could easily escape the shocks by moving to another part of the chamber. Surprisingly, many of the dogs did not attempt to escape, even when the means to do so were readily available. They had learned to feel helpless.

As adults, we often encounter a version of learned helplessness in our daily lives. We face challenges not in the form of electric shocks but in situations where we might feel overwhelmed or powerless, such as long-standing stress at work or repeated personal failures. These experiences can make us believe that we cannot change our circumstances, leading to a passive acceptance of our difficulties.

A similar process operates in our approach to problem-solving and goal-setting. In our formative experiences, we may have encountered situations where our efforts to succeed were consistently met with failure, leading to a sense of powerlessness. But the modern world, with its constant demands and high expectations, has greatly changed our environment. We are now constantly faced with new challenges and opportunities.

Our modern lifestyle — with its various sources of stress and anxiety — can do to our mental state what unavoidable shocks did to the dogs in Seligman’s experiments. We are tending to submit to hopelessness because our past experiences may have conditioned us to expect failure. But, as we have reshaped the world around us, increasing opportunities for success and personal growth, we still have the same psychological responses we developed in earlier, more challenging environments.

Therefore, just as we need to be more thoughtful about our mindset towards effort and success, we also need to be more conscious of our beliefs about personal competence, resisting the temptation to yield to learned helplessness. By fostering resilience and adopting a growth mindset, we can effectively manage our responses to life’s challenges and seize opportunities for improvement and success.