Anyone who’s faced the darkness that is depression knows they don’t want to return to it. Thankfully, a little bit goes a long way when it comes to mental health.
While help from a professional is always recommended (therapy can be an excellent catalyst for healing, and buffer against future issues), you can take basic steps to rebuild your sense of self and start the healing process. Even if you’re not depressed, these 4 quick and easy changes can help buffer against anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns.
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Develop Routines
The first thing to improve is routine. The main reasons for this are twofold: 1) depression is usually tied to a poor circadian rhythm and 2) routine frees up emotional and cognitive energy and allows the body to relax as life becomes more predictable.
Start here: Wake up at the same time every day. Set an alarm and force yourself out of bed, even if it’s just to move to a different room (the bed should be for sleep and sex only).
NEXT LEVEL TIP: Make your bed. It’s a small win, but it’s something, and it’s another small way you can regain a sense of control and competency over life and self.
If you eat breakfast, eat more or less the same thing at the same time each morning. Try to make it something robust and high in protein so that you become satiated.
RELATED: Here are 4 weapons in the fight to better your mental health.
Try to go to bed at the same time every night too, roughly, and get off screens an hour before bed (or longer, if you can manage it). Do the same thing every night so your body knows that bedtime is coming.
ANOTHER PRO TIP: Use coffee and sunlight! Caffeine at the right time of day (first few hours) will help jumpstart your circadian rhythm, as will the sun’s rays. Just a couple of minutes can help wake you up and make sure your body knows that it’s time to get up and get going.
Move Body, Move Soul
The power of exercise cannot be understated. But you don’t have to hit the gym or go for a run to exercise. A good walk is a great start. If you can do something more intense, do it. Whatever you do, move, and move consistently.
It’s also a good idea to pick up whatever momentum you can in the practical parts of life. If you have a job, try to keep working through your mental health struggles. Work gives you a sense of function, social connection, and challenges to overcome. It also gives you an income, and that’s more significant than some might think when it comes to depression.
NEXT LEVEL TIP: Cleaning can be therapeutic! Clutter increases negative emotion. Any time spent tidying or organizing is a deposit in the mental health bank. Start with making your bed when you wake up.
Stop the Mind
You want to keep moving physically and socially, but chances are your brain is moving too much.
Rumination often ties in with depression. It occurs when your thoughts get stuck on something and spiral out into chaos, sadness, anger, anxiety, or whatever negative cognitions have your brain hostage.
When you’re in the depths of depression, you simply cannot deal with these thoughts. Your symptoms are so strong that rational thought, especially about a difficult or emotional topic, might not be possible in every moment. So the best strategy, for the moment, may be to stop thinking about the thing entirely.
You can do this one of two ways. One is literally stopping the thought and distracting with something else. You may have to say “STOP!” out loud. Some people have an elastic on their wrist and pull it so that they can get their mind off of the thought. Once you stop, move on to something else.
Option 2 is thought-labelling. This allows the thoughts or worries to enter in without getting caught in a thought spiral of negativity or judgement. “I’m thinking about X. I am feeling Y.” Labelling a thought allows it some space in your head, disempowering it, and helps you separate yourself from the thought and move forward in other parts of life. Later, when you have more manageable symptoms, you can deal with whatever the thoughts are trying to tell you.
NEXT LEVEL TIP: Journal your thoughts and emotions so you can notice patterns that might be happening. Once you know how you tend to think, you can try to adjust it by developing alternative thoughts and thought patterns. Self-awareness empowers and enables change.
Connect With Others
Depression and loneliness cover two sides of the same coin. Your body knows when it’s alone, and responds accordingly. Unfortunately, sometimes the sadness that ensues lends to more difficulty socializing, not easier.
The simple fact is you cannot remain alone if you wish to beat depression.
Focus on those people who give you life, who you feel safe with, and who you can relax around. If you don’t have those people, begin your search. Try to see them face to face.
If you have important people in your life who you haven’t been authentic with, perhaps it’s time to open up some more. It’s possible to be surrounded by people and yet still feel completely alone. If it helps, start with simply sharing that you’re struggling with some depression and could use someone to just hang with, play a game with, or whatever else. Baby steps!
Connect where you can. Your mental health depends on it.
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I wish you the very best, friends. Again, therapy or counselling can not only treat depression but buffer against it. When in doubt, find help.
Keep thinking.
