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Ways to Combat Depression
Dealing with any mental illness will always pose some challenges and difficulties on your lifestyle and will never be easy to overcome. However, adopting methods which can combat your symptoms and reduce the impact it has on your life will certainly help on a road to recovery. There are a number of coping mechanisms which doctors and therapists may recommend you try to help with mental illness and there are also things you may find yourself. Below are a number of ways in which you can combat depression and ease symptoms you may be experiencing.
Allow your emotion
Allowing your emotion is simply accepting how you feel and letting your emotions be expressed. It can be common for many of us to apply a brave face and supress the emotions which we’re feeling whether this be due to embarrassment, fear of judgment or feeling you may be burdening others. As a result, people who do this are likely to not be addressing their symptoms and therefore enabling the depression to gain control.
Whether suffering with depression, or just feeling generally emotional, being aware of these feelings is nothing to be ashamed of and it is especially important to communicate how you’re feeling to those around you so they can offer support or simply understand why you may not be yourself.
A huge factor which may be overlooked is crying. Crying is something many of us will try and hold back and avoid, again, for numerous reasons. This is especially common in men as there is stigma that it is a sign of weakness. Incorrect, Crying has been seen to be a great way to relieve stress and produce endorphins and therefore, you will often feel better afterwards.
Fighting your emotions will only be more taxing on your energy and health, as well as holding you back from being truly happy. It is imperative you accept how you feel, allow your emotion and then begin to address the cause.
Set Small Goals
When suffering with depression or other mental illness, your motivation levels may be very low and the thought of even getting out of bed is to much. Rather than setting huge goals which may take masses of energy and time to achieve, set yourself smaller achievable goals and perhaps imagine them as stepping stones.
By setting smaller goals that are achievable and then achieving them, you will experience a sense of accomplishment, in turn making you feel happy. Practicing this on a consistent basis will help elevate your enthusiasm and hopefully make you strive for more over longer periods of time.
On the contrary, it’s important to not overwhelm yourself with goals and not to be harsh on yourself should you not achieve them as this will then have the opposite effect and inflict negative emotion.
Applying Routine
Depression will often cause what is called brain fog, where you essentially feel de-motivated and lost. However, applying a routine to your daily life can be a great way to create a small sense of mental clarity and aid you with keeping on track as best as you can.
Picture a routine as a way of straightening your priorities out, it will enable you to set certain tasks around specific time frames, as appose to being overwhelmed with a number of tasks and not knowing where to start.
A routine can be applied to anything you do, whether it be a workout routine, dietary routine or perhaps a sleeping routine. Doing this will enable you to feel a sense of control.
Seeking Help
Seeking help isn’t as easy as what it may sound. Similar to allowing your emotion, you may find it difficult to reach out to others due to fear of embarrassment of burdening those with your emotions. However, seeking help is an imperative step to combatting any mental illness.
Often people will shun their emotions off and tell themselves they’ll be ok and doing this time and time again until it eventually takes control and potentially leads to serious consequences.
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When it comes to seeking help, it doesn’t have to be a therapist or doctor straight away, you may find more comfort in speaking to those closest around you and seeing how they can help, should you be experiencing more serious symptoms/feelings, going to the doctor may be a necessary step.
It is also important to be mindful that not everyone will understand your emotions and why you feel the way you do, some of which may pose a negative outlook on what you’re experiencing. However, it is important you don’t let this hinder taking the steps you need to take in order to recover​.
Practice a hobby
With depression you may find yourself procrastinating a lot with an end result of feeling lazy, unproductive and ultimately worse off. A lot of the time to avoid your emotions and thoughts you may find you distract yourself with meaningless pleasures such as social media or TV. However, devoting this time to a hobby can provide much more rewarding results.
A hobby is something we enjoy doing and therefore makes us happy when doing it. Finding a hobby can be a great way to create more productivity and give yourself a sense of purpose and achievement. An example would be a musical instrument, although difficult to learn, the more you improve the more rewarding it will be.
This will ultimately have the same effect of taking your mind off your thoughts and emotions, however in doing so you are practicing something you enjoy appose to wasting your time.