DEPRESSION AND OUR DAILY ROUTINE. WE NEED TO BRING IT BACK.

[Ggrand]

Hello,

A lot of us (me included). take to our bed for days on end when we are depressed.

This is unhealthy for us...We need to look after us as best we can, I feel we should try as hard as we possibly can to make up a routine to keep us healthy and get us out of bed.

I believe we need structure in our lives more so when we are depressed,

A sense of structure is important to provide goal to your day, it gives a pattern to your day which supports your body's natural health structure.

• I think it's important to try to go to bed each night around the same time. Put away your phones,I pads etc, put on some soft music and drift away to sleep.
• Set the alarm to get up the same time each day, but don't just wake up, get up out of bed, open blinds, curtains the doors, let some sunlight into your home.
• Try having a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner, keeping roughly the same times to eat and enjoy the meals, we need to eat healthy meals daily to fuel our bodies for healing.
• Try having a morning and afternoon cup of tea or coffee, maybe a couple of bickies as well, or my favourite cake.

• Try some light excersises throughout the day, or go for a short walk daily. even walking around your yard, just doing something will give our mind a rest.

A daily bath or shower either morning, night or both, a bath or shower late at night might releases some stress and many relaxe us a little for sleeping.

1. House work, not fun but necessary to keep our environment clean and healthy, set a day for washing, another day for ironing, try washing the dishes daily.

Even if we just set a few of these goals to start with, it will still give us a purpose for the day, a purpose to get out of bed.

Once we get into a routine we can then slowly add to our days activities to maybe add some social events, hobbies, things we like to do, things we enjoy doing.

Recovery has to come from us, we can't give up on us. We have to try to help ourselves to mend our broken minds.

All these activities will be doing mindfulness, getting our mind away from our dark thoughts while we are carrying out these simple but necessary tasks.

All thoughts are welcome.

Kindness only ,

Karen..(GG).

[Sad_Mushroom]

LOL Sez might have a touch of OCD.

Sorry, Sarah just joking but you did alight to that fact.

Clothes on the line used to be one of my issues. All socks and undies paired and on the first (inner) line, then singlets and then bigger clothes,,,all in order.

My routine cannot be as suggested either. My sons at home work shifts, different shifts and I have to be careful when I make noise. I sneak around and cannot do anything until the son who works nights is up and then in the afternoon I have to sneak to make sure I do not wake the son who works early mornings. One gets up at 4am to go to work and gets home at 2.30pm and the other starts about 10am and gets home about 10pm. Leaves a little window to be vacuuming and cleaning.

I work between 9am and 2pm three days a week so I am gone for three days a week during the "safe" zone.

SM

[Ggrand]

Hello lovely people,

Evening Routine,

The close of each day is just as important as the start. By implementing evening routines, you ready ourself for the next morning.

Prepare goals for the next day., it allows you to identify the most important tasks in advance, before the pressure of the day starts.

Reflect on your good achievements for the day. It can be easy to loose the sight of good things after a long day. Take time to reflect on any good that happened today. You can jot this down in your journal or notebook.

Clearing your head.,It's easy to take work to bed making it difficult to sleep, as you mull over job related problems. Clearing your head before you go to sleep, puts aside the days challenges and ready your mind to shut down, some ways of doing this are..Meditation, light reading, watching TV, going for a walk, doing a brain dump into your journal before bed.

Prepare for the next day..To make things easier less stressful in the morning, set out the clothes for the next morning, prepare you food you will have for Morning tea and lunch, prepare the coffee maker for the morning.

Tidy up..Waking up to a messy house isn't the most motivation way to start your day. Spend around 10-20 minutes a night tiding up, should reduce stress in the morning. If there is only one thing that you can manage to do,.wash dishes, put them away, then clean and shine your sink, like making your bed in the morning, cleaning your sink will give you a sense of achievement. When you wake the next day, your sink will greet you, and a smile will come across you lovely faces.

It can be tough to build routine into our lives, it takes wanting and discipline, the good thing about routine is that the more you do them the easier they become, that eventually it will be harder not to do them.

Try and stick to it, you may find it hard at first, but well worth the effort. When your evening routines blends across to you morning routine.

Example of an evening routine,

1. Home from work.
2. relax first for a while then shower,
3. prepare dinner
4. eat dinner slowly and mindfully.
5. after dinner clean up and tidy up.
6. family time, TV, light reading, walk, or other form of relaxation.

• Journaling or meditation,

Like all routines your Bedtime should be at the same time nightly, or as close as possible to it.

I would be interested to hear about how your evenings go, do you have a routine, please feel free to share.

Karen.

[Elizabeth CP]

Karen, You have included really great points for the evening. Clearing your head being the most important because without winding down sleep is impossible. I like the idea of thinking of your achievements. Ticking of things on the to do list or writing down what you did even if it wasn't planned can help you feel more in control & less useless. Writing down or noting things done is particularly useful when things haven't gone to plan because it helps you recognise what has happened & be more accepting of things not done.

Preparing for the next day & tidying up are useful providing you don't overdo it. If you are exhausted trying to finish everything you think needs doing can be counterproductive. A few days ago I had pushed myself to prepare to go away but ended up so tired I left one job & took short cuts with others. It wasn't ideal but if I pushed myself further I would have got to bed too late & much too worked up to sleep so leaving things undone was a better choice.

In other words Karen's advice is ideal which we should aim for but don't feel guilty if you have to modify at times in order to cope.

[Ggrand]

Hello Elizabeth,

Thank you for you great suggestions,

I agree and no one should ever push themself to far and only do what the feel capable of doing.

Tha idea of an evening routine is to try to unwind from a long day of possible work struggles or life struggles.

I know that I can get out of routine some days and if I wake up to last nights dishes I feel already the day is bleak to start of with. On the days that I'm really struggling with my mh I try to at least if it's the only part of my routine that I can manage I try to clean up the kitchen sink as this simple task does seem to make my day start out a little better,

The example list is just an example, each individual would need to construct their own routine list, maybe adding to it at times or omitting things at times. It's not a stick to routine just a guide to help get you started.

Karen

[Elizabeth CP]

I think it is useful to be aware of your motivation. Remain mindful that the routine is there to help you feel more relaxed when you go to bed & also to help you feel good when you get up. Without this awareness it is easy for the routine to become another list of chores we HAVE to do. As you said it is important to focus on the specific things you know will really help you which is different to each of us.

[Ggrand]

Hello Elizabeth,

Thank you for your great input. and motivation needs to be the main focus, when starting your routine.

To me waking up to dirty dishes in the sink in the morning can send me right back to bed, because it's depressing to see it. This motivates me of an evening to spend 5 minutes to wash, dry, then put them away, it helps my mind settle knowing that I wake up to a clean sink.

I think that after we get our routine up and running and we practice doing it daily it will then become the normal for us.

just an example..

When I get up in the morning, I get dressed, make my bed, make my beverage, have some breakfast, wash the dishes, etc, this is my preferred routine.

When I first started to get my routine underway, it was hard and definitely felt like they were chores I had to do, but persistence paid of and now I do them without really thinking about them.

The same would probably happen with the evening routine, to start with they will more likely feel like chores, but with persistence they hopefully will become your normal.

This is your personalised routine, it could be as simple as washing up nighty, even doing one thing from a list you have created nightly is a routine, it doesn't have to be a major clean up before bed. just what you are capable of doing. Just enough to make your morning easier to start your day.

If we don't feel up to doing it some evenings, that's okay as well, there's always tomorrow, that we can try again.

Kind thoughts,

Grandy. (Karen).

[Meowface]

Thank you so much this post is a massive help to me I have screen shot some of the tips. I think having more routine will really help me get off the couch, out of bed and distracted from my dark thoughts. Especially love the idea of preparing for mornings because I often get so overwhelmed in the morning before work.

[Ggrand]

Hello Meowface,

Thank you for your kind words and I'm really pleased that this thread has helped you even a little..

Everyone is different and does things differently, so maybe make a list of your chosen tasks, and see how you go. Remember you can take away tasks or add to the list of tasks, depending on how your feeling.

Let us know how you went and if you got a small routine up and going.

Kind thoughts,

Karen,, (Grandy).

[Ggrand]

Hello Everyone,

I have been reading a bit about evening beauty routines, that is quite simply an extension from your nightly shower/bath, which is giving yourself a little kindness after a hard day. and doesn't take long to complete.

Be it taking a bath, shower or moisturising your skin, simply taking the time to acknowledge your body, that alone is a powerful act when depression weighs heavily on our every move.

Its about simply going through the motions, A simple soothing bath where you let the water encase your body or the shower water as it runs over your head and cascades down your body, both of these are potent stress relievers.

Gently brushing your hair, go on take your time, count those brush strokes, gently can you do 100 brush strokes..

Then brush your teeth, take in the smell of the toothpaste and how fresh and clean your mouth feels,

Now moisturiser for your face, neck body. Gently put some on your face and neck, now gently massage it in, now go slowly, feel how your fingers feel on your face and neck as your massaging it in relaxing the daily build up of tension.

These Three little tasks, are easy to complete, won't take long unless you indulge in the bath or shower, but they will relax you enough hopefully for your meditation before sleep.

Self care is enormously helpful during depression, Depression often causes isolation and withdrawal from most of the things that you normally do for self care, so being kind to yourself is to allow yourself to heal, and that's so important at this time. Beauty or self care routines if done mindfully, from a place of self-compassion can also enhance your mind - body connection. (Self esteem).

The act of self care is a form of retaliation, it should help you feel alive. It's not so much a matter of moisturiser, baths,showers etc, It like "Hey You". You are still beautiful and worthy of being taken care off.

You are all beautiful and you are all so much worth the time it takes to look after yourself. Be gentle and kind to yourself, adds to the healing process of getting well.

Kind thoughts

Karen.

[Guest_1055]

Hi Karen,

Wanted to let you know that I am slowly reading through this thread. Thankyou

It may seem I have it all together when one reads the walking thread. But that is only one thing in my life that seems to have had a routine to it. Exercise that is. So one thing on your list at the beginning of this thread.

Everything else is muddled up and with no routine at all. I tried to get up at roughly the same time each day. When okay for a very short time then I find myself not sticking to it. So I give up. I read on her someone has a chair robe like piles of clothes on a chair. Well that’s me. My house is messy a lot as well. I sometimes do not get dressed , not eat.

Cannot write anymore but Thankyou for this thread Karen and your thoughts