Seven Daily Habits That Helped Me Deal with Depression and Anxiety
Nearly everybody sometimes gets depressed. I have gone through a few periods in my life where depression and anxiety were affecting me more than I was willing to admit to myself at first. If depression is something you experience often or is severe, please see a physician. However, there are some things anyone can do to help feel better when life is getting you down. I think nearly everyone will agree that these current times can be difficult and stressful. I came up with what I call my seven daily habits that have helped me fight depression and get me through some hard times.
The one thing that really did help me was some daily habits that I started when I hit a period of depression, feeling fatigued, and seeing a dark future. I didn’t have any daily habits to rely on. The only habits that I had were self-destructive habits that would get me deeper and deeper into that depression. As soon as I started integrating good habits into my daily routine, I started to find myself feeling better. I started to find myself coming out of that depression and most important with these daily habits, they actually helped.
My first habit was paying more attention to my diet. What you’re putting into your body is going to have a huge impact on how you feel one of the reasons why I was so depressed and one of the reasons why I struggled to overcome it was because I was just eating junk. I was just not fueling my body with the right stuff and that has a huge link to my depression. If you’re not feeding your body the right stuff, if you’re not fueling it correctly, it’s going to have an effect on your mental health. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to follow a really strict diet. It could just be about making different changes gradually. I didn’t go from eating terrible food, then all of a sudden just indulging in carrots and broccoli and healthy stuff, I did it very gradually. I would have one healthy meal a day. I would cut out the snacks. I would cut out the sugary drinks and cut down on carbs in general.
With consistency, you will find that you’re actually going to feel a lot better. It is all about understanding what works for you. What works for me is fasting, so I like to fast for sixteen to twenty hours a day. That sounds like a long time, but I sleep for about eight of those hours. This works very well for me because I have a lot more mental clarity when I’m actually fasting, and my issue is when I start eating. I cannot stop eating and also as well when I eat, I feel very fatigued. So this is what works for me, so you have to figure out what works for you. Understand what you’re putting into your body is causing an impact on your mental health, on your depression, and on your anxiety. Some people say that coffee causes anxiety. They can now see through self-awareness that the caffeine that they’re drinking is actually causing their anxiety. So it’s all about being self-aware. Knowing what foods make you feel depressed, knowing what foods make you feel anxious and trying to cut them out gradually. Water intake is also important. Drinking enough water helps you have more mental clarity. It is going to make you feel better.
The second daily habit is journaling. For me, doing a bit of journaling enables me to get those worries. stresses, and anxieties down onto a piece of paper. I thought I would become this girl because all of a sudden, I’m writing a ‘dear diary’. I feel very bad. I feel very anxious… but in fact, that’s not what journaling is. Journaling is you getting these thoughts down onto a piece of paper and what you’ll find is when you get them down onto a piece of paper, you can start to rationalize with them. When they are in front of you on a piece of paper, they are almost like they are not your problems, they are someone else’s problems and you can start to see issues more objectively.
So all I do is just grab a plain notepad and a pen. I will just listen to some relaxing music for 10 minutes and I will write down whatever comes up. I don’t structure it. By doing that, I can then look at the paper. Look at what I’m journaling and I can start to rationalize those thoughts, and I can also start to come up with solutions. Problems become easier to deal with. So journaling is a great tool to use. You can go and get the five-minute journal. You have the staff journal as well. I’ve experimented with both of them. I just tend to pull up a notepad and start writing. In the end, try to find a few things you can be grateful for. When it comes to gratitude, be very specific. A lot of people just say: I’m grateful that I’m alive today, it’s too broad, so many people are grateful that they’re alive today. What are you personally grateful for? What’s great in your life right now and there’s so much that you do have to be grateful for you just have to put your mind to it. You can see how specific you can get and when you become specific with your gratitude, it’s going to put you in a much better mindset.
The third habit is exercise. Now, when I say exercise every single day, I don’t mean put yourself through a grueling workout at the gym every single day. It is just about moving. It’s about raising that heart-rate. Exercise releases endorphins, which are the feel-good hormones, so just try and do a little exercise every single day. Exercise got me through mild depression because I would force myself to get out of bed and I would just try and do as many push-ups as I possibly could, and just by doing that every single morning I found that I felt better about myself and then I was ready to leave the bedroom go and get showered and get on with my day. So try and do a little bit of exercise every single day. Maybe just 5-10 minutes, but get your body moving and you’re going To find that those endorphins are going to make you feel better.
Number four is mindfulness. Now again, you might be put off by this, but mindfulness is a great way to stay calm to deal with daily stresses and not get angry and be able to deal with that anxiety. Mindfulness could just be you sitting down quietly for a few minutes, focusing in on your breath. A simple technique is to breathe in for five seconds and then double that breath on the way out. If you can’t breathe out for 10 that is ok. But you want to make that out-breath longer than the in-breath. It’s a very good way of just relaxing, focusing in on your breath when you’re going to find that that’s going to help with mindfulness. You can do guided meditations. You can do visualization. Practicing mindfulness every single day is going to help you deal with your depression and anxiety. It’s going to make you calmer. It’s going to make you less stressed and help you deal with situations that you don’t want to deal with. Working on your mind is the same as working on your muscles down at the gym. The more that you work that bicep, the bigger and better and stronger it is going to get.
The fifth habit is to surround yourself in community. What I mean by this is simple: with social media we find ourselves feeling very isolated. We don’t have that community, we don’t have that support and when we feel isolated we feel very depressed and community is all about getting out there and speaking to as many people as you possibly can. Now that might seem daunting. But just having that community around you, people knowing that you exist, is really a great feeling when you are feeling depressed. Building your support network around you, meeting up with friends, meeting up with people that you haven’t met for a while. Family members, your community, your support network, all are going to get you through these tough times. Don’t feel isolated. There really is no excuse. Remember that we are all humans, we’re all the same species. We all struggle with mental health. One in four people will struggle with depression, If not more. Some people have been through what you’re going through right now. They could be there to help you but you will never know that unless you create that support network around you. Go to events, go to meetups, use social media as a way to find people who have gone through what you’re going through.
The sixth habit is to give to others. Now, I’m not saying spend a bunch of cash, but just do a small good deed for someone every single day when you’re focusing only in on yourself, when you feel like a victim or focusing In on your own insecurities, helping others is going to make you feel better. It could be as simple as helping an elderly person with their shopping. It could be as simple as asking someone if they’re okay, if they’re having a good day. It could be as simple as offering someone a lift. Do something good for someone every day.
Number seven is affirmations daily. You have to think of your mind as a computer. All it is, is a computer system. It’s going to behave the same way every single day, unless you reprogram it, and one of the ways that you can do that is through daily affirmations. If you don’t feel good about yourself, you have to train your mind and tell yourself that you are good. If you lack confidence, you have to tell yourself and remind yourself that you are confident. If you don’t feel happy, you have to tell yourself and remind yourself that you are happy. Your mind is going to start believing.
Those are the seven habits that I recommend to you. They will help you manage your depression and anxiety. With all of those habits, comes consistency. If you forget some of these, don’t stress out about it. Just make an effort to do the best you can. If you do, there’s a great chance that the days will seem brighter, you will have more energy, and more good things will start to happen in your life.