Tips for Coping with Depression

When you’re depressed, you feel like there’s a darkness in your mind that you can’t get rid of. It affects everything you do, and every relationship you have. You may feel hopeless, have very little energy, and feel fatigued. Depression can take over your life, if you let it.

Clutter and depression often go hand in hand. More clutter begets more depression, and more depression begets more clutter. As your home starts to feel more and more out of control, you feel less able to tackle cleaning it up, and it can make you feel bad about yourself. Feeling bad about yourself makes you more depressed.

In my organizing business, I've seen that making positive changes in your environment can have a major impact on your state of mind. De-cluttering and organizing your home makes you feel like you’re taking control of things, rather than your things controlling you. Even small changes can really make a difference! Read through the following suggestions for conquering depression, and then pick one or two to start with. Once you’ve established a couple of small improvements, you’ll start to feel better. Then you can choose one or two more things to change.

1. Get Help

In order to conquer depression, it’s vital that you get help. Your family doctor should be your first resource. Your doctor can evaluate the severity of the depression and make recommendations accordingly. He or she should recommend that you talk with a counselor, and may even start you on medication.

Please understand that sometimes depression is situational, caused by a difficult situation in your life; other times, it’s caused by an imbalance of certain chemicals in your brain. Sometimes it's caused by a combination of situational and chemical factors. Medicine can help restore the balance of these chemicals. Even if you don’t like taking medications, you should know that medication may be a vital part of recovery.

Through counseling, you can get help with issues that are causing you emotional distress. A counselor can help you accept and cope with what’s happening in your life, reach closure regarding a situation that feels unresolved, work on improving your self-esteem, or whatever you need to feel better. Talking with friends and family can also be very therapeutic, but it’s important to talk with a professional counselor who is trained to help people who are struggling with depression.

2. Take Care of Yourself

Another part of treatment for depression has to do with your physical well-being. When your body is not getting proper nutrition and exercise, it can’t operate efficiently, which can lead to poor health. And how we feel physically can be closely linked to how we feel mentally and emotionally. Poor health and depression are a vicious cycle, just like clutter and depression.

It's very important that you get plenty of sleep but not too much. Most people need eight hours a night, but some need as little as six or as much as nine or ten. And getting more hours of sleep than your body needs actually exacerbates depression. Be sure to eat three or four small meals each day, instead of one or two meals and lots of snacks, and include lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Avoid fast foods and minimize your consumption of sweets and sugar. Make exercising part of your weekly routine, even if it’s just taking a ten-minute walk each evening, jumping rope, or gardening for half an hour.

3. Establish Routines

Daily routines can give your days structure, which can be very comforting when you're feeling blue. Make yourself get up at the same time every day, and shower and get dressed all the way down to your shoes, even if you don't feel like it (in fact, especially when you don't feel like it). Have your meals at regular times, and schedule two or three things each week to get you out of the house and around other people. Make a date with a friend to have dinner together once a week, or establish a weekly bowling or movie night. Go to bed at the same time each night, and create a routine for winding down. Get in your pajamas and ready for bed an hour before bedtime. Use this time to write in a journal each night, recording your thoughts from the day. Getting your feelings out of your head and onto paper can help you to relax, forget your worries, and sleep well. If you find that journaling causes you to continue thinking things through and worry, then use this time to read something uplifting (Guideposts magazine is great for this). Another option is to write down 5 things you’re grateful for that day. Focusing on your blessings, even for just a few minutes each day, can help you feel better.

4. Do Something Different

When you’re depressed, you just want to hibernate, staying well within your “comfort zone”. Surprisingly, expanding your boundaries can give you a real emotional boost. Choose a new dish at your favorite restaurant. Go to the craft store and get a fun craft that will exercise your creativity. Call a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Each time you do something outside of your comfort zone, it’s a challenge that you’ve met and conquered. It gives you a self-esteem boost, which feels really good!

5. Be Kind to Yourself

Women are usually much harder on themselves than they are on other people, and harder than other people are on them. Men are this way sometimes, too. Be aware of this, and be kind to yourself! Let’s say you’re trying to curb your shopping so you don’t keep adding to the clutter, but you bought three outfits you don't really need “because they were on sale”. You may think to yourself, “You have absolutely no self-discipline. You're worthless”. Negative thoughts like this will only sink you more deeply into depression! Instead, ask yourself why you bought them. Did it temporarily make you feel good about yourself or give you a sense of control? Did you do it to fill a void in your heart or mind? What do you really need to do to take control, or to fill that void? Truly think about this. Then return the clothes, forgive yourself, resolve to be more disciplined next time, and move on.

Sometimes, when one of my clients is being self-critical, I ask them if they would treat anyone else that way. The answer is always “No!” What does that say about their attitude towards themselves? You deserve to treat yourself kindly, just as much as (if not more so than) anyone else deserves to be treated kindly!

Be aware that spending time with people who are critical of you will exacerbate your depression. Make it a point to spend time with people that make you feel good. Likewise, try to avoid negative situations, or situations that tempt you to make bad choices.

6. Forgive Yourself!

Sometimes treating ourselves badly stems from not forgiving ourselves for past mistakes. But mistakes are part of being human. When we’ve done something we feel badly about, we need to learn from it, forgive ourselves, and move on. God doesn’t want us to be burdened with guilt! All we need to do for His forgiveness is ask for it. What sense does it make to withhold forgiveness from ourselves? You’ve already punished yourself for all of this time; let it go!

It can be difficult to learn to forgive yourself and love yourself, but the rewards are incredible! When we’re able to love ourselves, we’re much less dependent on the approval of others. We’re much more in control of how we feel about things, and how we react to things. Therefore, we’re much more in control of our behavior, and much less likely to make bad choices.

Here’s an exercise for learning to talk nicely to yourself. Each day, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself three recent things you’re proud of yourself for. They can be as minor as going out with a friend when you’d rather have stayed home, or as major as a recent promotion at work. They can be letting someone ahead of you in traffic or doing a good deed. Find different things to pat yourself on the back about each day. This may sound hokey, but it really works! Start the habit – and it truly is a habit – of being kind to yourself.

7. Decluttering: Start Small

Each time you make a decision to do something productive, it’s an opportunity to accomplish something, which can reduce depression. Make sure that your de-cluttering goals are reachable, taking into account that depression saps you of energy and motivation.

Choose small goals, like cleaning out one drawer instead of de-cluttering the whole bedroom; or donating 20 items instead of trying to tackle the whole attic. Then reward yourself for reaching that goal with a bubble bath, a fancy coffee, a piece of chocolate, or some other treat. Allow yourself to feel good about having accomplished what you set out to do! The clutter didn’t happen overnight, so give yourself plenty of time and encouragement to get it cleaned up.

Depression can be very mild, or it can be very serious. If you’re struggling with depression, please get help! And if a friend or loved one is depressed, help them to get help. Depression will occasionally dissipate on its own over time, but counseling and/or medication can speed things up, and are necessary to recover from certain types of depression. I hope this article is helpful to you or someone you love.

Copyright 2009 by Cara Kinning, ORGANIZED FOR LIFE

Please contact me for reprint permission.

Organized for Life      www.organizedforlifeonline.com     (804) 330-0997