Fighting Depression

So there you are, staring at nothing through the window. It is time to get to work but you are on self-care. You have not prepared anything for breakfast and the taxi driver is just by the door after making a call that did not go through because you tried to pick up but the phone fell down on the floor making the back cover and the battery fall off. You can’t remember if your alarm rung today so you check on your phone only to realize that it was snoozed. You are just down and doesn’t get happy when anyone is looking at you or in your direction for more than half a minute because you feel they are making a negative comment on your dress or shoe, you don’t even like your height or complexion. You are just from the bathroom and checking on the wardrobe, no cloth is ironed and everything is getting even messier. The driver murmurs and checking on your watch, you are thirty minutes late for work, you have to do everything even faster and dress up in any dress you will pick on. You are not lazy, you are depressed.

Everyday when one is depressed, very few things interest. Nothing sounds fun or worth doing. Starting to dramatically hate things that you have been loving all along and always care about may be a typical symptom of depression, and for me, when I start hating listening to music, l just know or guess that I may be depressed or getting hooked up with depression, I love music. Depression usually come with sadness so those whose sadness last for a week or more need to have some plan as this usually grow into full depression. Deep depression can lead to attempts of suicide or the actual suicide, it has claimed many lives of both young and old people. Basically, to live, we need tools to help us do so. Suicide happens when the pain we experience gets too powerful to cope up with, therefore, to live, we need to lower the level of pain or develop a greater strength and ability to overpower the pain that come with depression.

For anything that affects our daily lives, it is always good to know and understand the source and cause. Depression could be caused by many things in our lives so always, ensure that you first know the exact cause of your stress or depression before starting to fight it, just like a mathematician reads the question first before starting to work it out to get the correct answer. It could be lack of money for upkeep, education, difficulties at the workplace, loss of a loved one, making big business losses, family breakups and relationship issues or a health condition that will always take you to the health facilities for proper medical checkup. There are many other more causes.

Regardless of the many different causes, depression always make us feel so down so the first thing is to lower our standards to fit in the new world we are getting into. It will make your life so challenging, but recognizing and respecting your current abilities go a long way towards achieving better self-esteem, personal pride and ego. You are not having a normal time in life anymore, so you cannot have normal expectations of yourself. Start by making your daily list as short as possible and learn to celebrate small victories you come to along the day, like any act of personal hygiene, cleaning up your kitchen and utensils, or getting your kitchen garden cultivated too. It will boost your moods.

 Get your notebook and write down the things you can reasonably get done in a day. Just include simple tasks in the list like drink coffee, shower, dress, work on website, eat dinner or watch a movie. The next thing is to cross things off as you go along to show yourself that you are getting things accomplished, isn’t it good getting things done by yourself. Never hesitate to check on your list to find anything that seems too hard to complete within your time limit set, mark it and add it time, allocate time at your own convenience so that you can take that time to gather your strength, courage, and energy to do the next task, it is always good to do things good enough as different tasks can demand more time from complexities that normally come with the progress of the work. For example, drawing a machine part or doing a project on interior design using AutoCAD may get more complex with time and progress of the work.

 Taking shower is always fulfilling and encouraging, it regulates the inner body temperatures and so the blood flow. Exercise works even better. On a daily basis or on your own convenient routine, subscribe to aerobic exercises. Remember depression can make you hate exercise too, so it is better to get a friend, a close friend that you always joke around with, and have your exercise sessions together. However, always ensure you own the process, be the manager and if possible boss your friend with regards to time and avoid intense activities that may leave stressed after the sessions. You can always refer back to your list throughout the day, and if all the tasks are crossed off at the end of the day, it won’t be a bad thing to be proud of yourself for that and celebrate.

As challenging as this can be, always be sweet to yourself and use kind language when you talk to yourself. Never be too mean to yourself, for whoever you may think you are or whatever you are experiencing, you are a worthwhile person, and your personality is actually enough for your stay. Feelings and experiences are temporary and never last forever, definitely you will live again. It is therefore very nice to be as patient with yourself as you would be to someone you love who is hurting. Remember your kid or a one-year-old young sibling who cannot pronounce words well as you articulate them even if you repeat the words more than ten times. Saying kind things and being nice to others too also work even more greatly as it will make you feel satisfied with your neighbours and everyone you will meet along.

Listen to your feelings and interpret them very well. You need to write down your feelings because writing things down make us understand them better. Writing is a proven effective therapeutic activity with very clear and real results. This act can evoke your emotions and make you cry, so cry, because shedding tears helps to cure the pain, cry for as long as you feel to do it and remain calm. You may not like it, especially if you are living with a friend, but you can always do it when you are alone in the house or when in an open field without the influence or attraction of the passersby.

Here is a natural weapon, the sunlight. Sunlight is greatly helpful. It stimulates chemicals in our bodies and brains that are important to mental health, like lithium and vitamin D, so go outside and get it, especially in the morning. Additionally, enjoy getting fresh air outside and avoid staying indoors all the time, even if you just sit on your front porch for ten minutes. You are definitely going to see something beautiful and interesting to laugh at or find someone to story with and get to know things happening around you. Getting all information that keeps you on the know will always give you a self of satisfaction.

Appreciate leisure and pick on classically soothing activities to do, especially if you realize that you have workload at the workplace. Watch TV and get interesting channels for entertainment and news, check on comedy as well and listen to all that is comical and laughable. Watch your interesting movies during this free time or read nonprofessional books, story books that are wholly interesting and stressing on no profession at all, they don’t make you think a lot or take time to interpret and understand information. Try video games too and feel great when you make it to the next level of the game, it is an achievement for the sake of the game. Get to the internet, do all the “messy” things you love and find something to read or stare at, a video clip of any niche that you love.

Get good sound sleep. Always engage yourself in any physical activity, doing anything easy that is not challenging and will not take much of your energy. This could be a physical exercise that I mentioned earlier. It will make you tired and retire to bed with the desire to sleep. However, insomnia and depression normally go hand in hand so you can also try the OTC sleep aids with the help of a medical doctor. You can hug a pillow as you start to sleep to drive away the feeling of loneliness as you wait to catch your sleep, although this doesn’t work for everyone.

Generally, human beings are not perfect in life and will get depressed on one occasion or the other, time after time, but we always wish that we don’t die from depression. So I wish you good luck in life.