Written by Maria Sauda
Hi divas 🩷✨🌺!!
Disclaimer: in this post I talk about my own experience with mental health and what I do to help myself, what I do might not work for you, so keep in mind this is all my personal opinion and experience, I am not a mental health professional
I haven’t written a blog post in a while, I have been so busy with work and I was dealing with an overwhelming amount of stress the entire summer and beginning of autumn, I didn’t have it in me to do almost any of my hobbies. But thankfully I’m in a better position now, I’ve been bettering my mental health, and I’m preparing for university!
I wanted to write this as motivation for anyone going through a depressive episode, everyone copes differently, but for me what has really helped is moving. The quote “depression hates a moving target” (a book by Nita Sweeney which I’ve yet to read) is one of my favorite because it has always proven itself to be true in my own life, the longer i stay still the more likely I am to enter a depressive episode. I don’t necessarily mean “stay still” only in a physical way, but mentally too.
I am also weary, however, of the “hustle mentality” which I really don’t like because we need to give ourselves grace, we aren’t robots we are human, but we also can’t be too lenient with ourselves, it’s a difficult balance. I think this balance between doing and allowing yourself to not do is an important part of discipline, which is another thing I’m working on building. I don’t want to share everything I’ve been up to, but here is what has been helping me avoid depressive episodes…
Some Ways That I Manage My Mental Health
I Limit Social Media
I’m not the type that thinks we need to delete all social media, and I allow myself specific pockets of time to let myself be on social media. I’ve downloaded an app called Opal on all my electronics, it’s a free app and website blocker and i like using it because it lets you take little breaks, so I will give myself between 5 to 15 min breaks a couple of times a day, and it prevents me from rotting my brain for hours.
It’s important to not let your brain melt for hours at a time to avoid depression, so with that out of the way I can find better things to do. I still enjoy having background noise, if I’m focusing I will listen to brown noise (I personally use this one) or if I’m doing a manual task that doesn’t require focus I listen to TV shows!
Setting myself up for success
This really changes person to person, but I need to make my tasks easier to start. One example that I do is, I try not to think of everything I have to do in the day and I focus on one thing at a time by hiding my to-do list. I write everything to do in my journal and I pick the first thing to start with, then I close it and put it away! I can feel paralyzed when I have a lot of things to do so this really helped me. Limiting my social media is another one, because then it’s one less thing distracting me. Another thing I do is I tidy up my space, when everything is tidy I feel more energized to get started. These are general rules I follow for myself and I make up more systems depending on that set me up for success in what I have to do.
Tracking my discipline
I love using Notion and I found a habit tracker on the marketplace that allows you to see how well you are doing your habits with a chart, I have Notion Plus so I edited this to be my perfect discipline tracker (Maybe I will do a tour of my Notion sometime?).
I track the habits that depression makes hard to do, and it’s really basic self care like brushing my teeth, flossing, doing chores, reading, exercising, etc.. It may seem silly but if you also experience depression you know how hard it is to do these things sometimes! In my tracker I can see my overall discipline of the month, and then charts for each individual activity. It’s motivated me so far I like using it, at the end of the day I do a check-in and mark what I did.
Keeping my mind in motion
Of course I have moments of rest, but I looked for what my brain gets hooked on the most, not in a healthy way, and reduced the time I spend on those things. I like videogames but sometimes I can get too sucked into them, I’ve reduced how long I play videogames every day when I’m not having a rest day, and replace the time I would’ve spent gaming on reading, and I try reading in an active way, I underline words, write in the margins, and underline sentences I like, and writing notes on them.
I’ve been working on more DIY projects which has been so fun (I love making jewelry!), playing some brain games, and also exercising, although not as much as I’d like, and a personal project I’m working on of transcribing vintage books that I own but can’t find online. Anything that is cognitively stimulating like these activities has been good for me! It’s also so important to go out with friends, I’m so grateful for my friends that I can yap with for hours, and we can just go anywhere and have fun as long as we are together 🫂
With all that being said it hasn’t been a perfect journey, I have days where I can just barely do the dishes. For now my goal is to be more consistent with exercise, it’s been the hardest thing for me to do but I believe in myself 🙂↕️🩷!
Reminder for anyone reading this that you are loved, and your life is precious 💞 - Maria
Question for this post:
What have you been working on to improve yourself?