Self-care for depression is any technique that creates positive feelings and replenishes our mind and body. For example, practicing daily gratitude, laughing with a loved one, and taking daily walks can boost our mood and reduce symptoms of depression. Identifying successful self-care techniques may vary for each person, and all are invited to explore different practices to determine the best implementation for you.
Depression Is Treatable With Therapy
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Why Is Self-Care So Hard for Depressed Individuals?
Individuals struggling with depression have low levels of serotonin and dopamine, chemicals responsible for happiness and motivation. This chemical deficit causes a lack of motivation, which impacts one’s ability to practice self-care strategies that will help them feel better.1 Simply thinking about self-care can cause one to feel overwhelmed.
Why Is Self-Care for Depression Important?
Self-care for depression is important because symptoms of depression tend to worsen the more you ignore self-care. Engaging in practices like exercise, a healthy diet, sleep, and emotional support can increase energy, combat feelings of helplessness, and empower individuals to regain a sense of control over their lives.2 Even small acts of self-care can have a big impact on healing from depression.
Can Self-Care Prevent a Depression Relapse?
The goal of self-care is to build practices into your routine so that you are regularly filling your cup and building mental health resilience. Therefore, when you come across depression triggers, you are equipped to handle it and can prevent a depression relapse. This is especially true during times of vulnerability, such as around the holidays and during times of transition.3
However, due to factors such as chemical imbalances, depression relapses may occur even with the consistent practice of self-care. It’s important to recognize that self-care can provide valuable support in managing depression, but in many cases, therapy and/or medication are necessary to address the underlying issues.
Types of Self-Care for Depression
When considering types of self-care for depression, one often envisions enjoyable yet expensive activities like massages or manicures. However, self-care encompasses more than these and can be budget-friendly, delving into deeper practices. There are different categories for self-care, such as personal, physical, emotional, financial, professional, spiritual, and social self-care to meet a person’s unique needs in each situation.
Here are a few different types of self-care for depression:
- Physical self-care: Physical self-care may include eating healthy, exercising, and getting enough sleep. Exercise is important for depression as studies have shown the physiological impact and decreased reactivity to stress. Psychologically, this causes an improvement in self-efficacy, distraction, and cognitive dissonance.4
- Emotional self-care: Emotional self-care may include practicing self-compassion, journaling your thoughts and feelings, and noticing what you are grateful for. Emotional self-care is important for managing depression because it can increase self-esteem, build resilience, and decrease depressive symptoms.
- Spiritual self-care: Spiritual self-care is the practice of connecting to yourself and nature and does not require you to have a religious affiliation. These practices may include dancing, taking a yoga class, watching the sunset, and engaging in self-reflection. Spiritual self-care is another way to build resilience, connect to yourself, and decrease the emotional numbness that comes along with depression.
How to Practice Self-Care for Depression
A self-care routine is not one size fits all but requires experimenting with different strategies to understand what works best for you. If you find it difficult to even get out of bed when depressed, start small with manageable steps to gain confidence and motivation to continue growing and feeling better.
Here are nine tips for how to practice self-care when depressed:
1. Start Small
To prevent feeling overwhelmed when thinking about implementing self-care for depression, it is important to start with small, manageable steps. Self-care activities do not have to be ground-breaking in order for them to make an impact. Self-care can be practiced in the little things, such as paying a bill, drinking a glass of water, or even getting out of bed just to touch your toes. Over time, you can expand on these little acts as you start to notice that you feel better.
If you begin to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that is piling up, work on making that mountain into a molehill. For example, if the kitchen sink is overflowing with dishes and you do not have the energy to wash all of them, try to wash a few dishes when watching TV during commercial breaks. Small progress is better than no progress, and creating manageable tasks for yourself will decrease the overwhelming feelings while helping you to feel accomplished.
2. Meet Your Basic Needs
As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs teaches us, we cannot achieve love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization without first meeting the basic necessities of physiological and safety needs. Never underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep, exercise, hydration, and consistent nutrition. Over time, we can continue to move up the hierarchy of needs to achieve decreased depression through self-care.
P.L.E.A.S.E is an emotional regulation technique used in dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) that can serve as a reminder to take care of your basic needs and reduce vulnerabilities towards strong emotions, such as depression. How we care for our bodies directly impacts our mental health. Using P.L.E.A.S.E as a guideline to develop self-care for depression is a great framework to begin with.
Here are some ways to practice P.L.E.A.S.E.:
- Treat physical illness: See your doctor regularly, whether for preventive care or ongoing treatment, and take medications as prescribed. Often, there is an overlap between physical health and depression, and your primary care doctor can help to rule out whether depression is secondary to a physical health concern.5
- Balanced eating: Food can make us feel energized or, adversely, make us feel lousy. And when depressed, there is a tendency to overeat or undereat. Taking small strides towards balanced eating could look like adding one more fruit to your diet per day, taking a multivitamin or supplement, or drinking one more glass of water.5
- Avoid mood-altering drugs: Avoid substances such as alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, or illicit drugs. Substances are a maladaptive behavior used to cope with depression and make it more difficult to implement healthy coping and self-care.5
- Balanced sleep: There are many strategies you can implement for quality sleep, such as avoiding screens an hour before bedtime, reducing caffeine intake, and limiting naps to no more than 30 minutes per day. If you begin implementing behavioral strategies to get balanced sleep and still find that you are waking up tired each morning, consult with your primary care doctor to rule out sleep apnea or other sleep-related concerns.5
- Exercise regularly: Research has shown that regular exercise relieves depression, balances our sleep, and increases self-esteem. “Regular exercise” looks different for everyone, but it is important to implement daily movement. Starting out small could look like taking your dog for a walk, practicing a simple stretch, or walking to the mailbox and back.5
3. Have Someone Hold You Accountable
Social support and accountability are vital for overcoming depression. Depression tells us that we are alone and misunderstood and causes us to want to isolate ourselves from the world. An accountability partner proves that we do not have to heal and struggle on our own.
An accountability partner can be a natural support, such as a friend or family member. However, an accountability partner can also come from a more formal and professional relationship, such as a therapist, spiritual leader, etc. Creating a network of support partners and accountability is an effective way to practice self-care and build resiliency.6
4. Treat Yourself to a Gift for Your Mental Health
Indulging in a mental health gift can effectively enhance your mood and reduce feelings of depression. If you enjoy live music, purchase concert tickets or find local events with free live music. If you like sports, attend a professional event as a spectator or join in the fun by finding a local adult league of your preferred sport. This form of self-care is about finding what you truly enjoy and treating yourself – even on the days that you least feel like it.
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5. Practice Opposite Action
The Opposite Action skill is another DBT technique that challenges us to choose to respond opposite to what our biological response would activate us to do.7 For example, it is a natural impulse when we are depressed to want to withdraw and isolate. However, the concept of “opposite action” challenges us to choose differently. When depressed, try engaging in pleasurable activities even if you “don’t feel like it.” This can look like watching a funny movie, connecting with someone you care about, or getting active with exercise to bring about positive feelings and thoughts. When you choose to act oppositely, you will likely notice that your emotions begin to transform into more hopeful, positive, and resilient feelings.
6. Journaling
The idea of composing a complete “dear diary” entry can feel daunting for those experiencing depression. However, journaling can be kept simple and is a beneficial way to release our inner thoughts and emotions onto paper. It’s a misconception that entries have to be long, elaborate, and daily, but rather, it is great to start small. You use journaling to track your moods, write a “win” for the day, or answer other journal prompts for depression for additional guidance.
7. Practice Daily Affirmations
Depression is often marked by negative thought processes and low self-esteem, and implementing positive affirmations can hold a lot of power to change the way that we feel. If you find it challenging to identify a positive affirmation for yourself, try starting off with a “neutral” affirmation such as “I am doing the best I can” or “I am learning how to take care of myself.” You can also make this activity fun by writing the affirmation on a sticky note or decorative index card and placing these around your house as random reminders throughout the day. With this practice of self-care for depression, you will slowly start to notice a difference in your thought patterns and overall mood.
8. Practice Daily Gratitude
Gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. There are multiple ways to focus on expressing gratitude by remembering the past, present, and future blessings and fortune. Different techniques to practice gratitude may include writing a thank you note, keeping a gratitude journal, and even meditating. Counting blessings leads to happiness and decreased depression.
9. Make a Self-Care Box
A self-care box is a box where you can put items that will bring positive thoughts and feelings and contribute to the practice of self-care. Several different items can be placed in the box that may fulfill a different category of self-care care, such as a bath bomb for physical self-care, tissues for emotional self-care, or a list of positive affirmations for spiritual self-care. Keeping a self-care box for depression can create an easy go-to pick me up on really difficult days.
Here are some ideas for items you can put in your self-care box:
- A journal with prompts for depression highlighted
- Relaxing essential oils and/or herbal teas
- Positive affirmation cards
- Photos of happy memories or supportive loved one
- A gratitude list
- Your favorite book
- A list of light-hearted movies to watch
When to Seek Professional Support
Self-care practices can decrease depressive symptoms and increase our resilience, however sometimes it may be important to seek treatment for depression from qualified mental health professionals. If your depressive symptoms have persisted and make it challenging to manage work, school, home, or relationships, it may be time to seek professional support.
To find a therapist, use an online therapist directory to search for therapists in your area who specialize in treating depression. As you research local therapists in your state and city, you may notice that each therapist is experienced in different models and techniques. Choose a therapist who’s approach speaks to you the most.
Alternatively, an online therapy platform is a good option for individuals who struggle to get out of bed. Many online agencies typically offer both therapy and medication management for a more collaborative approach to care. When you complete an initial intake, they can guide you and make recommendations for therapy, medication, or sometimes both.
Treatment Options for Depression
Treatment goals for depression may include understanding depressive feelings, addressing underlying concerns, and improving coping skills to decrease extreme depressive symptoms. These goals may be addressed through different treatment modalities, including therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes.
Treatment options for depression include:
- Psychodynamic therapy: Psychodynamic therapy is a talk therapy that addresses depression through affect and emotional expression, identification of recurring behavioral patterns and feelings, the past and its influence on the present, interpersonal experiences, and a focus on the client’s internal world.8
- Medications: To achieve a holistic approach to health and healing, it is encouraged to explore medications for depression simultaneously with talk therapy. Antidepressants can balance the chemicals in our brain contributing to depression and give us the motivation and confidence to find long-lasting relief through therapy and the identification of healthy coping.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT for depression is a type of talk therapy in which the therapist and client explore how your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes impact feelings and actions. CBT additionally teaches coping skills to manage depressive symptoms.
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): DBT for depression teaches clients to develop coping skills to manage intense emotions. DBT teaches skills for mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotional regulation.
- Eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR for depression is a type of trauma therapy that targets depressive symptoms that may be related to negative beliefs, triggers, and underlying traumatic or adverse life experiences.
- Internal family systems (IFS): IFS is a talk therapy that theorizes our depression is only one part of us and not our entire self. Through exploration, IFS provides the opportunity to put all the parts of our personality into perspective, befriend them, and find the inner balance between our thoughts and emotions.
- Intensive outpatient therapy (IOP): Intensive outpatient therapy is typically recommended for individuals with more severe depressive symptoms to prevent inpatient hospitalization. IOP groups may meet 3-5 times per week for approximately three hours. The group content typically covers a mixture of CBT and DBT skills. The benefit of group therapy is having a sense of community and accountability among participants.
In My Experience
Learning how to practice self-care for depression is imperative for your overall well-being. Though it can be challenging to gain the motivation to implement healthy habits and routines, it is all about starting small and growing in the process. And I encourage you to always count the wins along the way!
If you have a strong inner critic, you are likely quick to point out the unfinished tasks that you didn’t accomplish on a particular day or feel guilty for not implementing the routines that you know will help you to feel better. I encourage you to take a self-compassionate approach along your journey and reflect on how far you have come and how much progress you have made. You can do this by keeping a journal of daily or weekly “wins,” reflecting on the “wins” before bedtime, and even treating yourself when you have accomplished a goal or task.
Additional Resources
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