Habits That Help Depression Stick Around and How to Shift Them
1. Your Phone is Not Your Friend
We are all susceptible to the seductive call of our cellphones, but when we are feeling depressed or even exhausted after a long day at work, quickly checking social media seems like the obvious choice. If you are merely tired from the day, you may be able to quickly browse and move on, but depression keeps us stuck on many levels. Your thoughts keep running through the same self-critical patterns and your body doesn’t want to move.
That’s the perfect invite for a doomscrolling session! Three hours later you are still phone-in-hand with your butt on the couch. You’ve looked at your friends’ stories on social media or maybe you’ve travelled all the way back to college to see what the person who sat next to you in your freshman English class is doing. You have carefully scrutinized the images of their perfect life, and now, you are feeling even more shut down. Suddenly, you feel the weight of wasting a chunk of your day, and that leads to a full on geyser of self-recrimination.
Are you familiar with the term behavioral activation? Sometimes we have to take small steps before we start to feel much of anything at all. Have you ever started a book or a tv show and felt neutral about it, but pushed through that for another thirty minutes or so and were surprised to find a slow burn of interest had started? Sometimes you won’t feel anything but reluctant or neutral in the beginning, but pick something that has engaged you in the past, and take a small step in that direction.
2. Your Bed as a Place of Safety
One of the most common depression habits is staying in bed or returning to the bed at some point during the day. The bed feels safe when you are depressed and the idea of sleeping away the hours might be tempting, but I promise you that no one has ever cured their depression by sleeping or remaining in their bed. It’s just not going to happen. Instead, you will wake up and find that you are just as depressed as you were before you got back into bed. You’ve also possibly slept during daylight hours and have discovered that waking in the dark can make you feel even more out of sync with the rest of the world.
Staying in bed doesn’t just prolong your depression, it also messes with your sleep. Sleep experts stress the importance of going to sleep and waking (getting out of bed) at the same time each day. If you stay in bed for more than more than eight hours, you are depleting your sleep drive and may have difficulty falling asleep that night.
Getting out of bed and staying out of bed is key when you are depressed. I know it feels comforting in the short term, but you don’t want to practice habits that help your depression will stick around even longer. When I’m working with someone who is struggling with depression, I like to help them identify some small tasks that they can focus on when they wake up.
3. Don’t Hibernate. Get Outside.
When you are feeling down, you may feel self-conscious, as if everyone can read your mind, and as a result, you are tempted to hibernate. Maybe you’re not up for socializing at this minute or you don’t want to have to be “on,” but can you get outside instead of staying in your apartment? Getting into a different space is often incredibly helpful instead dragging around your apartment. You are giving yourself a chance to change perspective and possibly get some sunlight.
4. Use Your Support System
Are you withdrawing from your friends and family? Do you feel like you don’t want to be a burden? This is a common thought that people have when they are struggling with depression. We can find the balance between withdrawing and leaning on your loved ones too much. We can also identify other spaces where you are able to interact.
5. Move That Body
Does your body feel weighted down by the depression? Much like staying in bed or keeping to your apartment, a lack of movement tends to reinforce the sense of being stuck or numb. You don’t have to start training for a 5K, but is it possible to go for a short walk or even find a way to move more in your apartment?
6. Is Self-Compassion Something That You Can Cultivate or Is It Just One of Those Touchy-Feely Terms That Therapists Use?
Self-compassion might actually be the most important thing on this list. Maybe I should have put it first….but by now, you may sense that I have a pragmatic side. In that spirit, I will affirm that self-compassion is something that we can learn. Do some individuals grow up in loving, supportive families and have an abundance of self-compassion without “working” on it? Sure. But it’s still possible for you to move in that direction even if you are starting from the other end of the spectrum, and I believe that therapy can be particularly helpful in that regard. A big part of self-compassion is perspective taking. Working with someone who is not part of your family or friend group and is trained to help you cope with self-critical thoughts can be enormously helpful.
Zalisa Rabin, LCSW-R provides psychotherapy for depression in-person in New York City and via telehealth throughout NY state.