Blog: 5 Top Tips for Coping with Depression
Sometimes you might struggle with ongoing feelings of sadness and depression that don’t seem to want to go away. Maybe you feel heavy, tired, or maybe you are struggling to see the lighter side to things.
Sometimes you might struggle with ongoing feelings of sadness and depression that don’t seem to want to go away. Maybe you feel heavy, tired, or maybe you are struggling to see the lighter side to things.
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with feeling this way. But sometimes having some ways of looking after yourself and some healthy coping mechanisms can really help while we are going through this.
If you feel low it’s important to make time to care for and comfort yourself. There are lots of ways to practice self-care: having a warm bubbly bath, putting on your favourite fuzzy dressing gown or watching one of your favourite films. You could even create a self-care box by gathering some of your favourite things – pictures, teddies, maybe a cosy pair of slippers that you love wearing – and putting them together in a box for you to open when you feel down.
While leaving the house may feel like the last thing you want to do, putting down your phone and getting outside – even just for a very short walk in the fresh air – can really help. Gentle exercise can be incredibly helpful while struggling with dark thoughts, and can give you some rest from them for a little while.
Sticking to a routine, even when it feels like the demands of day-to-day life are too much, can help to prevent things from feeling worse. Try to stick to a similar bedtime each night, even if you find yourself tempted to stay up late into the night, and to a similar wake-up time each morning.
Journalling has been proven to help you unpack how you are feeling and look at things from a different perspective. If you’re feeling a bit hopeless, it can really help to write down a list of 5 things you are grateful for. This can help to challenge the feeling that everything is bad or has gone wrong, by reminding us that we do also have some good things in our lives. These can be little things, like being grateful for having a bed to sleep in at night, or for that person who managed to make you laugh today.
When you feel sad you may want to isolate yourself from other people, believing that no one will care about how you’re feeling or be interested in you while feeling this way. However, it can really help to tell other people how you’re feeling. We may even find that the person we tell has felt this way themselves, and will be able to understand.
There are about 280 million people in the world are currently struggling with depression.
You are not alone. Telling someone how you feel is the first step to getting better. It might feel like a huge step, but it’s one of the most important steps to take.
It is important to remember that if you don’t feel like you can keep yourself safe, you should reach out for help.
If you are feeling desperate or possibly at risk to yourself, here are some useful numbers: