Depression can make you feel weighed down and without motivation. Here are a few practical tips to help combat depression:
Start Small
Imagine this (and for some of us it's all too easy to imagine) you're laying in bed, and for as much as you want to, you just can't bring yourself to get up and start your day. So, you text your boss and say you're going to be in late. You know you have to get to work, but today you just can't. You text again to take a sick day. Everyone needs a mental health day once in a while, but you start to feel like things are getting out of hand.You ask yourself, "Why can't I just get moving?" My tip for you is to start small. Just move your feet from the bed to the floor. That's it. Let's say your sink is full of a week's worth of dishes for the same reason—you just can't bring yourself to wash them. Well, try washing just one, and see how it feels. Sometimes all it takes to break the cycle is to get the ball rolling in any direction. Start small and see what that does.
Notice your thought patterns
Especially while scrolling Have you ever all of a sudden felt really sad, worried, or let down and can't figure out why you just got that wave of emotion come over you? If this happens while you were scrolling through social media, try scrolling back up slowly to see if you saw something that struck a nerve. If you're not scrolling, same thing. Think back over the last couple of minutes and see if you can identify what crossed your mind right before you got that wave of emotion. Then, identify the emotion. It's easier to reason yourself out of jealousy, fear, or embarrassment, than out of just an across the board "ugh" feeling. In therapy, then, we can talk about some more adaptive thoughts to bring to mind once you've identified what has set you off.
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals
Whenever New Year's rolls around, I always hear people's really vague new year's resolutions. For example, someone will say their resolution is to "be more generous." So, a few weeks in January go by, maybe February arrives, and my question to them is how do you know you're even doing that? This person could benefit from honing in on this goal by making it S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based). So, I would recommend defining what it means to be a "better person", and coming up with something specific that could be done each day to work towards that. For example, instead of saying your goal is to be more generous, you could say "I will tip 20% instead of my usual 15% every time I go out to eat this year." That way you can say at the end of the day whether you did that, or you didn't. With depression, if you don't have specific goals, it's easy to just sit in the same patterns week after week, or worse, feel inadequate because you can't meet your lofty goal of "be happier".
Talk to your doctor about taking a Vitamin D supplement
If you tend to have seasonal depression that gets worse in the winter, taking a Vitamin D supplement might help.
Identify and address the source of your depression
Some people's depression is caused by heredity and some chemical reasons. Other times, events that have happened certainly haven't helped. It might feel like you've gotten kicked while you were down. Depressive symptoms can occur due to trauma, grief, anxiety, job loss, a breakup—or any other adverse circumstance. A therapist can help you identify the source of your depression, and start to work at it from the specific source, as well as identify some of your untapped resources. You can come out of therapy, then, with more positive thoughts about yourself and your circumstances.
The bottom line is that you don't have to go through depression alone. Take a chance on therapy and see what works for you. These are all suggestions you can experiment with as you seek relief.