9 Ways to Take Care of Yourself When You Have Depression

Margarita Tartakovsky's piece "9 Ways to Take Care of Yourself When You Have Depression" gets at a problem that sounds almost contradictory until you've lived it: the very condition that makes self-care necessary is the same thing that makes it feel impossible. Depression drags energy and motivation down. Getting out of bed can be a struggle. Showering can be a struggle. So the advice to "take care of yourself" lands like someone handing you one more weight to carry when you can barely stand.

There's a second trap that shows up on the other side, once things start improving. Tartakovsky, drawing on psychologist Deborah Serani, describes how people who feel better often let their treatment slide. They cancel a therapy session here, forget a dose there, quietly set aside the tools that were helping. Serani's point is that as symptoms ease, people relax their guard, stop watching for the warning signs, and relapse before they realize what's happening. Letting go of self-care tends to be the first step back down.

With that in mind, here are some practical ways to meet your own needs during depression.

Keep going to therapy. When you're deep in it, you may not have the energy to show up. When you're doing better, you may decide you've outgrown it and quit too soon. Neither instinct is a reliable guide. A professional is in a better position to judge whether you still need the sessions. If anything, the low periods are when meeting with your therapist matters most. Say the quiet parts out loud too: tell them if you're thinking about cutting back or if you can't find the motivation to come in. Those feelings belong in the room.

Take your medication the way it was prescribed. Feeling better is not the same as being done. Decisions about tapering or stopping belong to a doctor, not to a good week. Most antidepressants and antipsychotics have to be eased off gradually rather than dropped all at once. Don't skip doses, and don't double up to make up for a missed one.

Protect your sleep and your eating. Aim for seven to eight hours. Depression tends to warp sleep in both directions, too much or too little, and sleep pushes hard on mood. Serani notes that too little sleep can feed mania while too much can deepen depression, so a steady, consistent sleep and wake schedule helps. Pair that with a balanced diet, and go easy on sugar and caffeine.

Move your body. The cruel joke of depression is that it strips away the motivation for the one thing that reliably helps. Exercise raises the feel-good neurotransmitters and can actually pull depressive symptoms down. You don't need a program. A short walk counts, and it chips away at the heaviness.

Learn your triggers. Pay attention to what sets off your symptoms and what eases them. The more you can name the patterns, the better position you're in to respond before they take over.

Know who's actually in your corner. Steer clear of people who leave you worse off, the chronically negative ones, the ones who offer nothing when you need support. Spend your limited energy on the people who respond with empathy and understanding, and reach out to them.

Depression is a serious illness. Even with so much information available, plenty of people still don't recognize the signs, and the condition doesn't look the same from one person to the next. If you think you're dealing with depression, get professional help.

- Kim B.

Reference: Tartakovsky, M. "9 Ways to Take Care of Yourself When You Have Depression," PsychCentral.