Self care can be tough as it is if you’re a busy mom, busy entrepreneur or a full time student. It can be hard even if you aren’t busy and you’re someone who doesn’t spend time, money or energy on just you. Now, how are you supposed to take that extra energy for self care when you have depression or another mental illness? It can seem impossible. I know cause I‘ve been there.
Depression especially can create feelings of low energy, low self esteem, low social desire or lack of motivation for hobbies, exercise and such. So how are you supposed to do self care if you need to buy a face mask, get out for a walk or take the time to learn knitting? Easy. Self care doesn’t need to cost energy, time or money. Just a little bit of self love. It’s hard to do that, but you have to trust me that you can do it.
My first tip for self care with depression is to just say no. You aren’t feeling happy one morning but you promised a friend you were going to go to the mall for some shopping, how do you do that? You don’t have to. You can easily say “I’m sorry, today is a self care day as I’m not 100% up to leaving the house”. Any good friend will understand this, and if they get mad - that’s on them. You need to be selfish, but not so selfish that you can‘t understand a friend who needs to take care of themselves. I find myself saying no to quite a bit more social gatherings in the last couple years since I know I won‘t enjoy myself and will bring energy down. I save my outings for when I do have the energy and excitement to be around others.
The next tip to self care with depression, is to just dive yourself into what you love. What’s the point of loving yourself and taking care of yourself if you aren‘t doing what you enjoy. If you have an afternoon where the dishes are piled up, laundry is overdue and the toilet needs a scrub, but you feel saddened by them - dive into your hobby. I personally love makeup and creating content for my Instagram page. So I do my makeup, take some selfies or some product shots and BAM, I actually feel good about myself and get the dishes done and a couple loads of laundry through. It’s hard to realize that the dishes take less then five minutes, but once you have taken that time to self care and do something you love, you’ll find it a lot easier to do.
Talk it out. Self care can be done very easily by talking it out. It doesn’t have to be a therapist, although I highly suggest one, it can be your cat, husband, wife, toddler or even your own beautiful face in the mirror. When I’ve had bad nights of anxiety and was desperate for some self care, I picked up my kitty and told him the 3 things that were making me sad. His beautiful big eyes calmed me so much because he didn’t judge me, offer his opinion or talk over me. He just listened. So find someone to listen. Verbally getting out what needs to come out is so healthy. Another trick is to sing as effing loud as you possibly can. Man this feels good and always energizes me. Who cares who can hear, you’re doing your self care.
Okay, you cannot read a self care post without the basics. Here are a few that take no effort at all and make all the difference:
Breathe deeply. At least three times in and three times out. Slowly.
Drink more water. 2 litres a day minimum! You‘ll feel the difference in just a few days.
Put some clean clothes on. Doesn’t matter what they are, just a fresh set of clothes.
Sleep. Most of us are sleep deprived. If you’re exhausted. Get some shut eye. If you don’t fall asleep, laying in peace maybe with some quiet music can do wonders.
Turn your phone off. Social media can bring you down so fast and so out of nowhere. When you’re not feeling great, just give yourself time to be with you. Turn off calls and texts and just binge some Netflix. It’s okay.
My last piece of advice here, is to tell yourself, out loud if you would like, that it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay and you’ll be okay. It just takes some time sometimes. Also, it’s totally okay to not be okay. If the world feels like it falling apart and your heart is heavy and your mind is racing. That‘s fine, you don‘t need to fix it. Just let it happen because it’s natural and there’s nothing wrong with just feeling like crap. You can do your self care easily by just letting yourself feel. Have that cry or that nap to let some feelings go. Then when you‘re up to it, read your book, watch the next episode, scroll through Sephora or play hockey in the garage.
It‘s okay to not be okay. Just be gentle with you, you’re doing great.
Much Love,
Erin xo