If you’ve ever experienced depression, you may be familiar with the incredible weight that chains itself toy our chest making getting out of bed a huge accomplishment for the entire day. But what about those days where you just can’t? Is there any self-care ideas that you can do from your bed to get you started for the day and feeling good enough to pull the covers off?
1. Keep A Bottle Of Water By Your Bed
If you are just 1% dehydrated, it can start to affect your mood. Lack of water can cause fatigue, anxiety, and make your depression worse. When you wake up, you just went a few hours without quenching any thirst. Have a bottle of water by your bed and chug it down in the morning. Then check that off your list of things to do and congratulate yourself for doing one good thing for your health!
2. Keep Dry Shampoo By Your Bed
Showering is exhausting when you have depression. Sometimes it can feel good, but sometimes your brain can keep you from enjoying a hot scrub. If you have long hair, knowing that you have to dry it can make you not want to shower even more making you put it off for another day and now its been almost two weeks since your last shower. Keep some dry shampoo by your bed so that you can soak up the grease and excess oil to help keep your scalp happy. Be sure to try to fit in a shower for the rest of your body before you start getting bacterial infections. Baby steps!
3. Keep Face Wipes By Your Bed
If you haven’t showered in a while, your face is probably collected a lot of oil and debris. If you start breaking out, that is only going to make your depression worse. Keep some facial wipes by your bed to wipe down and get rid of the dirt and oil building up in your skin.
4. Open Your Window
Pull up the blinds, open the curtains, and open up your window in your room. Just quickly hop out of bed for a moment and make your way back to your comfortable kingdom and start to breathe in the fresh air. It can be stuffy sitting inside all day, and those sun rays are packed full of vitamin D to help reduce your depression symptoms.
5. Write Positively
If you sit in your negative thoughts, you are going to stay there and drown in them. Have a notebook by your bed with a pen or pencil and start writing things that are positive. You can try just thinking them, but it is so easy to get off track and get lost in negativity again. When you are writing, you can have more control over your thoughts. You can try writing phrases like:
- Tomorrow is another day
- This feeling won't last forever
- I am worthwhile
- I accomplished this, and I am proud of myself
6. Try CBD
If you have a vape or tincture of CBD oil by your bed, you can dose in the morning to lift your spirits. CBD oil has shown that CBD may have fast-acting antidepressant properties and elevates a chemical called anandamide which is known to improve your mood.
You’ve Got This
Depression is tough. And not something everyone understands. You aren’t lazy, remember this. You are exhausted by the battle going on in your head. If someone just ran a marathon, they would need time to recover and learn ways to build endurance. You're running your own marathon, and sometimes you have to walk before you can sprint to the finish line.