Friday, March 29, 2024

Ways To Get Motivated When Depressed

How To Declutter When You Dont Want To Get Rid Of Anything

How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated

I could go into all of the ways to declutter your home, but were talking about real life here.

Lets talk about some fast ways to declutter your house and get things back under control.

First, go through each room with a trash bag and throw things away that are obviously garbage or broken.

Set a timer for 15 minutes and see how far you can make it through your house.

Next, box up anything you dont use on a regular basis.

This is another one of those pieces of advice that loses friends quickly.

But what if I need it?

How will I ever find it if Im looking for it?

Ive heard it all but what stands out to me is the number of success stories Ive received since I got ballsy enough to write about this.

My answer for all of those questions?

Label it and then LET IT GO!

Listen, you know all of that stuff is there somewhere. Its not missing, its just in a box.

Stand in front of your most cluttered flat surface.

This is probably a dresser or a section of counter space.

Toss every single thing you dont use regularly into a box.

Either label the box with the items inside if you intend to keep it, or label it donate and move it to the trunk of your car.

Will you ride around with it in there for a few months?

Probably.

But with donation dumpsters popping up all over the place, Im betting youll find a way to get rid of it before it drives you too crazy.

I wrote out all of my lazy systems for overwhelmed people like us check it out here!

Shine A Little Light On It: Light Therapy

Everyones different. But the thing that really turned me around from someone curled into a ball of depression and hopelessness to sitting up in bed was light therapy.

Bright light therapy is often recommended for people with major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern or sleep disorders.

More research is still needed, but evidence suggests it may have the potential to help people with depression and have antidepressant-like qualities. My psychologist, and a few other experts Ive met, also recommend these lights for people with other types of nonseasonal depression.

Sitting in front of the light for a few moments is necessary to get your dose, meaning theres no need to jump out of bed immediately. As my eyes fight to even open, I usually lean over, turn on the little box of sunshine in my room and its sort of impossible to close them again.

I can check my phone or grab a cup of warm tea and come back to face the light for 20 minutes while still in bed. By the time thats over, Ive found Im ready to get up and start moving. My boyfriend also sits with me and says he feels more awake when he does.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the typical recommendation for seasonal depression is to use a 10,000-lux light box 16 to 24 inches from your face. Use it daily for about 20 to 30 minutes, preferably early in the morning after first waking up. Find a light box online.

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Look At External Factors

Sometimes external factors kill motivation, trigger negative emotions, and contribute to clinical depression. Lets say you are stuck in a dead end job. The only motivation you have to do good work is to keep your job and put food on the table. This is obviously not as stimulating as an environment where you can eventually move up and have increased responsibilities if you work hard.

Here are a few more common situations that might be hurting your motivation:

  • Having romantic partners, friends, or family members who abuse you, put you down, or dont treat you with respect
  • Abuse or bullying in the workplace or school
  • A debilitating health issue or chronic illness
  • Being a victim of discrimination or sexism

Think about whether one or more of these factors are present in your life. Then examine their effect on your ability to feel motivated.

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Reframe What You Think About Depression

Simple steps can help you overcome inertia and move forward, even when you’re down.

Depression can sap your motivation to perform even the simplest of tasks, let alone tackle bigger challenges. Research shows that depressed people have a harder time finding motivation to go to work, go out with friends, even clean the house.

One way to be productive despite depression is to see depression as a habit, says Joseph Luciani, PhD, a psychologist in New York City and the author of Self-Coaching: The Powerful Program to Beat Anxiety and Depression. Viewing depression as a tendency rather than an illness puts you behind the wheel, so to speak, and may help you change your life. Here are 10 ways to find inspiration to take on daily life… despite depression.

Can Depression Make You Lazy

9 Ways to Find Motivation While Depressed

Depression and laziness have, indeed, a bidirectional relationship. Fatigue, indifference, and lack of drive are typical symptoms of depression. The combination of these will likely make you feel and appear lazy. In turn, you may start avoiding productive pursuits, neglecting important responsibilities and not wanting to do much of anything. Over time this can become a maladaptive behavioral pattern submerging you deeper into your depression and perpetuating your lazy habits.

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Fake It Til You Make It

It may be counterintuitive, but one of the easiest ways to try and jumpstart your motivation is to decide not to wait for it.

You dont actually need to feel motivated to accomplish something. In fact, you can choose to do it in spite of a lack of motivation.

Doing this isnt just a way to make progress when unmotivated its also a way to exercise some agency against depression.

Set Small Goals And Reward Yourself

When depression drains your motivation, you have to work to create new incentive to replace what existed naturally before your mental health deteriorated. This starts with setting small goals. For example, your goal could be cleaning out your closet. If you succeed in that, reward yourself by cooking your favorite meal or watching an episode of the latest TV show. This process of small accomplishments and rewards will help restore your motivation.

As you begin to feel better, steadily increase the difficulty of the goals. Try going on a long run, for example, and rewarding yourself with a small dessert. This makes way for accomplishment which leads to a very good feeling. If you start to feel overwhelmed, stop and re-evaluate your expectations. Eventually the goal can be something as challenging as learning a new skill or trying something youve never done. Try different options and see what works.

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What To Do If You Lose Motivation

Setbacks are normal, but developing resilience can help you carry on and pick up where you left off. Here are some tips to help you find your motivation again:

  • Review your goals and see if they are realistic in the timeframe you have set. You may need to break your goal down further into smaller and more achievable goals.
  • Remember why you wanted to get motivated or reach that goal in the first place.
  • Take motivation from others feel inspired by reading a book, talking to your mentor or friends or family who have reached similar goals to the ones you have set.
  • Sometimes you just need to take a break and start afresh.

ReachOut.com has useful information on finding motivation when you are struggling to stay motivated.

How To Get Motivated To Clean When Depressed

WILLPOWER & Depression: How to get & stay motivated! | Kati Morton

Medically reviewed by Kristin Hall, FNP

Many types of depression can rob you of your motivation to do things that make up your normal life, whether its spending time with your friends, taking part in your hobbies and interests or just keeping your home clean and organized.

When depression takes a toll on your ability to do normal daily chores, its easy for your home to go from tidy and well maintained to, well, something of a mess.

As mess accumulates, taking action can feel more and more difficult an issue that all too often drags down your mood and further affects your quality of life.

The good news is that dealing with a messy house isnt as intimidating as it can seem, provided you adopt the right mentality and focus on taking small steps to improve your living environment and general wellbeing.

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Know That It Wont Last Forever

How to get motivated when depressed?

Keep reminding yourself that nothing in life is permanent, and dont stress yourself out too much because whatever youre dealing with right now will pass someday. Just have faith because even after a long night, the sun never fails to shine brightly. This experience will push you towards being a stronger person in the future.

11. Being kind to yourself

How to get motivated when depressed? Self-compassion is very important because while you are suffering from depression, you tend to beat yourself up for having a lack of motivation and become frustrated for committing the smallest of mistakes.

But this is precisely the time when you need to be kind and patient with yourself and try to engage yourself in positive self-talk that will motivate you and push you to complete your task.

Social Media And Motivation: Not Motivated And Low Self

Some people have benefitted from taking a social media break. They find that spending too much time on Facebook gives you a loss of drive, and if not a loss of drive, it’s just a time-waster.

Sometimes, breaks don’t work. What may work is curating your feed to prevent posts that make you lose drive and instead encourage posts that help you raise the stakes of your own life. Look to good, wholesome posts that help you find the drive. If not find the drive, then stop posts that make you lose drive. Remember, there are other ways to communicate. Email address, in-person, or on the phone. If you’re not feeling social media, you don’t have an obligation to try it if you’re not feeling it. To some, online relationships don’t work, and that’s not a bad thing.

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Ways To Keep On Track

  • Make your goal part of your routine by using a diary or app for reminders.
  • Positive self-talk is important and effective in managing depression or anxiety. Instead of saying ‘I can’t’, say ‘I can try’.
  • Mindfulness helps keep you relaxed and focused.
  • Start a class or join a support group. Support groups can be as effective as professional help.
  • Reward yourself when you have completed a step or goal.

Avoid Feeding Your Depression

How to Get Motivated to Clean When Depressed

Feeding depression creates a snowball effect: For example, if you throw a few crumbs out on your balcony or sidewalk, a few pigeons will show up. If you keep throwing out crumbs, by the end of the week a multitude of pigeons will have flocked to the area. Similarly, depression thrives on doubts, fears, and negative thoughts which feeds more depression. Learn to identify the negative thoughts and worries that are fueling your depression so you can replace them with positive, more realistic thoughts.

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Chat With Friends And Family

Its one of those cliches that never fails to make sense: People who surround themselves with positive people, who share their interests and lift them up when they need them, are more likely to be motivated. So talk with friends or family. Tell them what you want, how youre going about getting it, and where you hope things will end up for you. Then, when you feel yourself slipping into a rutor worsereach out. They may not always have a solution, but knowing someone else is invested in your success makes all the difference in helping get moving again. Besides, as your cheerleaders, they may surprise you by coming up with some new perspective on an old problem or fresh motivation to push you forward. if you want to get Research Says About Fear of Self-Motivation.

Getting Help For Depression

Realistically, the exercises we mentioned above might not work for you. Or, they might work for you at first, and then stop working. Or maybe they work perfectly. Either way, its okay.

Depression is a condition that fights real and imagined motivation at every step and tries to convince you of how hopeless or pointless it is to try and accomplish something.

When depressive thoughts seem like theyre dominating the fight, thats when its time to seek some professional help and contact a healthcare professional.

Asking for help is intimidating for many people, but it shouldnt be.

A mental health professional will generally advise a course of therapy, medication, lifestyle changes or some combination of these treatments.

For many people, the best therapeutic option may be cognitive behavioral therapy , which is popular because it helps depressed individuals work through depressive thoughts with exercises to spot and correct negative thoughts .

Medication will generally take the form of antidepressants, and while there are many on the market, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications are generally considered the safest and most effective today.

These medications work by moderating the levels of serotonin in your brain. Serotonin is a powerful neurotransmitter for regulating mood, and by regulating the serum serotonin levels in your brain, you can take charge of some mood disorders.

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The Key To Getting Motivated When Depressed Is To Get Enough Sleep

It is medically reviewed that one of the depression symptoms is loss of sleep or insomnia, and sleep deprivation leads to depression and anxiety, and it minimizes productivity and concentration, causes a lack of motivation to complete our tasks, and delays our treatment.

But it becomes difficult to fall asleep while youre battling depression, so here are some ways which can help you fall asleep and induce motivation:

How to get motivated when depressed?

  • Listen to music that helps you relax
  • Avoid taking caffeine before sleeping
  • Avoid surfing social sites before sleeping
  • Create a dimly lit space
  • Try to read a bit before sleeping

Examine Any Negative Self

HOW TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF WHEN YOU’RE DEPRESSED | RECOVERY 101

Negative self-talk can be the result of harmful things that people have said to you in the past or your inner critic telling you that youre not good enough. This can sometimes be a cause for depression. Silencing the voice of your inner critic can help reduce the depression symptoms. Here are some helpful tips to do that. Take a deep breath and recenter yourself. Sometimes just calming your nervous system can help keep you from overreacting to the situation.

Respond to your inner critic with positive words of affirmation and re-framing the negative self-talk. Its OK to tell yourself that you are wrong about the negativity and restate something positive even if you do not believe it. Just hearing positive messages can quiet negative ones.

Depression is often a subconscious voice that relentlessly tells you there is no point inanything. Therapist Tina B. Tessina, author of It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction, suggested examining and combating irrational or negative thoughts. Once they rise to your consciousness, you will have more control of them. You can then gradually replace these negative thoughts with positive, rational beliefs. Tell yourself over and over again that there is a point, even if you dont believe it immediately.

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The Connection Between Depression And Motivation

You wake up in the morning already exhausted, thinking of the many tasks you have to accomplish that day. Its so overwhelming, in fact, that you cant seem to do anything at all but crawl back into bed. What you need is motivation, and thats in short supply when youre struggling with depression.

The relationship between depression and motivation is a vicious circle. When youre depressed, its often difficult to fulfill your normal obligations. Then, falling behind on your obligations can make you feel even worse. It can be particularly frustrating to feel unmotivated when treating your depression with medication and talk therapy. Thats when TMS can be helpful in alleviating depression symptoms so that you can regain your motivation and momentum again.

Ways To Get Motivated When Youre Depressed

If you struggle with clinical depression, it can feel impossible to find motivation to complete even the smallest task. When it comes to depression, its important to remember that youre not alone. According to the World Health Organization, more than 264 million people suffer from depression worldwide, and it is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States. Because depression is such a wide-spread mental illness, a lot of people have various coping mechanisms that help them stay motivated throughout the day or pull themselves out of a depressive episode.

Weve compiled a list of 10 ways to get motivated when youre depressed, five steps that you can take to move forward each day, and five tactics that you can apply to your life as a whole to see widespread results.

Daily Strategies to Combat a Lack of Motivation

  • Go outside. Spending as little as 20 minutes in the sun has been proven to greatly enhance ones mood and overall well-being. If its wintertime or you live in a dark climate, consider investing in a light that is created to combat seasonal affective disorder for a needed serotonin boost.If you are able to go outside, try gardening or weed-pulling. Getting your hands a little dirty has been shown to be a mood-enhancer, and it allows you to be productive in a calm, low-pressure setting.
  • Big Picture Changes to Support Mental Health

    If you or a loved one need immediate help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

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