Building a Depression Toolkit

Depression can make it feel like there’s nothing in reach. When you have fallen into a pit of self-hatred, it is an exhaustive challenge to see beyond the walls of self. So what if you had a set of tools you could always draw upon to soothe yourself and improve your quality of life? By building your depression toolkit, you will always have something on hand to help with the heft of your burden. 

Develop a solid morning routine for your depression toolkit.

Your body is not a machine you can turn off or on without consequences. Having a consistent and reliable morning routine sends the signal to your brain that everything is normal and safe. Our most intense obstacles are exponentially amplified by the shock of experiencing them half-asleep and half-daydreaming. Human beings operate at peak efficiency when they wake up around the same time every morning and go to bed around the same time every night. Beyond that, the specifics of a healthy morning routine can vary wildly, but will usually include: brushing teeth, eating breakfast, putting on clothes, taking medication, performing a meditation, or saying a prayer. 

Create an emergency protocol for your depression toolkit.

Your emergency protocol is the set of activities you perform when you’re highly distressed. These are activities that provide you with a sense of peace, reassurance, and safety. When the intensity of your feelings gets you worked up, it’s important to have a set of ritualistic coping skills that you can return to. This can include: changing your temperature by taking an extremely hot or cold shower, performing strenuous exercise that makes you sweat, and performing a guided meditation. 

Learn How To Nourish Yourself.

Nourishing yourself isn’t just about eating food. Nourishment is about eating food with a high nutritional content to sustain your body, but nourishment is also about eating food with high novelty that provides for your spirit. You can educate yourself on enriching your diet by: making a balanced meal plan where you’re eating at least three times a day, drinking fewer sugary beverages, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, getting enough protein so you don’t feel intensely grumpy, and/or researching and taking an herbal supplement. 

Find Your Motivation.

Your motivation is the thought that gets you out of bed in the morning. Your motivation is the thing that makes it worth it to be alive. Human beings need motivation to survive and thrive. If we try to live without motivation, we might find success and live a meaningful life for a time, but we will eventually be left adrift when we experience the bitter anguish of failure. Motivation can be spiritual in nature, as it’s hard to walk away from a communion with a higher power feeling unmotivated. Motivation can also be an intense passion, like the desire to take care of your family, find enlightenment or achieve Something Important. 

Work Towards Something Important.

It’s easy enough to say that, but if it’s really worth doing, there will always complicators. But what do we mean when we say Something Important? For our lives to feel meaningful, we need to feel connected to our sense of purpose, our motivation for being alive. So in order to live a meaningful, happy life where we can co-exist with our depression, we need to put our working efforts towards causes that help others. This could be volunteering with a local charity like Casa or Girls Rock St. Pete, showing up for your child’s recital and being the loudest cheer in the auditorium, or supporting a friend when they need a shoulder to cry on.

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Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.