by Tessa | Personal Development
Self Care For Depression Series Step 2: Body
Last week I wrote about my history with depression and the very simple way to begin a routine of self care for depression, even with little ones underfoot. (If you haven’t read it, go back to read Step 1.) Today I want to talk a bit about the next priority that I set for myself when I recognize that I am suffering from overwhelm or depression: physical self care.
I always begin with spiritual self care in an attempt to bring more peace into my heart and home but taking care of my body comes very closely after. In fact, many of my physical care habits are tied into or anchored by my spiritual care rhythms.
I mentioned that I start my morning with a coffee. I have a “high maintenance” coffee that actually contributes to my physical care. I skip breakfast so often so I started making a yummy protein filled latte instead of a regular coffee. I mix 2 tablespoons of beef gelatin into half a cup of while fat milk using my
Breville milk frother (one if the few kitchen gadgets I’m willing to give up precious counter space for!) and make a medium coffee. The frother was a Christmas present a couple years ago that gets used several time a day, including by my children who love steamers or matcha lattes, or hot chocolate. We are a milk loving family so hot milk beverages are pretty standard in our diets.
Anyway, while everything is frothing and brewing I down a glass of milk or water (usually milk, if we have enough) with my vitamins. I take a pretty standard combination of vitamins: omega 3, probiotics, vitamin c, vitamin d, magnesium, dessicated liver (I have struggled with iron levels my whole life so this one helps there), methyl folate and methyl b12. This is a combination that I have discovered works well for my general wellbeing and energy levels. It took me a long time to come to this particular combination with the help of my doctor, naturopath, and my own research and experimentation. I continue to tweak (for example, I discovered the liver and omega contributed hugely to my nausea during pregnancy so I dropped those for a time) and change doses depending on factors like the time of year.
I highly recommend talking to your doctor to see if antidepressants is something your should try if you’ve felt in a state of stress and overwhelm or depression for more than just a few months. If you find the right one, it can be a really great help to balance things and remind you what it’s like to feel “normal” again.
While the combination is working well, I also add a “heavy hitter” in the natural world for my depression: St John’s Wort. I have, in the past, taken pharmaceutical anti depressants and I highly recommend talking to your doctor to see if this is something your should try, if you’ve felt in a state of stress and overwhelm or depression for more than just a few months. If you find the right one, it can be a really great help to balance things and remind you what it’s like to feel “normal” again. At this point St John’s Wort has been my go to for depression. I often take a higher dose in the winter to help ward off seasonal affective disorder (Check out my 6 Tips for Beating Winter Blues to see how I deal with this) and either lower the dose or stop completely during the summer when I’m able to get more sunshine, fresh air, and exercise (in essence, going on walks around the farm with the kids or pulling weeds and watering the garden, when we have one).
In addition to regularly taking vitamins, I take care of my body by getting a lot of sleep. There are those that say we all get the same 24 hours every day to accomplish things but I disagree. Some people only need 5 or 6 hours of sleep. I am NOT some people. Between my natural issues as a lower energy person, my health struggles over the years, pregnancies, and the fact that I have had at least one night waking child for the last 11.5 years, I have learned that I need a higher than average amount of sleep.
I need about 9 hours of sleep every night.
I am usually in bed and ready to sleep by 10:00pm so I can be up around 6:00ish, before my kids start waking. Then I nap with the littlest in the afternoon for 30-60 minutes. At some phases in my life this has meant putting on a show and dozing on the couch and at some points (as my older children have gotten more responsible) this looks like tucking into my own bed upstairs for an hour or more. And then making sure I get to bed early if my nap time doesn’t rejuvenate me enough.
We really underestimate the value of sleep in our society, and it is to our own detriment. Trust me when I say that “losing” a few evening hours won’t be the end of the world. Or that getting up before the children is necessary to get anything accomplished. To be honest with you, I just recently started getting up before the kids to begin writing again. I don’t, however, leave my bed. I know that my toddler will wake up within 5 minutes of me leaving him, or my 5yo bouncy and bubbly morning sunshine will decide that 6am is his new wakeup up time too. So, instead, my house begins waking up about 7:30 (actually, the 5yo has learned to look for the 7 on the clock and is often sitting (read: bouncing, jumping, giggling) on the couch when the 2yo and I come downstairs) and the kids know that my primary response to their chattering is a grunt until I get mind up and running for the day.
So I’ve covered my coffee routine, vitamins, and sleep. Now to talk about the most dreaded physical care tip: Exercise.
Brutal honesty: I have never really done this. The only form of exercise I can get excited about is swimming but the pool in town is a 20 minute drive and there is no child care so I can’t go swim laps every couple of days. Most of my exercise consists of carrying a baby or toddler around on my hip or back while I lug laundry baskets up the stairs or sweep the floors. In the summer I do regularly get outside to walk around the farm at a leisurely pace. I hibernate during the winter because I get cold very easily and I have a history of a bad back injury so I am afraid of slipping on ice.
We recently purchased a rowing machine
(this is the
rowing machine we purchased) and I have been attempting to get a few minutes in every day. It is gentle enough that a few minutes doesn’t aggravate my back and I believe it is actually strengthening my core as I am not struggling with pelvic and hip pain during this pregnancy like I did with the others. I started with 10 strokes, then worked up to 50, which only took about 1.5 minutes, and have built up to setting a time on my phone for 3.5 minutes. It’s not a lot but it is something I can currently commit to. I’ll add time as I’m able to, mentally and physically. Baby steps.
I usually row right before gathering my laundry and making my bed during our 9am “High 5” routine. The machine is in the office/storage room next to our bedroom so I have no excuse. I just pretend, for my own mind’s sake, that gathering laundry takes 3.5 minutes longer than it used to. It doesn’t feel like a big of a deal then and my mind doesn’t fight it as much.
I believe it was Ruth Soukup in her book Do It Scared who I first heard say that discipline is a limited resource. Use it for the big goals in your life so you can move forward. When I’m in a season of depression or overwhelm, the biggest goal in my life is to “right the boat,” so to speak. Or survive day to day. This means that I use the very limited amount of discipline and willpower I can muster to take care of my soul and body and mind by creating habits that no longer require discipline to push through.
Knowing that discipline is a limited resource, what is the simple, small, step that you can use your discipline for at this point in your life to take care of your body and physical health?
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by Tessa | Personal Development
Self Care Series Step 1: Spiritual
I have struggled with cycles of depression since I was a teenager. I spent some of that time feeling like I was in a deep, dark cave that I would never be able to navigate out of. I spent some of that time being medicated with pharmaceutical antidepressants. I have spent many of those years coping day-to-day but feeling like I was on the edge of that cave and making one wrong move would result in me getting lost again.
I was blessed enough to have a mother with similar issues which allowed me (and her) to recognize the signs in my life and name the disorder early on. After 25 years, I’ve learned some things that have lead to more and more time in the later years spent living a life where depression is hardly more than a nuisance. I have developed some warning signs that my husband and a couple close friends recognize and a depression lifestyle protocol that helps me avoid the deepest part of the cave and live a pretty fulfilling and joy-filled life.
I have been in charge of caring for my own home for 15 years now. I have also been a mother for over 11. This journey started out with having dishes and laundry for 2 people and now I find myself coming up on 7 people living in our home, with all except 1 being here nearly 24/7 (and even that one is in and out of the house all day).
Add to that the fact that I still need to take care of myself. Pregnancies are quite a roller coaster ride for a body and new babies and toddlers take a lot out of a Mama physically and emotionally. The older my children get, the more they need me to help them develop their own good habits, skill sets, and character traits. Add on top of that the stresses of running a full time commercial dairy farm in this day and age (granted my husband does the bulk of the physical labour but we still make decisions together and I do research and finances for the business). As a cherry on top, we homeschool and are therefore responsible for … everything.
How is a Mama to keep going every day? Especially when the “enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1Peter 5:8b NIV) (Anyone else feel like depression is a prowling enemy?)
There are very few people who can do a complete lifestyle overhaul and succeed, especially if depression keeps rearing it’s ugly head.
The answer is taking baby steps to create good habits and, when depression does start to creep in, go to the beginning and start again.
After 25 years, I’ve learned some things that have lead to more and more time in the later years spent living a life where depression is hardly more than a nuisance. I have developed some warning signs that my husband and a couple close friends recognize and a depression lifestyle protocol that helps me avoid the deepest part of the cave and live a pretty fulfilling and joy-filled life.
My first priority is spiritual self care. This is often one of the first things that gets dropped, unfortunately. It seems so much easier on those exhausting mornings to grab my coffee and scroll through my email or Twitter feed. It is much easier on my brain to read tidbits rather than think full thoughts for myself. I tell myself that keeping track of the news and politics is important.
Is it though?
When life gets upside down and overwhelming, the last thing anyone needs is to connect more with the chaos in our world. So I put down my devices and grab an old fashioned paper notebook and my favorite pen and start small.
It often takes just a few minutes for me to write out what I call my Praise and Prayer: a very simple bullet point list of three items I’m thankful for and three items I want to lift up in prayer. I don’t really have any rules surrounding this other than the “praise” can’t be the exact same day after day. In more difficult seasons I am thankful for things like fresh air, showered kids, and money in the budget for take out. And I pray daily for strength and wisdom to walk through the day. I pray for character traits for my children (when I look back a few years it is amazing how far God has brought them…. and me!)
When I am back in the habit of P&P, I begin reading my Bible again. Whether it is just the verse of the day in YouVersion or whether I’m feeling ambitious and attacking a Bible in a Year plan (which always takes me more than a year to get through), I slowly add this to my habit list. After a while, I try to pick at least one verse to copy into my notebook. Victoria from Creative Homekeeper has some great encouragement for writing out the Bible and it inspired me several years ago and now I can attest to the benefits of it.
When things are going well in my life and I’m feeling energetic and my mind is clear, I even add in a bit of journaling and self reflection. This often takes on a strange combination of a written prayer interspersed with random thoughts and ideas. This is one of the few areas in my life that I don’t limit to a specific format.
While my children largely feed themselves breakfast as they wake up, I do often end up with a child or two… or sometime 3 to be honest, sitting in my lap. That can get very crowded! This is why I give myself a lot of time for interruptions.
I and my younger two (currently 5yo and 2yo) are usually downstairs around 7:30am and they are my busy, bouncy boys. There is often toast or cereal on the table that lose a few bites every time they race their Tonka dump trucks past the kitchen table. We don’t officially move onto the next part of our routine until about 9am. This gives my older two time to wake up on their own and have some quiet time in their bed or on the couch with me, watching with wonder as their younger brothers fill the house with sunshine and giggles. Sometimes my 8yo makes himself a cup of tea during this time. (He is convinced he should be allowed to drink a morning coffee already so tea is his compromise.)
Side note: I am always interested in how other people structure their day so I will be sure to share in the near future about our home rhythms and how I’m attempting to create good lifelong habits in my kids. It all starts with “baby shark do do do do…”
So that about sums up what is always my first go-to habit to re-develop when life gets off the rails. I have large gaps in my P&P notebook and, even today, I don’t do it every day. But I always feel like it centers my heart and mind when I restart this habit. Reconnecting to God and remembering that putting Him first and foremost in my day always puts everything else into perspective.
Do you have a routine for your spiritual self care or is that something that you’re still trying to figure out? Please share in the comments.
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by Tessa | Motherhood, Personal Development
I have been battling with depression for a long time. I know for sure that I was depressed at about 15 and it has been a thorn in my side ever since. Sometimes I’m winning the battle and other times I need to be reminded that the battle isn’t my own.
After a nasty bout of post partum depression last year, I wanted to share some words with those who are currently in the thick of it. I know that I have a number of friends who are there right now so this is for you:
Dear Friend,
I want you to know that you’re in my prayers. You always are (in case you didn’t know) but particularily at this moment about the emotional roller coaster that is your life right now. One thing that I used as a reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel was putting a few Bible verses on index cards and putting them in my chore card box so I could read them every day (or at least every day that I remembered to open my box!). Even if I didn’t do the chore cards, I felt better just reading my verses out loud. Here are the ones that I found regular strength and comfort in:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Psalm 32:8
Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgements He pronounced. 1 Chronicles 16:11-12
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26
So do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand. Isaiah 41:10
No matter how bad I felt, whether it was last year with my PPD or the worst year of my depression 8 years ago, I always had that Light at the end of the tunnel. The promise that this valley would end. And it will. You’re not going to just “snap out of it” and you’re not going to find a miracle cure (though if you do then you have to share with me!!!!) but you will slowly build things up again. One step at a time. Until you get to the point that you can look back and realize that it’s been a while since you had a bad day, your only goal is to survive. Like that popular poem says, “rock your babies, because babies don’t keep.”
You are a fabulous mother and your children know how much you love them. They will never forget that no matter how out of control you may feel. Breathe in, breathe out. And cry if you need to. And always remember that there is a Light. Let me know if you need help finding Him!
Love always from your friend who has been there and survived.
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