Healing Depression Part 3: Self-care

I've covered food + supplements and mindful movement in the Healing Depression series. In this post, I will be talking about the importance of self-care in healing depression and offer my favorite go-to tools that have helped me in my own journey of healing depression.

It's important to mention that depression, much like any chronic condition, takes time to heal. As I'm writing this post, I am not 100% free of depression, but I'm making incredible progress and without ANY prescription medications or professional help. As I've mentioned previously, that's not to say that prescription meds or therapy aren't beneficial–each person's background and experience with depression is different, so please honor where you are right now and use what I'm sharing with you in this Healing Depression series in addition to what you may be doing already to further support your healing.

If you or someone close to you has ever experienced depression, you know that it is a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs. Thankfully now, after years of experimenting + finding what works best for me, my highs are more frequent and long-lived and my lows are much fewer and shorter-lived than in years past. Food + movement have been crucial in this shift, but without self-care

It can be very difficult for anyone to make time for self-care, but even harder when you are already feeling depressed, but I promise it is a total game changer. When you think about it, choosing to eat foods and take supplements that help your body/mind + mindfully moving your body are in fact self-care! And those are the first two steps!

Think of the first two parts of this series as stepping stones to strengthening your self-care muscle. Take the time to master your food, supplements + mindful movement + you'll already feel stronger mentally, physically + emotionally to make space for deeper self-care.

Once you feel really solid in the areas of food, supplementation + movement, it's time to go even further.

-meditation

-sleep rituals

-morning rituals

-foam rolling/hot towel massage/dry brushing

-journaling

-creative expression

-hydration