Beating Depression and Anxiety.

Sometimes, when I feel very low I tend to burst into a flurry of activity that tires me out and makes me fall into a deep long sleep that leaves me feeling a little better and more refreshed when I wake up. Yesterday, all I could manage was to bake bread, water my plants and go to sleep for almost five hours during the day. consequently, I found it much harder to sleep at night. This is how depression and anxiety can alter one's body clock and the inconsistency of this can further aggravate them.

I am certainly no expert at fixing this but I will attempt to offer some insight based on my personal experience.

When I am feeling sad and depressed, staying active is no simple task. While it’s not easy, maintaining some level of activity can go a long way toward boosting your mood. Sometimes, the challenge is finding pastimes that are appealing and rewarding.

Here are 10 activities and lifestyle habits I have tried to manage depression and boost my mood:

1. Walking.

Exercises as simple as walking may sound silly. After all, you walk every day and you still have anxiety. But how often you're walking and when you're walking can make a considerable difference in your ability to cope.

2. Prayer and Mindfulness.

Depression and anxiety turn us in upon ourselves so that we get self-centered and sometimes self-obsessed. We see all our lacks and hurts. Prayer helps us to put God at the center of our lives instead, which not only gives us something better to look at than ourselves but also helps us to see everything else better, including ourselves. That’s why we want to start prayer with worship, reminding ourselves of who God is and what God has done. We praise him using descriptions of his attributes and biblical images of his character. This changes what we see and how we see, giving us a God-centered view of our world and ourselves. That in itself is an encouraging and calming perspective.

3. Relax and rest.

Exploring relaxation can help you look after yourself when you're feeling stressed or worried. Relaxation might not make what you are stressed or worried about go away. But it can give you a mental break from these feelings and help you refocus. Relaxation doesn't have to take up lots of your time. Just stepping away from something stressful for a few minutes or taking time away from your normal routines and thoughts can give you enough space and distance to feel calmer.

• Read a book or a magazine, even if it's only for a few minutes.

• Run yourself a bath, watch a film, play with a pet or try out a new recipe

• Sleep.

4. Follow a routine.

Some evidence suggests that creating and sticking to some reliable daily routines may help improve mental health. After all, if you’re committed to doing certain practices every day, you have something that will get you out of bed and moving. Some healthy routine acts including setting an alarm, healthy eating at scheduled times of the day, and journalling have proved helpful to me.

5. Socialize to lift your mood.

Interacting with others boosts feelings of well-being and decreases feelings of depression. Research has shown that one sure way of improving your mood is to work on building social connections.

6. Healing power of nature.

We all have different experiences of nature and different reasons for wanting to connect with it more. You might find you get something completely different from one activity compared to someone else. Spending time in green spaces or bringing nature into your everyday life can benefit both your mental and physical well-being. For example, doing things like growing food or flowers, exercising outdoors, or being around animals can have lots of positive effects.

7. Discover your spirituality.

Spirituality can be an important part of someone’s life and can offer real benefits for mental health. The objective of spirituality is to help you create and control good energy and help you to heal yourself using this energy. Praying is a potential path to exploring your spirituality.

8. Music for your mind.

Sometimes, I wake up to a particular song and replay it several times during the day, sometimes even for days and I find that this repetition helps to calm me. We all have our personal ways of connecting with the kind of music that makes us feel good.

9. Explore creativity.

I also find that engaging in different art forms — like painting, dancing, or writing — can provide an outlet to process and ease the symptoms of depression and other mental health conditions.

In my case, I play my guitar, sing, write a song, or attempt to paint or sew depending on what takes my fancy at the time

10. Consider talk therapy.

In a nutshell, it helps to talk about it. If you cannot trust people you know to listen to you without passing judgment consider a professional conselor or therapist.

These are the little ways I use to try to cope. I hope they help you too.