Most people usually understand the importance of eating nutritious food and following a good exercise program to have a healthy body, but they often ignore what they need to do to keep their brains healthy.
Certain activities can work wonders to improve your mental health. Understand that both internal and external factors can affect your mood and mental abilities, and failing to manage things well could lead to chronic depression. Managing depression is never easy, but you can try altering your daily schedule and include some happiness-promoting activities in your routine to reduce depression and improve your overall health.Here’s what to do:
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Early to bed, early to rise
Get up a little earlier than your usual time so that you don’t have to run around doing all your chores as soon as you get up. Take time to get up. Allow your soul and body to fully wake up.
Say to yourself that this day is going to be the best one you’ll ever have – say this to yourself every day you wake up in the morning.
Let some sunlight and ventilation in your room by opening the windows and shades.
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Meditate
Meditation can help you relax and get away from all negative thoughts that are bothering your mind. Meditating even for 10 minutes a day can give excellent benefits and the whole thought-process of your mind will change. You will feel more positive and lighter after meditating.
Read more about how meditation helps cure depression
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Write something that you like
Writing is a great way to pen down your thoughts and take out negative emotions. Once you let those depressing thoughts come out and fill the paper, it relaxes and frees your mind. Write a journal of your experiences from the past, interesting events in your life, or a story that touched you. The idea is to write about something that is bothering you
– writing is like an ocean, vast and full of creativity.
Once you are in the creative mode, your depressive symptoms automatically go away.
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Care for a Pet
Pets are trustworthy and loyal companions, in fact, more trustworthy than human beings. Being with pets is like caring for an innocent child, and can give immense joy and satisfaction. Walking the dog, or bathing your cat, feeding it or reading stories to your pet can be a fruitful time of togetherness. However, taking care of a pet is quite a responsibility and can backfire in the case of a person with severe depression, so think twice before going for it.
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Help the needy, volunteer for a cause
Volunteering can reduce depression and give a new purpose for life. When you help others, a sense of satisfaction and pride comes in, which makes you happy and feel worthy of your life. This can also help gain new friendships with like-minded people and hence remove the loneliness. Don’t over it though, when it becomes a burden, it will no longer be joyful.
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Listen to your favorite music
Listening to music has a proven soothing effect on the brain. Singing along can have more effect, but just listening is also fine. Tuning to your favorite tracks can reduce depression and give you a lot of pleasure and inner happiness. Continuously listening to music can have a very positive impact on your life and you will start being happy for most of the time. If you are not fond of music now, once you start the habit, you are sure to get good results and a liking for music and eventually it can become your hobby.
Read more about simple mood-shifters
These activities combined with the right medication and counseling can make a lot of difference and bring a positive change in a person suffering from depression. So, be sure to include these to your routine and see how it goes.
