Walks, in nature if possible, always immediately improve my mental health.

Things that help me:

• Having a routine- every Sunday I walk into town and get a nice coffee/cake and read for a while and just be around people. If I stay inside for too long I will start to self isolate.

• Hobby- I go to a couple of choirs during the week. It helps me get out of the house and it’s an activity that stops me dwelling on things. You’re usually too busy focusing on the music to think of anything else. Singing also helps you regulate your breathing which is supposed to help with relaxation and sleeping.

• Spend time in or around nature, even if that’s a pet. Being around green space can help ground you. Being around animals can be a massive boost. Go to the park with a book and spot dogs.

• Medication - this has helped me more than anything but isn’t for everyone. I also had a few rounds of therapy but didn’t get loads out of it, but it may well work for you.

• Know that the answer might not be one thing, but a combination of things.

What works for you is going to be specific to you. That, and a few other points I’ll echo from other comments here:

• Some kind of regular exercise is frequently helpful

• Regular exposure to sunlight and fresh air is usually helpful.

Depending on your own form of neurodivergence, they may or may not act like they do for the general populace. They may have the opposite effect and make things worse, or they may work extra well. This brings me to my next important point:

• Pay attention to what works for you.

This is another way journaling can be helpful— it’s easy to miss the ways we are affected by different stimulus throughout the day, but by writing about it, you’re forced to pay attention to what alters your mood.

Some things that bring you down or entrench the depression might be unavoidable, and that’s okay. Not everything bad will be unavoidable, and there will be room to either increase the number of good things, or be better aware of them that they might better be savored.

• Choose the things you felt you had no choice in.

I remember being helped quite a bit by this. There was a time I felt rather trapped while helping a family member through their fight with cancer.(caretaking is hard, yo). I distinctly remember one night, reflecting on it, and explicitly choosing to be where I was, doing what I was doing, and how much that shifted my perspective.

Even if doing anything but what you are doing would be an anathema to you, you could still have chosen to do something else. At its core is the idea that there are many choices we make and ignore because none of the other options were remotely palatable.

• Zag on it.

The habitual paths of my brain will follow their familiar courses, and if I react in my usual, expected ways, I’ll see my usual, expected outcomes. But what if I did something silly instead?

If your brain is looking to take you for a ride, throw up your arms and go “whee!” Like you’re on a roller coaster.This, of course, works best if you’re by yourself, but you can get somewhat of the effect by doing it in your head.

Or do something else that’s a bit silly, and a non-sequitur to the pattern of worry, melancholy, or dread. The point is to break out of those familiar courses, so that you can form new ones.

The additional trick of this is learning to notice the arcs of your attitude. The earlier in the course of a downturn you can interrupt the pattern, the better chance you have of pulling out of it quickly.

• If you have trouble with intrusive thoughts, imagine a focus for them.

When the sorts of intrusive thoughts that might send me into an existential crisis creep about, I invent an imaginary source for them. I give that source a name, different every time, and I imagine they’re perched atop a large speaker that’s emitting the unwanted thought.

In my head, I address them, tell them I’m not interested right now, and imagine turning the volume down on the speaker.

It might be that this is more silliness, but it helps me to envision a source outside myself for these thoughts that are both mine and not.

• You’ll have some good days and you’ll have some bad days.

If anything in this long ramble helps, or if anything from anyone else is the secret sauce that gets you through, that’s awesome. I really hope you find some relief in this thread.

But I want you to remember that, just as one good day doesn’t mean you’re cured, one bad day doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Even a string of one or the other.

Each new day is a new opportunity to have a better day than yesterday.

• And if none of the above sounded good to you or was helpful, I’ll leave you with this: a stranger on the internet is rooting for you. <3

daily exercise, clean eating, daily meditation, quality sleep.

Consider depression as a broken-leg or any other medical depression, Talk to a doctor, rest, and get medication/therapy if the doctor deems it necessary.

To my understanding, for Burn-out-style depression, doctor tend to give you 2-3 weeks of sick-leave early so you don’t end-up spending 2 years in sick leave as it was the case a few years ago.

Might look into medication and therapy as well as the other options presented. It can be rough getting started, and finding the right fit, but for some people, it can be a life changer.

Get outside and into nature as often as you can. Even if you don’t feel like it, go for a walk, look at some birds, find some nice trees to surround yourself with. You’d be amazed at how much being in a forest can improve your mood (there’s been some studies on the effects of nature on mood).

Start exercising, lifting weights, walking, jogging, cycling, doesn’t matter start doing something. Not only will it give you something to occupy your mind with, but exercise causes your body to release endorphins that seriously increase your mood quickly and can last a large chunk of the day.

Just do something every day. Your brain is going to talk you out of doing it, but tell it to piss off and do it anyway, you’ll feel better that you did.

I speak as someone who has been able to somewhat manage my own issues with depression.

• One immediate thing you can do is to cut out major sources of sugar from your diet. Give it 3 days (I notice the effects with less than 2 days) at least. Mental health and physical health are interconnected, so one bad thing affecting your metabolism is for sure going to have an effect on your brain (your brain’s metabolism and ability to regulate energy too).
• Get enough sleep and exercise, as well as meditation. For meditation you can start with short sessions and make sure to keep in mind that there is no “failing to focus/meditate” as it’s all part of the journey/process.
• As others have said, sunlight.
• Socialization. I personally don’t get enough time out of the house but I notice the effects immediately when I do.

The next two tips are from the book “Feeling Good” by Dr. David Burns. I haven’t finished the book yet but have made use of what I’ve read, and some that have helped me the most are:

• The “Self-Approval Method” - everyday, count the number of things you did or anything about yourself that you approve of or are proud of. Hopefully as you get more used to it that number will rise over time.
• The “Triple-Column Technique” - on the first column you will write down your automatic thoughts (the negative, self-defeating thoughts that seem to come naturally to people with depression); on the second column you will list down the cognitive distortions you can identify from the first column (look up a list of cognitive distortions, there are about 10 of them); and on the third column write down your rebuttal to the automatic thought but make sure it is realistic and not wishful thinking.

That’s all I can say, and I hope you get better! All the best!

I know this sounds hard when you’re depressed but its important: pick a hobby you like and spend time doing it. What do you enjoy doing? What makes you feel like, well, you? Whatever it is, start small, just tell yourself to do it for 1 minute a day at first. It could be simply dribbling a basketball, or doodling a cartoon character. What you spend your time doing defines how you live your life; you deserve to enjoy it.

Keep busy. You can’t be depressed if you never stop moving.

Drugs