15 Things To Do When You're Feeling Depressed as a Parent with The Parenting Junkie

0:00 let's talk about depression hi i'm avital i'm a mindful parenting coach and the mother of five and i am not a psychologist or any kind of clinician and so if you feel like you might have clinical depression then please seek help even if you're just feeling a touch of blues then i absolutely recommend getting professional help and all of the tips in these in this video are just things that have helped me and my clients but may or may not help you so take it

0:27 with a pinch of salt and just take what works for you feeling depressed feeling blue down low and lethargic like you don't really want to face the day or get up in the morning or like you don't have any mojo for your life is so normal and so my number one point in helping you with depression is to normalize it we have to realize that it is an absolutely common occurrence and not feel any shame or blame or guilt when it's something

0:54 that we experience hello sweetheart especially with all the solo parenting that many of us are doing being locked in our homes being alone from other people and being under-resourced and under-supported feeling depressed and low is going to be a very natural and common response and in fact it might be the normal and typical response and we have to work hard to become the outliers who feel somewhat great and energized despite the situation

1:25 and so the first thing that i want you to do is really try very hard to combat any shame or any uh any embarrassment that you might feel about this very very natural and normal response remember that we're all kind of chemical and biological and psychological creatures if you put someone in a four walls with fluorescent lights and no greenery and no other people and no sunshine you can be sure that sooner or later they're going to get depression

1:52 right it's kind of a a normal chemical reaction to all of the stimuli that are going on around us but we're much more complex creatures than that right maybe you've had a baby recently as i have and you're experiencing postpartum blues maybe you have had some kind of loss or degradation in your lifestyle level and or maybe you've your morning maybe you are just experiencing all sorts of chemical imbalances there are so many different reasons that it might happen but

2:21 whatever the reasons it's normal and it's nothing to be ashamed of in fact you could be part of the growing trend of people who want to normalize the variations of mental challenges and mental illnesses that people experience rather than making them something that a taboo or an embarrassment or some kind of mark on our experience and on ourselves the second point i want to make is that it's really important not to suppress feelings whilst we do want to coach

2:48 ourselves and help ourselves to feel better that doesn't mean suppressing our feelings denying them or stuffing them down we don't want to numb them we don't want to ignore them we actually want to learn to feel our feelings to ride the wave of emotion to let them be and even to express them out right you could express them through journaling or through the arts dance painting music singing movement anything that helps you to move those feelings

3:17 out into the world maybe it's talking to someone who you care about or listening in more on that soon but the idea is that it's important not to suppress our feelings but rather to express them and move through them so that we can then coach ourselves up and get them out i like to think of feelings a little bit like our digestive system right when you have something inside it needs to come out by hook or by crook

3:40 there's no shame in that and in fact we just feel much better after it does come out and it's a perfectly healthy and normal process same two with emotions just having bad feelings low feelings bluesy feelings nothing abnormal about that that's just our emotional digestive system processing the things that it has taken in right bad news scary news sad news ideas imaginations whatever and just processing it and then we have to let it out in order to feel better

4:09 the next one is to seek professional help and this might be number one really but i specifically have gone to cbt cognitive behavioral therapy for my ptsd in the past and it was incredibly effective in fact i had recurring nightmares and really severe anxiety and it basically completely cured it so i'm a big believer in cbt but there are lots of other modalities that people enjoy um like dbt or tapping or any uh any healing modality that you

4:39 find effective i have found cognitive behavioral therapy to be incredibly effective and i will list some books that you could get started with even just if you're not really suffering from depression but you're feeling a little bit low and you need to start learning how to think in thought patterns that are more uh healthy and feel better and one of the core things that cognitive behavioral therapy will address is if you're stuck in thinking patterns that are bringing you down and they're

5:06 kind of called cognitive fallacies because they're false ways of thinking so this could be something like black and white thinking right where you think all or nothing uh thinking catastrophically where you're always expecting the worst um all sorts of patterns like that again i'll list them in the blog post that goes along with this video that could be leading to anxiety or depression and so even if you're not going to therapy right now maybe just read up on cbt because it's a fantastic

5:34 thing to know about to help you to start to address thought patterns that are probably not serving you or your mental health the next thing i want to plug here is byron katie and the work byron katie is a thinker and philosopher and teacher and she teaches how to question your thoughts and i highly recommend her book loving what is or watching some of her youtube videos where she teaches you to go through a process of questioning your thoughts

5:59 it's not that dissimilar from cbt in some ways where basically you don't believe everything that you think so if you're thinking catastrophic thoughts or thinking sad thoughts it teaches you to turn them around and think of things in a different way which i have found to be very effective i'm very much a thinker what i think in my head is very much my creative process and where i can actually make an influence on how i feel

6:21 and so for me these modalities really work and i highly recommend looking into byron katie's work again i will link it below all right some really practical tips as well first of all get outside when you are outside especially if you can get in the sunshine a little bit um it has had a lot of research that shows that it proves to really elevate our mood fresh air sunshine greenery nature these things are mood elevators they're natural remedies for blues

6:49 and often when we're feeling bluesy or down we get outside even less because we have no energy and we don't feel like being seen and we kind of hunker down and that actually makes us feel worse so we've got to do things to disrupt that pattern and get out of that pattern when we're feeling down the next one is to actually get a listening partnership and if you're in my present play membership we will help you with

7:10 that just post in the group there are listening partnerships getting teamed up and buddied up all the time but a listening partnership is basically just uh where you listen to one another you set up a time for a call you get everything off your chest someone listens without offering advice or feedback or judgment and then you do the same for them it's an incredibly healing process and it's free so if you can get yourself to therapy that's great but if not this

7:34 is a good second best because you will feel witnessed and seen and supported and heard and you'll do so in this kind of safe environment of a listening partnership alternatively you could just talk to a good friend or to a sister or brother or someone who you're close to but the thing to be aware of there is are they a good listener or are they going to give you bad advice or judgment or critique or make it about them it's like if you

7:59 have someone in your life who's really therapeutic and healing in your relationship then that's a great person to talk to but sometimes it can make things worse if they are not good listeners and if they're likely to make you feel judged or like they're criticizing you so just be aware of who you're talking to and if they're really capable of supporting you right now the next one is to make sure you're getting enough sleep often when we're

8:23 depressed we have a harder time with sleeping in general we might be up with anxious thoughts or sad sad thoughts or wake up crying or not really want to just unwind and let our body fully relax we might be on our phones a lot more scrolling having that light in our eyes before we go to sleep and it just obviously gets worse when we're sleep deprived when we sleep deprived everything feels more gray and gloomy hmm when we're sleep deprived everything

8:55 feels more gray and gloomy and harder to handle and so you really want to try and prioritize your sleep so at least this is one thing that's kind of in your favor and supporting you rather than dragging you down you're also unlikely to be working out and moving working out and moving stretching doing yoga getting outside and running all of these things are going to increase your feel good good hormones and lower your levels of cortisol

9:22 and adrenaline you really want to get into kind of the endorphins and the oxytocin and all the things that make you feel good in your hormonal cycle and so i don't understand this very well i'm not a biologist by any means but the idea is to do things that help us feel good and working out does now when you're depressed you don't feel like moving but how about just starting with something small just right now while

9:44 you're listening to me just give yourself a nice big stretch and notice what a big difference that makes or go on a short simple walk or just start small and do something to get your body moving a little bit get that blood pumping it's a cycle that will then perpetuate itself to get more and more movement going because you'll feel good for it the next one is to watch some stand-up comedy or get yourself giggling in whatever way you can do you

10:08 have some kind of old youtube video that always makes you laugh or a friend who always makes you laugh i really love watching stand-up comedy and one of my favorite youtube channels for laughing out loud is bad lip syncing it always gets me going so when i'm feeling down instead of watching something that's gonna make me feel even more sad i will watch that or something else that gets me laughing and it's contagious and your body will

10:32 inform your brain that things are good if you're laughing so you want to get laughing however you can even if it feels artificial eventually your body starts taking over the next one is to pamper yourself basically anything you can do to help yourself to feel good is a go when you're feeling a little bit depressed and when you're feeling depressed you feel less motivated like nah i'm not gonna do my nails i'm not gonna do my hair i'm

10:53 not gonna have a bath i'm not gonna use my special creams like you're not in a celebratory mood and you don't feel worthy and you don't want to do it you kind of want to feel that low feeling when you're depressed because that's what your body's telling you so you've got to override that and counterbalance that with things that do make you feel good and with signals to yourself that no i am worthy and it is good and it is

11:14 worthwhile to invest in myself and to invest in my mood and in my well-being similarly you might be eating really badly i know that i'm a total emotional eater and when i feel sad i feel like i deserve more cookies or more ice cream or whatever it is to eat a whole pizza the trouble with that is that it actually ends up making me feel even worse because then i also feel bloated and gross and guilty and ashamed of myself and all of

11:40 those things because i just ate all the things i didn't really want and my body doesn't really want and so i want to really encourage you for your next meal for your next snack make a healthy choice that feels good to you treat yourself well and start to remind yourself what it feels like uh to be making good choices and to be in a healthier place along with that point i want to put a little plug in for intermittent fasting

12:04 i've been doing intermittent fasting for about a year or so perhaps a bit more where basically i stop eating at five or six p.m and i don't eat again until the next day at 12 noon so my first meal is lunch um and it feels so good to me do your own research i'm not a nutritionist i just recommend this uh researching it but when i'm depressed or when i'm feeling low let's call it i'm not clinically depressed but feeling a

12:31 little bit low then i tend to let go more of that kind of thing and it actually makes me feel worse like i've already said so the fasting and really taking in a lot of fluids in the morning a lot of water makes me feel lighter and more energetic and less depressed it actually elevates my mood a lot and so i highly recommend looking into that leading on from that you might want to look into your diet in general and

12:55 see if you need some different supplements if you're low on anything if your diet isn't the right diet for you for whatever reason it will absolutely influence your mood and so i highly recommend checking that out with a professional similarly your mental diet might be contributing to your depression are you reading a lot of news are you watching scary youtube videos are you watching a show on netflix that's depressing and sad think about the people that you're coming in contact

13:21 with are they always telling you negative stories or making things seem catastrophic and terrible the people around you are going to very strongly influence the way that you interpret the world so if you're around people who are positive and optimists and upbeat that will elevate your mood and if you're around pessimists or naysayers or debbie downers that will influence your mood so especially if you're feeling a little bit like on the edge of something of some kind of blues that's a time to

13:50 really be aware of your mental diet of what you're being exposed to what you're letting in and which ideas are infiltrating your heart leading on from that i want you to think about what you are listening to when i'm feeling a bit down i like to tune into things that are very woo-woo and spiritual and all law of attraction stuff that helps me just get into my higher self again helps me remind myself that what i think about i attract and i want

14:15 to think high vibe thoughts and just helps me raise my frequency and i'll link to some of my favorites uh in the blog post for this video um but the point is really to think what elevates you what reminds you of the you that you want to be what helps you get into a good mood what helps you raise that frequency and really tune into those things so in that sense i would also really consider taking a break from social

14:40 media social media has been proven to spike depression and anxiety in people and so you really want to limit your exposure to anything that does that social media also leads you to comparing yourself to others and comparison as we know is the thief of joy when you're constantly comparing yourself to others you'll feel like you're falling short and it's likely to lead you to depression when you see everybody living their best life except for you and finally one of the best

15:07 hacks for getting out of the blues is seeing how you can help others often when we feel down and low we can get into kind of a bit of a self-centered self-absorbed place where we're navel-gazing where we're just kind of in this cocoon only thinking about ourselves and feeling sorry for ourselves and perhaps 100 rightly so it might be completely justified but it doesn't feel very good all of us tend to feel better i think when we're able to focus on what we have

15:34 to give on how we can support others and that's why things like volunteer work or reaching out to someone and seeing how they're doing and how you can support them um often elevates us we feel good because we're in a position of giving and that just feels so good to us and so if you are in that little bit of a bluesy place and you're worried that you're going to go further into depression ask yourself who can i reach out to and

15:59 support who can i help somehow can i deliver cookies to someone can i pick up the phone and check in on someone can i gain perspective and perhaps it's going to be someone who's having a harder time than me and this isn't about comparing ourselves to them and being like oh i'm doing so well by comparison but it's just about reminding ourselves to gain some perspective over what's going on in our lives especially as compared to other people

16:21 who might be having a hard time it takes us out of ourselves we get out of just looking at us and instead start to look at others and that can really help us to feel much much better and put all of our ailments and all of our adversity into a new perspective that helps us to once again step back into a sense of gratitude and appreciation and feel better about ourselves and about our lives so this is by no means an exhausted

16:49 exhaustive list there are so many other things that we can do to help when the blues are coming on and just again to say that if you feel like you need some help if you're having any kind of scary thoughts if you're feeling like you can't function well if you're not getting out of bed in the morning if you're not taking care of yourself on the most basic level then please absolutely seek professional help and even if it's not that bad

17:11 seek professional help if you can all of these tips i hope will serve you to elevate your mood when you're feeling a little bit bluesy and just again a reminder i've been there everybody i know has been there even if they're too ashamed to talk about it it is so very common and so very natural that i would imagine that pretty much everyone has been there at some point or another or will be with all of the hormonal changes

17:33 that go on uh becoming parents as well it is sometimes completely inevitable and so let's normalize this let's support each other let's remind each other that there are things that we can do to help us to pull out of this you do not have to stay in that kind of foggy hazy bummy sucky place you can do things to come out of it and you might also need the professional help to get there but you may not you may find that

17:58 these tips are enough to elevate you and to get you out of a funk and back into a high vibing place if this has been helpful for you and if there are anything else that you want to add to it please let me know i would love to hear over on instagram and the dms um but more importantly share this with someone who it might help make sure to hit the subscribe and the notification bell so that you know when

18:20 i go live or when i upload new videos and if you could hit that thumbs up button that lets me know that this has been helpful for you thank you so much i will see you next time namaste do you feel heard and witnessed and supported you'll do so in this kind of safe environment of a listening partnership

18:57 hi hi warm your mind that it feels good this baby is like farting his way through this video you are so sweet i love you so much you interrupted this video so much so much that's okay it's the best kind of interruption right