Fighting your way out of depression is multilayered and one of the habits I had to form revolved around a few basic things. Among the more ugly side effects of depression is a loss of self worth and often the loss of desire to keep ones self clean. In my case shaving became the last thing I wanted to do. Showering became a chore in itself. I knew I had to shake this and as a result I worked on two specific routines for my morning.
(Photo by Vraxx)
In the past I had been a chronic Keurig user. The routine was the same every morning, wake up, plonk a K-Cup, start my day and log into my PC. Following my divorce I no longer had a Keurig machine and no desire to buy anything that bulky. I turned instead to my old, oft forgotten AeroPress. I switched from an ‘instant’ coffee to going retro, hand grinding my beans and forcing myself to make a proper cup of java.
This started me down reviving another habit, this time centered around grooming. In the past, especially as depression began to take over I’d resort to using my electric razor. While fast and mostly effective much like the Keurig it shortened my ‘active’ time and made me very complacent. Now, I reverted back to the old days of a double edged safety razor and a shaving soap and brush. It didn’t happen overnight, a good month or so and I had gotten used to it. Luckily for me an Art of Shaving had opened up at the nearby mall.
Activity kept me from sinking too far and forced me out of bed. While it may not seem like much even a short 15 minutes of routine that can you make into a positive habit helps a lot more than one might think.
