Masterpost Monday: Studying with Depression
Welcome to another installment of my mental health series! This week I’m addressing one of the biggest mental illnesses: depression. Depression is extremely common for students, some studies say that 1 in 3 college students will experience severe depression (function impairing) at some point during their undergraduate years. College students also have a much higher rate of suicide. Depression makes it difficult to do anything but since I’m a studyblr I will be focusing on advice for studying with depression. There are some other tips listed here for coping with depression in general because I think they will be useful for studying as well as everyday situations.
*Disclaimer: this is not a way to cure depression and I am not a mental health professional, these are just tips that I have found to be useful for studying with depression*
Depression is an illness: remind yourself that the way you’re feeling is not your fault. You are not weak. Your feelings are valid. Depression is an illness with symptoms just like any other illness. It affects your feelings, thoughts, behavior, and body. There are lots of things that can combat depression (medication, therapy, self-management, etc.) and you should speak with a psychologist because in the long-run this will prove to be the most beneficial. It can be scary at first, but you are not alone.
Circle of depression: how you feel is connected to your behavior and thoughts. Changing depressive behavior and negative thoughts will help change how you feel. Feeling depressed leads to behavior like staying in bed, avoiding people, not caring for yourself, etc. This kind of behavior leads to thoughts of hopelessness, self-doubt, etc. which leads to more feelings of depression. Try to break this downward spiral by doing small, positive activities each day and replacing negative thoughts with kind, encouraging thoughts. Try doing a little bit of an assignment each day or reviewing your notes for a few minutes here and there. Tell yourself that every little bit counts and congratulate yourself for the little things you do accomplish.
Non-study anti-depression activities: sometimes schoolwork is too much to handle, and that’s okay! If you can’t bring yourself to study you should still do small activities during the day. Push yourself a little but definitely not too hard! I know a lot of people have habit trackers in their bullet journals so these would be some great habits to track! You can write these down in your journal or just on a sheet of paper somewhere and put a little mark next to each one whenever you do even a little bit of these. Here are some examples of small, self-care activities you should attempt to do daily:
self-care/personal hygiene (shower, shave, brush teeth, etc.)
eat three meals (even if they are small you should still eat)
sleep (write down your goal # of hours)
exercise (even a little bit is great!!)
relaxation (write down your goal amount of time
work a little bit on your assignments (sometimes having a mountain of work can make depression worse so chipping away at it little by little will make a difference!)
social contact (even just replying to a text or calling your mom)
hobbies (find something you enjoy doing and set aside a little bit of time, make it a priority!)
do something nice for yourself (buy yourself that cute purse! If money is a problem give yourself an at-home spa day or just make some time to do something you enjoy)
do something nice for someone else (seeing someone else’s face light up is honestly so rewarding 10/10 would recommend)
replace negative thoughts with helpful thoughts (you are going to have to do this many many times and that’s okay!)
other helpful activities (think of things that might make you happy or feel better and do them!)
Make it smaller: break assignments into really really small steps. For example if you have to write an essay you can break it down into steps like research your topic, find quotes, etc. and then break it down even further! Step one can be as simple as creating the heading. Break down each step of the assignment until you are sure you can complete the step.
Don’t wait to feel it: don’t wait to do your homework until you are motivated to! This is super important!! You may never feel motivated and then what? You have an unfinished assignment to stress over. Just buckle down and get to work. The feeling of motivation may come once you get started and start making progress! When you are depressed it’s hard to feel the motivational “spark” so taking action first can kick your motivation into gear! Combine this with the previous step so the work is more manageable. If you get started and find that you can’t do it anymore, it is okay to quit.
Chunk your time: break your study time into small chunks. Say your school day ends at 3. If you don’t have any other commitments your “study time” could be from 3:30 to 9 (you don’t have to study for this amount of time obviously, this is just an example of the time you can fit your studying in). Decide on the shortest amount of time you can spend on an assignment. It can be an hour or 10 minutes, it’s completely up to you! This is your “chunk” of study time. Decide what you are going to work on during your chunk. Tell yourself “I only have to work for this chunk, then I can stop if I want.” When the chunk is over you can decide to rest, keep working on that assignment, or switch to a different assignment for the next chunk. This is similar to the pomodoro technique but I find that it works better to think of things in “chunks” and not take short breaks in between, especially when you are feeling depressed. Chunk your way through your set study time and you will probably get a significant amount of work done and feel better!
Budget your energy: ask yourself how much energy you have available for today and write it down (you don’t have to write it down unless you want to). Do you have enough energy to make it to school? Enough to do some assignments? Determine how much you have and be realistic, don’t push yourself or you will become exhausted and overwhelmed. Make sure to only do what is reasonable for your amount of energy today. No matter how little energy you have, always save some to use on things that will benefit your health: self-care, exercise, relaxation, hobbies, etc. No assignment is worth sacrificing your mental health. It is also super important to repeat and persist. Doing one teeny tiny bit of homework 100 times is much better than doing an entire assignment once. Congratulate yourself for every effort you make no matter how small, you don’t have to go out and reward yourself with ice cream every time, but do make sure you give yourself credit for what you’ve done. The brain responds very well to this and you will get more energy, hope, well-being, and self-confidence.
Improve the moment: I think we can all agree that studying sucks. Take time out from studying (or just feeling bad in general) by doing something to make the next few minutes a little better. Think of something that will distract you our slightly lift your mood for a few minutes: pet an animal, stretch, take a bath, think about a vacation, go for a drive, play a game, talk to someone, read jokes, etc. You do not have to be studying to use this technique! Deliberately decide and tell yourself “I am going to take a break from feeling so bad for a few minutes” and then do it! When bad feelings or thoughts come back and interrupt your break, acknowledge them but say “not right now, I’m improving the moment” and then refocus your attention on to what you are doing. The mind is like a muscle, you are going to have to do this repeatedly to train the bad thoughts to not interrupt your breaks.
Short stress busters: take a break from your studying to release a little bit of tension. Here are some super simple ideas that can be done anywhere!
yawn, unclench, or move your jaw
raise your shoulders up and down
do a posture check, make sure you aren’t clenching your jaw or hunching your shoulders
eat chocolate (some studies show that chocolate reduces the stress chemical)
Go outside: during your study breaks go outside!! Even going for a five minute walk can significantly lift your mood and boost energy. It really doesn’t take much to reap the benefits. Bonus points if you can be near trees or water. You don’t even have to move around, you can just go outdoors and lay in the sun for a couple minutes and you will probably start to feel better
Opposite emotion: when we are feeling down it is easy to gravitate towards things that match how we feel. But instead of latching onto things that might make you feel worse, try to do things that will give you the opposite emotion. Instead of listening to slow, sad songs try listening to cheerful, energetic music. Try watching some funny tv shows or videos. Listen to stand-up comedy, read jokes, etc. Look at pictures of cute animals. Okay, short story: there was a student in my AP Lit class who suffered from depression and got stressed easily and so whenever he was feeling negative emotions he pulled out his phone where he had a ton of pics of St. Bernard puppies because they made him feel better. Do this!! It doesn’t have to be St. Bernards or even puppies, but make a gallery on your phone or computer and look at them, its pretty hard to be sad when looking at baby animals.
Give yourself credit: give yourself credit for any little bit of effort you put into studying. This really applies to everything that isn’t school-related as well. Depression makes it difficult to acknowledge what you have accomplished, it’s very easy to say “that doesn’t count.” But it does count!! It doesn’t matter how big the assignment was. It doesn’t matter how much you got done. It doesn’t matter how it turned out. It doesn’t matter how you feel about your work. It doesn’t matter what other people think of it. If you put in any amount of time and effort, give yourself credit. I honestly can’t stress this enough.
Be kind: depression brings on a flood of negative self-talk. It’s very easy to blame yourself, pick out every flaw, dwell on little mistakes, and say mean things to/about yourself. This makes depression worse, it is not helpful. Pay attention to the way you speak to yourself, watch out for mean things. If you notice it, firmly say “no thank you. Stop. That is not helpful.” Ask yourself “what would I say to a friend who is going through this? What would I say to a child I wanted to support?” Say those things to yourself!! Talk to yourself in a kind, caring, encouraging, respectful way. We can be our own worst enemies so this is really important and will take time to correct.
Balance your thinking: the situations we are involved in do not cause feelings of depression, it’s the way we explain and think about the event that does. If you have strong negative emotions there is a good chance you are having distorted or unhelpful thoughts. Slow down your thinking and pay attention. Be a non-judgmental observer of your thoughts and feelings. Write down your negative thoughts on a piece of paper and see if you can identify which are causing you the most distress. See if there are ways you can improve those thoughts or think about them in a more helpful way. Here are some other ways to balance your thinking:
notice the positives: it’s easier to notice the negatives when you are depressed. It’s difficult to see the positives or dismiss them and say they “don’t count.” This leads to worse depression, make a deliberate effort to notice the positives
look for the gray: all-or-nothing thinking makes depression worse. One bad decision, action, event, etc. does not make everything else bad. Remind yourself that most people and situations are not all bad (or all good), they are mostly in the middle and that is okay. Avoid extreme words (always, never, impossible, forever, perfect, failure, etc.). Include the upside, downside, and everything in between when you are thinking about things
don’t “should” yourself: everybody has commitments or responsibilities that must be taken care of, but having strict rules for yourself/others will only make you feel worse. Look out for thoughts that expect perfection (”must”, “should”, “have to”, etc). Rationalize your “rules” by determining if they are realistic or helpful. Remind yourself that the world will not end if you make a mistake, not everything needs to be done perfectly. Try to replace “I should” to “I will” or “I want to” and be easier on yourself.
you can’t predict the future: imagining the worst-case scenario or predicting unfortunate outcomes will only worsen depression and anxiety. Remind yourself that you do not have a crystal ball and that things are generally not as bad as we predict.
