 Hello this is Pookey and of course Buddy and today we are going to share with you a few ideas about how to manage on the more difficult days if you're struggling with depression. These are ideas that are drawn on both my personal and professional experience and I hope there'll be stuff in here that will either help you personally or help you support someone that you care about or that you're working with or you might be working with them and care about them I guess. Okay number one my number one tip for the most difficult days is just to take things one minute at a time so sometimes the idea of getting all the way from the beginning of the day right through to bedtime can feel absolutely unmanageable and on those days it's much easier if we break the day down into small chunks of time so instead of saying I'm going to manage the whole day or the whole morning we instead literally say I'm going to get through the next minute I'm going to get through the next five minutes and we might extend that out and we can break it down into like one song on my favorite playlist or an episode of my favorite tv show or a chapter of my book and just trying to get through that smaller chunk of time feels a lot more manageable and doing that obviously many times throughout the day and hopefully making it ultimately to bedtime. Number two is to set yourself small but achievable goals and then celebrating when you manage them I don't mean you know throw yourself some kind of crazy pity party I just mean acknowledge that hey I managed something today so the kind of goals I'm talking about on my worst days this might be getting out of bed might go as far as brushing my teeth getting showered or dressed I might try and do something a bit practical so that I can feel that I've been a little productive so I might load or unload the dishwasher or do part thereof and it's really completely up to you but trying to find little things that you can do that make you feel that you've achieved something and it might be as simple as you know reading a page of a book or whatever it might be choose what works for you and acknowledge when you manage that because on these days then managing anything can feel tough. Number three is I try really hard to kind of stick to a routine now this can be particularly important if you do not have something like school or college or work which kind of enforces some sort of routine in your day then that can be when depression really bites and when we find ourselves having those kind of endless duvet days and really ruminating and allowing the difficult thoughts and feelings to take over and so establishing some sort of routine even if it's just a promise we make to ourselves about when we'll get up by perhaps that we will try and build into our routine sort of some self-care so getting washed getting dressed and we might try and build into our routine getting out whatever but just having any form of routine can be really helpful it is often easier to try and think about what that routine however basic might look like on an easier day rather than on the hard day itself so maybe kind of plan ahead for these difficult days and say as a minimum this is the sort of routine that I would like to stick to. Number four is to get out and reach out. Now for me on a difficult day then this guy buddy is one of the things that really helps me because I can't stay in the house all day he's a great bedfellow he will snuggle up with me under the duvet but eventually he's going to say I want to get out I want to go play in the field I want to play with my friends I need a wee and so he gets me up and out you might not be fortunate enough to have your own dog but if you can literally just venture forth from your room or from your house and get outside it can do wonders for your one particularly if you're able to kind of be amongst either people or nature that can really really help to give you a bit of relief from what's going on in your head being surrounded by kind of nice views by animals by kind of greenery can be great but equally going for a walk even just down the street to the news agent or something can be good try and think about how you might reward yourself for getting out because it can feel like a massive challenge so perhaps you're going to walk to your local news agent and then pick up a copy of your favorite magazine or a chocolate bar or your favorite drink or something like that to reward yourself with if you can't get out or maybe in addition to getting out think about reaching out now you can do that either virtually or actually so actually connecting with people whether it's in the online world or the real world being amongst people who we like and who care about us can really really help on the most difficult days so they can help us to get through they can remind us what's good about us they can remind us that we've managed days like this before and we'll probably manage again you might not feel like you can be honest about how you're feeling but actually just having any link with them you might be doing that through things like Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or you might be doing it through text or what's that perhaps you'll pick up a phone and give a friend a call maybe invite someone round you might want to be honest and say I'm not at my most chatty but I just want to be around a friend at the moment and that can be helpful again and talking to your closer friends and letting them know that on these kinds of days what would be really helpful from them as a friend can be a really really good thing to do in terms of planning and then they might know that on your trickier days the most helpful thing they can do is come binge watch Netflix with you and that you might not say much but just knowing that they're there and that they care and that they came might make a really big difference and might help you to keep yourself safe as well. So talking about keeping ourselves safe number five is about making a commitment to the things that we will not do so it depends on what kind of demons you're tackling but for me on a difficult day I will be making myself a promise to try not to resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms so these might be around food it might be binging or restricting it might be around self-harm or suicidal ideation so I'd be trying to keep myself safe for other people you might be making a commitment not to use things like drugs or alcohol to manage how you're feeling so it really depends again on you but what we want if possible is to try and get through this day and if we do nothing else to try not to do ourselves harm of any kind whilst at the same time remembering that if things don't go exactly according to plan that doesn't mean that all is lost we in that instance we see that as a blip and we try again the next minute the next hour the next day in order to try and keep ourselves safe and try and keep ourselves away from those unhealthy coping mechanisms number six is about finding distractions now this can be absolutely anything it just depends on what's your poison so you might want to binge watch Netflix you might want to read I like to listen to audible while ironing that's one of my great distractions or walk the dog lots of people like craft or baking and I often if I can get myself out the house will go climbing that's my new hobby or I'm learning to play piano I like to do jigsaws whilst listening to stories it really it's completely up to you again a really good idea is to brainstorm this on a day when you're feeling okay and also just to take a mental note while you're going around your kind of normal day-to-day life on better days and take note of things that really absorb you and that you really enjoy doing and then try and give yourself permission and try motivate yourself to do some of those things on a day when you're feeling that things are really really tough because anything that you can kind of somewhat lose yourself in so that you're not ruminating constantly on the thoughts that are going around and around in your head on a darker day is a really positive thing and the final thing number seven number seven is to forgive yourself so as I said before sometimes you're just going to be working on getting from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night and trying to do that without causing yourself harm and if you can manage that then that day has been a success no matter how it might feel but also being a bit forgiving of ourselves if we don't quite manage it so if we do find ourselves reverting to an unhealthier way of coping then we need to forgive ourselves that and allow ourselves that this was a blip and that we will try again it can be really hard to be forgiving of ourselves and sometimes we find that if we make the slightest slip that we end up in this cycle because we really beat ourselves up about the fact that we didn't do things perfectly but you know recovery it's it's never a straight line and so what we want to do is allow ourselves these little dips and troughs in the path and to to continue onwards and upwards in so far as we can so forgive ourselves and just remember that some days are just hard I wish I could say something more helpful than that but some days just are hard and if you get through the day then you're done well and good luck for the next day and hopefully the next day will be a little bit kinder to you if you have ideas to share comment below and also I think having watched other youtube videos mainly over the shoulder of my seven year old children I know that I'm meant to at this point do something really funky like point to a corner meaningfully and go click subscribe here and then hopefully I can add a button or something anyhow I hope it was helpful let me know what other videos you might like and who knows I may get around to making them um good luck take care and comment with your suggestions okay oh and bye from him bye