 what's up everybody this is chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're into channels that help you with your mental health make sure that you click that subscribe button but today i'm super excited because my buddy jay leves did a guest video where he talks about his tips for you to get out of that depressive funk i've been talking to jason for a while we've been friends for a minute and he has developed a lot of different techniques that have helped him with his depression so i love that he came over to do this guest video and i hope you get something out of it so without further ado here's my buddy jay hey chris thanks for having me on your channel today to share some of my most practical tips for living with depression this comes from my own experience as well as different lessons that i've learned from reading different people from speaking with other people that are going through similar things over the years and these tips will help whether you are dealing with depression anxiety any other mental health disorders addiction or you just want to change your behavior in any way these processes are going to help with setting up the structure of a daily routine in order to help structure your days and make those changes in your life that you want to now i'm not a doctor or a licensed social worker i'm somebody who has gone through depression and these tips have helped me hopefully chris with your experience you're able to add some of the scientific backing and a little bit more of the reason why these things work as i go through these tips like i said these are things that help me live and deal with my mental health issues and i hope that they will help you so let's get into it the first tip that i have for you is the first thing i do every morning and they are called morning pages this came from a book called the artist's way by julia cameron and in that book she proposes different techniques that artists can use to help get into the practice of doing their art every single day instead of waiting for inspiration the idea behind the morning pages is that every day when you wake up one of the first things that you do is open up your journal and this journal doesn't have to be a fancy mulchkin it could be like a dollar composition book from the convenience store or something like that it could even just be pieces of paper that you have if you're really strapped for cash but the idea is that every morning you wake up and you write three pages this is not writing as as to come up with a finished product but this is a brain dump and it helps to externalize it as well instead of having everything all caught up inside our heads these pages this journal this is all supposed to be for your eyes only this is where you get to be the most honest with yourself and just let the thoughts flow from your mind onto the piece of paper and you might be surprised some of the things that come up when dealing with these pages because you might have thought one thing that was making you feel a certain way about an issue and actually the more you kind of delve into this writing practice you might discover things that you didn't even know were going on inside your own mind once you are able to get everything out onto the page remember don't edit yourself don't cross things out if you make a mistake leave it you're just letting the thoughts flow this will get everything out onto the page and it'll help you get started with a clearer head than you might have had otherwise tip number two is to get moving now i i know that actually going to the gym and trying to get physical activity and you know live healthy is probably the hardest thing for an addict or somebody dealing with mental health issues or somebody that you know has a behavioral health issue that keeps them from making this a practice in the first place we're talking about gradual change here so to start off your days after your morning pages or any other time that you're able to throughout the day get your body moving we spend a lot of time up here in our heads and we need to take care of the rest of ourselves to get started with getting moving go for a walk you know if you if you can't do high intensity exercise because you might not have done exercise for a while make sure that you're going for progressively longer walks at the pace that you're able to do if your day is packed and you don't have time to go for a walk and you're unable to go to the gym for whatever reason turn on your favorite music let loose and just dance move build up a sweat get the heat going inside your body that's when you know that you've been moving for long enough the surprising thing about this tip is that you may not know how influential moving your body is on your mental clarity the more you move your body the more you're able to deal with things like cravings for your drug of choice or for your self-harming habit or for you know the general overthinking that goes on throughout your head it gets you outside of your head space gets you outside of depressive cycles or you know drug seeking cycles and it gets you really into your own body and it'll help give you the space within your own head in order to feel better throughout the day and get things done that you want to achieve with that being said tip number three that I have is to set achievable daily goals your big goals are great to have they keep you going for the long term but when you're trying to change behaviors change your daily routines make big changes in your life in order to get to those big goals you need to start with your smaller achievable daily goals I used to keep a stack of index cards and every day I would write down my three goals and it had to be at least three and they had to be achievable small things throughout the day things like keeping up with my writing practice with the morning pages mentioned earlier or going to the gym every day or making sure that uh I made my bed took a shower whatever these small regular tasks are that you have to get done every day in order to live a productive life for yourself these are the types of things we're talking about they're within the range of your ability to achieve them and it makes you feel better to do so by doing these even something like Pathlyn's suggestion to do the dishes before you sit down to start your day of work it gets you into the mindset that you can achieve things that you're task oriented and that you finish things by doing this you'll feel better about yourself and your abilities and again this all goes back to being able to have a clearer headspace feeling more productive and setting up a daily routine also it feels really good to check things off of a list when you start making lists I know it sounds like really lame but it's a lot of fun to check things off cross it out just be like yeah I did that the fourth tip that I have for you in living a productive life while dealing with your mental health issues is to fix your sleep cycle sleep is incredibly important to our ability to function we're told a lot of times that having an eight hour sleep is what is most important but a lot of research has come out showing that it's actually getting complete sleep cycles when you sleep that will help you wake up and feel energized in the morning fixing your sleep cycle like everything else involved in changing your behavior doesn't have to happen overnight in fact they say that it takes at least three nights to make a change in your regular sleep cycle if you're somebody who's up until four o'clock in the morning and wondering why you can't wake up at eight to the sound of your alarm blaring and also feel happy and productive and well rested this might be one of the most important tips for you to put this into practice try falling to sleep closer and closer to your goal time every night so if you're falling asleep at three or four a.m. and you want to fall asleep at midnight try falling asleep at two one midnight and do this getting closer and closer to your time give yourself space to achieve this and stick with it because only then is when you're going to make your changes and then you'll start to see the results happening when you wake up before your alarm when you wake up at regular times then you're able to put the previous tips into action earlier in your day and you feel like you're able to get more done with your day bonus tip if you're having trouble falling asleep try meditating now i know a lot of people are a little bit wary about meditation they don't know if they're able to achieve it as you're laying in bed try focusing on your breathing instead of tossing and turning trying to find the most comfortable spot with this type of meditation you don't have to worry about falling asleep or staying awake because your goal is actually to just let yourself drift off into sleep as with everything else practice over time will make you better at this technique and it will hopefully help you achieve your goals my fifth and final tip for this video came to me from studying comedy i always wanted to be a comedian i looked up to people like jerry seinfeld jerry seinfeld is very well known for this productivity hack that he has called don't break the chain this technique utilizes a calendar you can print one out from your computer or you can go buy one from from a convenience store the point is to have a visual and tactile representation of you sticking to your practices jerry seinfeld would use this method in order to stick to his daily writing practice with creating jokes and so every single day he would mark off a red x on a calendar in order to show that he did his practice for the day depending on what it is that you're trying to change in your behavior whether you're trying to avoid self-harm avoid using your drug of choice or trying to make sure that you stick to the routines mentioned above or any other ones that you're trying to make a change in your life don't break the chain by having a different color that you mark off on a calendar every single day that whatever your goal is that you did it for that day and after a while you'll see that a chain forms every single day the chain gets longer and you do not want to break the chain if you do you start over keeping it off of your phone keeping it analog keeping it tactile and in front of you will serve as a daily reminder of something that you can be proud of in order to keep going so taking all these tips into account together will give you the skeleton structure of setting up a daily routine that is going to help guide you through your recovery process or your behavioral change process and on a final note just remember that change takes time give yourself the space to mess up every now and again but keep moving forward towards the direction of your overall goals and hopefully using processes like this the practical tools that i've learned through my experiences and from the experiences of others can help you shape your own personal daily routine that's going to help you achieve a better life than you have right now so thank you chris for having me today i hope that this helps if anybody has any other questions they can find me at jay libs on twitter instagram and youtube or anywhere else i'm jay libs that's what i do i am me jason thank you so much for coming over and doing that video on my channel also jason mentioned that i might have some scientific evidence behind some of the methods that he talks about make sure that you are checking the info cards up top because i have linked my other videos that talk about the methods that he's actually using and kind of the science behind them but anyways if you like this video give it a thumbs up and also check out to the left right here click or tap on one of those thumbnails there's a bunch of other videos on this channel and also there's a link to jason's youtube channel where he does a variety of different videos he's a master videographer so i hope you check it out and also don't forget to hit that subscribe button thanks for watching i'll see you next time