Often, depression can lead us to struggle with focus and motivation. Here are some ways to navigate it.
Rachel Havocost is a writer and mental health advocate who often struggles with depression. She says one thing she notices when she's depressed is she struggles to focus. She tries to focus on one thing at a time. More tips on navigating depression on her page.
What to do about struggling with focus and motivation when you're depressed. Hi, my name is Rachel Havocost. I'm a writer and mental health advocate who often struggles with depression. And I'm currently navigating a depressive episode. And I am trying to use my skills and do some things that I know are helpful. And as I do, I wanted to share with you what I'm trying and using and things that have worked in the past. So one thing that I notice when I'm depressed is I really struggle to focus. I have a lot of brain fog.
I have a hard time starting tasks. I lose words. It's difficult for me to focus on things. So first thing I do is I is I try and have a lot of compassion for myself. If I beat myself up for not being able to focus or not being motivated, all that does is send me down a shame spiral which worsens my feelings of depression or low self worth. So the first thing I do, grace and compassion. The second thing is I try really hard to focus on one thing at a time. So I think we're really encouraged in our society to multitask and to be able to do more than one thing at a time.
And that's actually not very good for our nervous system. That actually puts us in a state of survival or hyperarousal. And it's better for us to actually single task, as I like to call it. So trying to focus on one task at a time. So for me, that means I need to put my phone on do not disturb, so I'm not getting notifications. Try and close out the tabs when I have my Internet open so that I just have one tab open. If I'm on a website or time blocking and setting timers and saying, okay, for 30 minutes, I'm focusing on this.
And when the 30 minutes is up, then I can take a break and focus on something else. And this starts to strengthen our brains in terms of focusing, but also gives us a little bit of permission to pause and take a break so that we don't feel overwhelmed by needing to do a task for a really long time. I'm going to share some more tips on navigating depression on my page, so feel free to follow along. See you next time.
