When battling with depression one of the most common signs of it is having a messy room. This blog will discuss 5 different approaches to help you get your room back in functioning order. One of the most important things to remember when you’re battling depression is that, even though you’re struggling, you still deserve a clean and functional space to live in.
5 Ways to Approach Your Depression Room
1. Ask a friend for help.
A lot of the time when your room gets really messy, the task of cleaning it can feel so overwhelming that you just don’t want to do it. A way to help this is to ask a friend or family member to just come and sit in the room with you while you clean it. Even if they’re not actively helping you with the mess, just having them in the room to keep you company makes it easier to focus on them rather than how big the task of cleaning your room feels.
2. Make it into a game.
When you’re going to clean your room, make the task into something fun. When you find certain things, give yourself a reward system. Keep the task interesting by keeping yourself engaged in the game.
3. Focus on one thing at a time.
Focus on picking up all the garbage in your room, throw it away, and then pick another category of things to pick up. After the garbage has been cleared out, then bring all the dishes in your room to the kitchen. Then bring all the dirty laundry to the laundry room, and put all the clean laundry away. Once the laundry is taken care of, focus on cleaning up anything that doesn’t belong in your bedroom and put it back where it belongs. Once everything in that’s left are things that are meant to be in your room, put those things back where they belong. This technique keeps you focused on one part of cleaning at a time so that you don’t get overwhelmed.
4. Keep your space clean as you go along.
When you notice that your laundry basket is starting to overflow, do the laundry. If there’s a lot of cups or dishes in your room, bring them to the kitchen and do the dishes. Focus on creating healthy habits so you don’t find yourself feeling like your drowning in your mess in the future. It’s also important to cut yourself some slack with this, becasue you can’t change everything about yourself overnight, creating new healthy habits can be difficult so be patient.
5. Set manageable goals for yourself.
Depending on how messy your space has gotten, it may take a few days to clean it adequately. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to clean your entire house or room in a single day. If you think it’s reasonable to set the goal of cleaning your whole room in one day, then great do that, but if it’s not, don’t be disappointed in yourself or discouraged when it takes a few days to complete the task. The laundry machine can only work so quickly to finish washing and drying your clothes, and you can’t put them away and get fully organized until that’s done.
While cleaning your space may help with improving your life, you may also benefit from contacting one of our clinicians. To get in touch with one of our clinicians, click here.