How to Get Out of Bed When You Have Depression

Getting out of bed is difficult, here are some tips to kick start your day when you have depression. While appearing sad is the hallmark of depression it is not the crux of the condition. One of the symptoms is extreme fatigue, especially in the morning.

Groan

Step one groan. Groan seven to ten times. This does a number of things. It signals to your sub-personalities that the ego has decided it is time to get up. What is a sub-personality? It's a continuous region of brain matter that acts on given inputs independently making decisions and doing actions autonomously. In “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom,” Jonathan Haidt describes this part of the mind as an “elephant”, and your more active conscious mind as a “rider”.

The rider is trumpeting to the elephant it's time to get up! Additionally, this pumps lots of air through your system to raise your blood oxygen levels to help boost that will power.

Wiggle your pinky

Yes, we are going “Kill Bill Vol 1” here, because this technique works. Depression can be physical psychological or both. When it is psychological in nature your sense of control over a situation is lost. A person repeatedly tries to get self-autonomy in a situation and fails. At this point, you have a metaphorical cat monster sitting on your chest so a drop of control over the situation is going to go a long way.

Repeatedly Make a Fist

Make a fist over and over and squeeze. Your heart does the blood pumping in most cases but let's help it out a tiny little bit. Manually raise your blood pressure up a little bit using a different muscle. You can use your legs even.

If you are really into it move your legs like you are running. Really get into it. Or maybe you are kicking something that is frustrating you, just make those muscle contractions.

Inhale Heavily and Rapidly

Take many big breaths as fast as possible stretching your diaphragm out! You have got it now! Try to sit up or maybe just throw the covers off of you. Again we are increasing heart rate to flush your brain of those molecules that make you feel bad.

Make a worthless goal

Make a goal to make it to the bathroom, maybe to lay on the floor. The point is here not to think ahead. Do not think ahead just yet. Having goals in life is important, things that motivate us as humans; but at the same time failure and feeling restrained can rob us of all the happiness we feel. With this mental exercise, you are picking an immediate doable thing, doing it, and succeeding immediately. First thing in the morning you are trying to have a simple win to kick your day off. That win is making it to the bathroom from the bed.

Once in the bathroom feel free to lay on the floor and groan so more. Just make sure to brush your teeth, drink some water, and take care of your hygiene.

Lay on the floor beside your bed

Back to goals, this time we want to make your bed, but you are depressed so one step, one real short-sighted step at a time. With your energyless body, reach up from the floor and pull some of the covers to the edge of the bed.

Next, groan, wiggle, huff, puff, and get up again. This is a great time to let out screams of general life frustration like a childish animal in the privacy of your home.

Make your bed

Finish what you started and finish making your bed. Give yourself a free success. A win is a hit of serotonin and excitement about life. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors only work if there is serotonin in your system to inhibit from being retaken up (and removed). So make some cheaply by just making your bed. Look you already started and have achieved partial success, or total success if you do not move much in your sleep.

Plan

When you feel stuck throughout the day, make simple worthless micro-step plans. “Move your chair”, “take a step”, “take another step”, “walk across the room”, “get some water”, “drink the water”. Super tiny goals. Take things one moment at a time.

Validate your feelings

Say how you feel, aloud if possible. Saying how you feel notifies your whole mind to be cognizant of the fact. If you are feeling angry about something and you are not fully cognizant of that it can manifest in toxic ways. The same goes for other emotions such as sadness, anxiety, and frustration.

Simply give yourself an update on how you are feeling. This validation can give you a sense of contentment that the most important person in your life, you, knows and acknowledges how you feel.

… even if it is totally and absolutely helplessly depressed.