8 Daily Practices That Will Help You Manage Seasonal Depression
By: Jasmine Torok
Tags: Habits, Wellness, Mental Health, Personal Development, Mindfulness

Lily Pad Flower

The universe is always trying to connect with us, saying “wake up, these mediocre habits you have, are not getting you to your full potential! Do you really think you were born to be average?”

Negative thoughts.

Working hard at work but not giving the same energy to our own projects.

Not taking the gym seriously.

Meat with every meal.

Numbing our emotions.

Where is the balance? And if you have lofty goals, it’s probably time for a lifestyle upgrade. As the seasons change, and goals change we face different mental battles and have to maintain some form of consistency to stay on top of our wellbeing in every aspect. This winter, time to deepen your connection with the universe and slowly implement daily practices that help you declutter the mind and make better decisions.

My Previous Mental Health Issues

After college in 2014, I hit a state of depression where I realized I didn’t like the way my life was structured. I was adaptable but didn’t like the new flow of rapid changes in the world around me. I also became anxious as I thought about how far technology could go if more females, people of color, and overall a diverse group of people didn’t play a part in creating it. The true nature of dark matter and thoughts about flying drones taking up too much air space, when in a fear-based mindset, do not go together. Oh, the rabbit holes you can go down when your brain is in a fear-based place.

It’s all different now that I am connected. I feel, I understand, I accept. Future technology would provide data to make us more efficient human beings. It’s more about the person than the technology. Living in purpose, with full trust in the Universe, allows me to work with the full belief in everything happens for a reason. What a difference a state of mind can make in your human experience.

Ego Deaths and Mental Illness

A lot of these ego deaths, mental breakdowns, and overall “stress” is because we lack the vision of the bigger picture and trust in the Universe at large. Lack of understanding gives us a false sense of time so we create anxiety around thoughts of having to do this thing called life alone.

Hitting rock bottom, whether it is a physical, emotional, mental or spiritual rock bottom, is a way for the higher power (light, God, Universe, Source) to jump-start us into taking charge of our own lives and turn all the potential within to diligent practice for positive impact in the world around us.

My life now is about propelling evolution daily, being patient with my journey, accepting the good and the bad moments as lessons and checkpoints. I saw what it felt like to be a prisoner of your own mind, and I will never let my behaviors, thoughts, and actions take me back to that place. And you shouldn’t want to either.

Here are 8 lifestyle changes that will allow you to treat your mind and body better, develop empathy, and find peace in every season, situation, and environment.

The 8 Lifestyle Changes

Though Reviews Whole Food Plant-Based Lifestyle Daily Movement Meditation Sungazing Fasting Compassion Buffer Journaling

Thought Reviews

Thoughts are the first physical principle part of the human experience. A thought can make you stay in your room for 3 days because you think you look disgusting or influence you to start learning how to code so you can build a billion-dollar app that transforms how people do their taxes.

Everything starts at the level of thought. This is why guarding our thoughts, monitoring them, and making sure we are vibrating at a high frequency is essential for abundance and alignment. All sickness, disorder, disease, and stress is a form of disorder in the body. Some thoughts need to be reworked, habits need to be adjusted and actions need to be carried out.

Dr. Steven Melmeis’s work was my first introduction to conducting a negative thought review through his work in cognitive behavioral therapy. Jen Sincero, in the book You Are a Badass at Making Money also does a thought review to change your money mindset.

Here is a negative thought review for you to use as a mental checklist and questionnaire whenever you have a new or repetitive thought that no longer serves you.

Source: https://iwanttochangemylife.org/cbt/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-guide.htm#thought-record

Whole Food Plant-Based Lifestyle

A whole food plant-based lifestyle allows for shorter digestion times to better manage emotions and thoughts in real-time It helps with less accumulated toxicity for the cells to become more oxygenated By eating lighter foods closer to the true power source of the earth and everything we are, the sun

Daily Movement

Release toxicity that accumulates just from existing Train the body to be agile and functional Release the feel-good hormones helps to combat the common sedentary lifestyle we’ve adopted

Meditation

This allows for a quiet mind to receive more direction from intuition Meditation gives the brain time to problem solve more efficiently with effective use of the subconscious mind You being to develop empathy and separate thought from emotion

More Time In The Sun

We are solar-powered and can take in sunlight through our pineal gland and third eye We crave the sun, it’s the ultimate high energy healer Without the sun our solar system couldn’t exist Moderate sunlight will boost our immune system and boost overall health

Fasting

Abstaining from food or drink for short periods of time allows more space for energy to be used to heal the toxic parts of the body Food habits in America have become excessive and this can help bring you back to your own personal baseline Productivity increases tenfold when you fast The human growth hormone, which affects cell regeneration in the human body, is produced more when fasting Fasting lets you see who you really are without the numbing effect of food that vibrates lower than or some physical psychoactive alteration

Compassion Buffer

In the book How To Love, Thich Nhat Hahn said to love means to understand If everything is happening for us, then we can view the bad moments as a lesson through the eyes of compassion

Journaling

What is your brain like outside of your brain? Meaning if you write down your thoughts and pain points and view them externally, what’s your brain like without the pain Journaling helps remove the emotional attachment to certain neurological processes and gives you space to view them from a neutral or positive standpoint Doing check and balances with a journal has proven to be super effective compared to staying in your head

Conclusion

To study the human body and human energy in detail is a pretty large task but it helps you go from disease, to ease, to superhuman quicker. I hope you are able to implement some of these daily practices and remember that peace starts within. If you found this helpful please share the article with someone who might benefit from this list. And if you are celebrating happy holidays!