Last updated 3/17/2025
Changing habits is hard. That’s why they’re called habits. And…
Some habits promote depression, like sleeping too much. Reversing that habit — like sleeping less, about 7-8 hours — can have an antidepressant effect. Not guaranteed. But most life-changes like this are good for you in other ways. So it’s like you can’t lose: either your depression or anxiety will improve, or at least you’ll be and feel healthier.
Easy to say, hard to do. Here are some self-change steps that could have the biggest effect on your mood, with some ideas on how to actually make those changes on your own. (If that doesn’t work, a therapist can help you with them).
Sleep
Sleeping too much can cause or increase depression. How much is too much? In general, most people need about 7-8 hours per night, although a few people are different, needing a bit more or less.
Changing your sleep could be a good place to start if you’re now sleeping 10 or 12 or more hours per night. While you’re at it, you can try for a very regular schedule, which is a “mood stabilizer” for people with episodic or mixed depression. And ideally, unless you work swing or night shifts, your wake-up time should be related to sunrise: getting in synch with the sun’s daily rhythm can make this whole sleep change thing easier.
So, there’s your goal: about 7-8 hours of sleep, with a regular bedtime and a regular rise time, getting up somewhere near sunrise. If you’re pretty close to that already, maybe pick another self-change goal. Otherwise, let’s look at how you can move toward this one.
Changing your sleep
Take two steps (not to make it sound easy; this can be very hard, I know): a regular rise time, and a regular bedtime. I’ve made whole page and video that walks through each step. Or here’s an outline, then some specifics.
- Regular rise time
- small steps
- alarms
- dawn simulators
- other tricks
- Regular bedtime
- sleep hygiene, yeah yeah yeah
- why people stay up late
- what to do with your mind
- using darkness
- cheating: “virtual darkness”
Here we go. First, a regular rise time. Take small steps if you’re now sleeping way more than 7-8 hours. Maybe 15 minutes less per night, using an alarm to wake you up. This can be challenging even if you’re not depressed, because you’re working against what your body expects. But when depressed, your body wants to sleep even more (most people). So if you’re having a hard time moving by 15 minute steps, try 5 minutes less per night.
Alarms: anything will do. Soft music is okay, if it wakes you up. But ah, no snooze, okay? Right, no snooze alarm. You just gotta get up when the alarm goes off. This could be the hardest part, changing that snooze habit.
What, you’re not getting up? Time to trick yourself: go to Goodwill or someplace and buy another cheap alarm clock. Set it for a minute after your first alarm. And put it farther away: across the room, or in the bathroom. If that doesn’t work, and you won’t bother family or housemates, buy another one, and put it even farther away, down the hall or in the kitchen.
Dawn simulators: one of my favorite tools. These are more expensive than a cheap alarm clock, but only about $30 or so. Dawn simulators turn on a light beside your bed, gradually over about 30 minutes, “simulating dawn”. This happens while you’re still asleep. The light reaches your eyes through your closed eyelid and whispers gently, “wake up, it’s daaay-time”. So by the time your alarm goes off, your body is already getting ready to stop sleeping.
Magic, those dawn simulators. They don’t work for everybody. But hey, it’s cheap compared to seeing someone for an antidepressant pill or seeing a therapist, and even better, it’s harmless. Not too many treatments are cheap and harmless and actually work better than a placebo. Even fish oil, which is better than a placebo, will cost you about the same after a few months.
Last, some other tricks (which I learned from my patients). First, when the alarm goes off, you get out of bed and while standing right there, immediately make the bed, all nice and tidy. Maybe some cute extra pillows on top — so that you will have to tear it apart to get back in! Then, begin some routine activity you always do next. Put on some clothes (not just a bathrobe, right? You’re getting up for the day now). Maybe make some coffee (even de-caf will do; this is about the ritual, not the chemical — although for millions of people around the world, the caffeine helps too. If your body can handle it; some can’t).
And finally, whatcha gonna do? Why are you up, and standing, with your clothes on? It would be great to have a routine thing to do now. Make food for someone, including a healthy breakfast for yourself, or a lunch for later (food is love, they say). Even better, some physical activity.
Activity
Go to your door and open it, with your shoes on. Walk in any direction for 5 minutes, then back. That’s a start (recommended by Harvard mood specialists). Maybe put music or a podcast in your ears. If you can get started like this, then later you might increase the distance, or speed.
The point is to start with a small increase in physical activity, small enough that it’s actually within reach. Not some big exercise plan. As one fellow joked: “Go to the gym, but don’t go in. Just walk to the gym, and walk home.”
Later, if this plan is really working for you and you’d like to increase your exercise, you can use the same approach with some other activity: a tiny bit of resistance work, for example, right in your own house. One or two push-ups on your knees, then stop. But do it again the next day, and the next. Then later increase to 3, then 5. Then add bicep curls with a can of tomato sauce in each hand: 5 times. Later, 8 to 10 times.
All this is not a life-long commitment, it’s just to treat your depression. When you’re better you can decide how you want to handle routine physical activity. But right now is a good time to really try to be regular with whatever you are doing. Like every day; and for sure, don’t wait to feel like doing it. You almost certainly won’t. Do it anyway because it’s your new routine, for a while.
You don’t need a coach. You might want to mark on a calendar when you begin each one of these steps, so you can see: “hey, look, I’ve really got this, I’ve really made it a regular thing, look how long I’ve been doing it.”
Remember: a regular physical activity program is very difficult to start and continue. Many people try this and don’t succeed. Doing it when you’re depressed is much harder. You might need some help.
People
Can you arrange to walk with someone? This is hard to arrange, in our modern world. Okay, maybe just have coffee once a week. Maybe you could find two or three people with whom you could meet regularly once a week. Now you have three times a week of regular social connection: that could be a huge help with mood. Because people are antidepressants too. Well, most people, unless they’re pretty depressed themselves. Which brings us to the next idea.
Meaning
So you’re now trying to get up at a regular time every morning, great. What for? What’s the point of being up, today? For most people, that’s a hard question. But there’s one simple way to have a ready answer: help someone else. Volunteer somewhere, if you already have a job that doesn’t involve helping people very directly. Most towns and almost all churches have a volunteer program of some kind.
Better yet, these volunteer gigs often put you in contact with other people. So if you’re a regular volunteer, you can have regular social contact, brilliant.
Yes, there is more to the meaning of life than a few paragraphs on a website, that’s true. If this is where you’re struggling (as many of us have, and do), and you don’t have a trusted friend(s) to talk with, a therapist might be able to help you here.
Food
You probably already know this one. Some foods are better than others for health. And… there’s one to watch out for especially, in terms of mood: simple sugars. Yeah yeah, you can try to “eat healthy” in a lot of other ways too, but sugar is one to start with.
There are all sorts of studies now linking glucose — and the insulin release that it stimulates — with mood. The body chemistry is pretty complex (said I to myself, thinking about how much detail to go into here). How about if we just say “look, everybody knows what a healthy diet looks like. Head in that direction, just a little bit.”
More important is to make a small change you can sustain. Cut out the soda drinks, for example (if you must, substitute — for now — a zero-calorie version. You can taper that later). Whatever you choose, it’s probably more important to feel successful with the change you make than exactly what change that is. One success can lead to another. Don’t bite off too big a change (so to speak; sorry), because a big slip backward can be a mood set-back as well.
Summary and Links
Remember, these self-change steps are hard to do for most people who aren’t depressed. But if you can do this on your own, that’s great. You can maybe get yourself out of this depression, or at least up a notch or two, without any help — or cost in time or money. (Maybe just that dawn simulator…)
LInks