What's a daily routine you can complete to reduce depression?

1. Meditate: One of the first things I did was head to a yoga class. It took my focus away from my thoughts and brought my attention to my breath. 2. Smile: stand in front of a mirror force yourself to smile. It really does help change your mood and relieve stress. I also felt lighter because it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown. 3. Surround yourself with positive people: When you’re stuck in a negative spiral, talk to people who can put things into perspective and won’t feed your negative thinking. 4. Change the tone of your thoughts from negative to positive: For example, instead of thinking, “We are going to have a hard time adjusting to our living situation,” think, “We will face some challenges in our living situation, but we will come up with solutions that we will both be happy with.” 5. Don’t play the victim. You create your life—take responsibility: Even if our living situation becomes unbearable, there is always a way out. I will always have the choice to make change happen, if need be. 6. Help someone: Take the focus away from you and do something nice for another person. It will take your mind off of things and you will feel better for helping someone else. 7. Remember that no one is perfect and let yourself move forward: It’s easy to dwell on your mistakes. I felt terrible that I acted this way and that I wasted our weekend. The only thing I can do now is learn from my mistakes and move forward. I definitely don’t want to have a weekend like that again. 8. Sing: When we sing, we show our feelings and this provides an amazing stress relief. 9. List five things that you are grateful for right now: Being grateful helps appreciate what you already have. 10. Read positive quotes: Use Post-It notes with positive quotes on my computer, fridge door, and mirror as reminders to stay positive. Also, I’d like to share with you a quote by an unknown author; Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. Happy positive thinking! And also try go through 7cups Self Help Guide on Depression there are things you can do there too https://www.7cups.com/depression-help-online/

I personally try to compare my short term satisfaction with my long term satisfaction. Often this comes in forms of "needs"and "wants". My needs are listed like chores and like a large "To Do" list written on a whiteboard. I can see this from my desk right now. So I don't forget what Ive done partly, but also, it lets me manifest my own changes from "needs" - that its, the things I NEED to do (washing, shower, tidying, University work etc etc) and then into "Wants". I do this by giving myself points for each task on my whiteboard I complete and remind myself that I did something I needed to do - even if on a bad day it's putting on some laundry or calling my Dad, these might be one point each, but it still goes up there and is tallied up in a box on the corner of the board. Then added up to the end of the week. (Bigger successes might get me more points - i.e. "Passed Driving test +20!!!) Finally, I put these in my WANTS book. These are a huge list of things I want to do (short or long term) and each week I'll try and do that - it might just be send a postcard or learn to do something but it makes me feel better and keeps me busy and motivated to do new things.

One way that sometimes can help to reduce emotional distress is by practising compassion. Self-compassion can help you to cope with your mental anguish better by not experiencing your depression as a failure or something to be ashamed of. Secondly, by being compassionate towards others and taking the focus away from what’s wrong in our lives can help us to be less self-obsessed. As the Dalai Lama has written, “When we worry less about ourselves, the experience of our own suffering is less intense.” Concern for others also reminds us that we are not alone with our problems, and that others may have even greater difficulties. Thus, compassion helps us to put our own difficulties into perspective. In addition, the very act of connecting with others in a compassionate way enhances our lives in a very positive way. When we are caught up in our own anxieties and longings we are not fully able to connect with others and so our experience is impoverished. So, compassion develops our readiness to offer relief to the suffering of others while reducing the importance of our own problems.

Wake up with a smile on your face telling yourself its gonna be a great day today and a happy one for you. Then live it happily, Do the things you enjoy the most.. and trying to complete the goals you always wanted to achieve little by little each day, spend time making others happy as well and then at the end of the day, give yourself a self care reward for the awesome things you did, relax and write down everything you did to improve your life today and be excited for tomorrow!

One task to do daily that helps with depression is making you bed. If you make your bed after you wake up it not only makes you feel better that you completed a cleaning task but it also reduces your urge to lay in your bed all day which helps a lot when wanting to reduce depression.

Always wake up at a decent time, shower and get dressed. Eating a healthy breakfast will benefit you as well. On top of that, working out will be very good for you.

you can try and find a positive aspect of each day, whether it may be good weather, a person saying hello to you, your outfit/appearance, anything

You can't really reduce depression on your own, but you can help yourself in some ways. In my case having a hobby was a great escape. Getting into something and forgetting, even for a while, about depression.

I think it depends largely on your situation, what makes you happy, why you are depressed, a multitude of factors. Just like medications, and therapies, and other forms of depression treatment, no one daily routine is the cure all for everyone with depression. That being said, I can give you some tips on things I've used during daily routines that you can mix and match into yours to see what works for you. Something I've found really helpful is taking time for yourself when you wake up in the morning. Take an extra few minutes, however long you can spare, and just focus on yourself. Identify how you feel, smile even if you don't feel like it (it's proven that smiling when you don't want to will make you feel better anyway even if it's just a bit), do breathing exercises, meditation, browse a funny picture site on your phone. Start self care early, put yourself before anything or anyone else. Second bit of advice would be to EAT BREAKFAST. It really is the most important meal of the day, and eating regularly and healthily will improve your moods. Getting exercise is important as well and it's not about losing weight, or getting buff/toned, or whatever else, it's simply because it's good for you, so making exercise a part of self care can make it more fun. Exercise doesn't have to be grueling, it can be yoga, or just dancing in your room, or a relaxing bike ride. Getting those endorphins pumping everyday or at least every few, though, will help improve your mood. And most importantly for improving your mood, you need to spend time doing things you enjoy, which can be hard sometimes when you have depression because it can sap your love of hobbies and activities you once liked. But if you loved it at one point, try it anyway. If it's something fun and relaxing, take a half hour a day and try it anyway. I'm also going to just throw in, you need to get out of bed even on days when you don't want to. Last but not least, make sure you build a good support system. Use websites like this regularly if you find they help you, seek counseling, find support groups in your area. It's important to feel you aren't alone, because otherwise it can be impossible to find the motivation to fight this.

I don't have a set daily schedule, but I do know that the most important things in helping your depression is eating right, sleeping enough, exercising, drinking plenty of water, and taking any necessary medication/vitamins! Going outside and getting some sun everyday is nice too! Find a schedule that works for you and try to find someone that can hold you accountable for it. If you need motivation doing things like eating or exercising, get someone to do those things with you! Everything is more fun with friends/family.