Snowball effect

The great thing about being stable right now is that the positive things I do to stay stable start building on each other, and I have had some lifestyle changes.

I have always tried to do some simple activity and exercise every day. It gets hard when I am experiencing depression, but I always try. Now that I am stable, I find myself WANTING to get outside and do something. I have been taking the dogs for several walks a day, and taking longer walks at a faster pace. It feels good. I have even been talking about going back to exercising in a gym again.

I try to limit the amount of junk food I eat. When I'm depressed, I often want to binge eat. Excess sugar and caffeine can provide extra energy and worsen ADHD symptoms. Now that I am stable, I find myself watching what kind of food I eat even more, and eatibg healthier - and doing so is easier. I have spent some time this evening looking for new recipes to try, as I plan on reviving something we used to do - "Meatless Mondays". For several years, we made it a point to have a dinner meal that was vegetarian every Monday. Recently, I had lost interest in that. Stability brought me back to healthy habits.

I have always tried to force myself to have healthy sleep habits. Changes in sleep occur in both phases of bipolar, with depression increasing desire to sleep, and mania decreasing it. I find healthy sleeping habits easier to maintain right now. I have been going to bed at regular times, and I haven't been sleeping in excessively on my days off.

The great thing about these, and other, changes in my desire and ability to maintain these habits right now, is that these are all things I use to try to alleviate my symptoms when I am symptomatic. Doing them when I am this stable makes it that much easier to deal with the mild symptoms that have been presenting occasionally. Decreasing the frequency and severity of the symptoms that do occur means that I will still be maintaining my healthy habits. Again, maintaining those habits further minimizes symptoms.

This cycle starts to snowball, with good habits helping with symptoms, which helps with habits, which helps symptoms - it starts cycling and snowballing and growing.

This morning, I had some anxiety and depressive features, but found fighting it off, and getting up and moving, easier than it was the last time that I felt that way. The habits I have created to make myself move when my symptoms are crushing and suffocating me - they give me the ability to deal with these symptoms much more easily than I used to.

I am sure my symptoms will still appear here and there, in varying severity and frequency. But with my current habits, fighting off the milder ones won't drain me and take so much energy and effort.

I am feeling good. I have been feeling good for a couple weeks. I think the worst of this is over for now. It feels good to be back to "normal" again.