User:Hello-titania/sandbox

Starting Small
Mental illness can sap away all of your energy, making it difficult to accomplish anything and leading to feelings of frustration and helplessness. While it's impossible to "just snap out of it", you have the power to improve, regardless of the severity and persistence of your illness.

The key to achieving tangible, long-term improvements is, counter-intuitively, to make many small changes instead of large, dramatic ones. Small changes are easier to wrap your head around and easier to accomplish; with each small change you successfully implement, you'll gain confidence and motivation, increasing your ability to make additional small changes. Over time, these small changes add up, slowly but surely pushing you closer to where you want to be, and further from where you currently are. Eventually, you'll look back and realize that all your small changes have added up to large ones, achieving what can't be done by trying to fix everything at once.

You might want to make use of some of the strategies for players who can't do tasks reliably on Dailies—especially when starting out.

Taking Care of Yourself
The first step in this process is learning how to take care of yourself. When you are at your worst, it can be difficult to muster the energy to do even basic things, such as eating or bathing regularly. Improving your self-care is essential to being able to tackle larger problems. In other words, taking care of yourself is the foundation of your journey to self-sufficiency and happiness. But where to start? There are many examples provided below. Regardless of what change you choose to try, it's important that you do it on a regular schedule, to increase the effect it has on your habits. Remember, when starting out, focus on changing only one thing at a time, even if you would like to improve all of these areas. Once you feel you have one change under control, add another, and once you have both under control, add another, and so on.

Sleep
Not enough and/or low-quality sleep degrades your mental health, making proper sleep an essential part of your recovery. These are some small changes that can help you improve your sleeping:
 * Set a time to go to bed or wake up every morning. You don't need to set these simultaneously; it is perfectly valid to start by changing just one, and then changing the other after the first has been mastered.
 * Have a set time every night that you stop using digital screens. If you find it difficult to resist the urge, remove all screens from your room at a set time every night.
 * Read a good book. There are many different articles about the benefits of reading before bed, especially in place of using electronics.
 * Learn how to meditate. Meditation can be a very effective way to help calm the mind and body.

Hygiene
Keeping yourself clean keeps you healthy, which feeds back into your mental health. You can: The Make it through the day challenge from The Basics guild may be helpful here.
 * Brush and floss your teeth once a day (twice a day if you can manage)
 * Take a quick shower each day or every other day. Or if that's too difficult, wash your face and armpits with a damp washcloth.

Exercise
Don't worry, you don't need to start by running a marathon! Just getting yourself moving a little bit, to begin with, can make a big difference. Try to get outside at least once a day, even if it's just standing in the doorway. If you're feeling up for it, take a short walk for five minutes, or just to the end of the block. You can also: The Exercise challenge from The Basics guild may be helpful here.
 * Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
 * Intentionally park in spots far from the entrance to a building.
 * Stand up and stretch for a minute or so every hour.
 * Practice standing on one foot. There has been a lot of study about the benefits of balance related exercises.

Diet
Eating unhealthily (or not enough) has a negative effect on your physical health, which leads to a negative effect on your mental health. The FOOD challenge may be helpful for those with eating disorders involving under-eating and the Eat Right! or 3 Meals a Day challenges may be helpful for people trying to ensure they eat three meals a day.
 * If you eat too much, replace some of your unhealthy snacks with healthier ones, such as your favorite fruit or nuts.
 * If you don't eat enough, commit to eating at least one full meal each day.

Medication
If you have medication prescribed (be it on a regular dose, taken when needed, or both), taking this promptly can make a huge difference to your health. But it can be difficult with mental health conditions, especially if the medication has side effects. The [https://habitica.com/challenges/0daa6a48-866b-44e6-ba5f-b74bac8903ae Take your meds! challenge] may be helpful here.
 * If you have medication that is taken when needed, it helps to notice sooner rather than later that you need it. Creating a Habit can encourage this behavior.
 * For regular medication, you may want to have one (or more) Dailies to encourage you to take medication regularly.

Social Contact
It is very easy to become isolated when you struggle with anxiety and depression. Trying to make sure you have at least some social contact each day, even if it's online, can be valuable in combating this.

Again, what's important is that you make one change, and commit to doing it every day. The easiest way to do that in Habitica is to create a Daily for the change you're trying to make. Additionally, you can join The Basics guild, which is full of Habiticans struggling with the same issues and helping each other. You may also find help in the Mentally Ill guild. You may find some relatively simple challenges helpful such as the Critical Goals and Healthy Mental Habits challenge from the Black Ribbon Guild.

Mental Health Habits
Another option is to tackle your problems more directly, and try to consciously change how you think. There are many methods to do this, some of which are listed below.

Gratitude
When depressed, it's easy to think that there is nothing good about your life. To combat this, at the end of each day, list three things that you are grateful for, or three good things that happened that day. This may be difficult at first but, over time, you'll improve. Taking the time for self-reflection and gratitude can improve your outlook on life, increasing your level of self-satisfaction and lowering the effects of anxiety and depression. Witnessing someone else's gratitude, such as by reading a list of things someone is grateful for or listening to an anecdote with a grateful message, can feel encouraging and help you think of your own lists and stories. The Good Things Today guild is dedicated to this and has a supportive environment. You may also find the Achieve, Accomplish, Aspire guild helpful; it is similar to the Good Things Today guild and runs a monthly challenge based on posting 2 things completed and 1 goal for tomorrow each day.

Another method that can be used in Habitica to increase your gratitude is the Happy List Challenge. The challenge is simple: just make a list of ten things that make you happy, then do at least one thing on the list every day. There should be a focus on small, achievable things, but you can include some big ones as well. To make it easier to complete at least one thing every day, see if you can make at least half of them cost little to no money. If you're having trouble thinking of a good list, you can head over to the Happy List Guild to see others' lists and receive help constructing yours.

You might also find it helpful to keep an inspiration book (physical or electronic) of positive and inspiring things. If so, the Distress Tolerance: Inspiration Book challenge from the Mastering Emotions (DBT Skills) guild may be helpful.

Meditation
Meditation isn't just for Buddhists; it can help calm anyone's mind, and it doesn't need to be the same for different people. There are lots of resources on meditation including the Mindfulness and Relaxation guild and its challenges. Taking the time and space to meditate (either as a regular Daily or as a Habit) can help clear your mind and help you become more grounded in the moment. It can be especially helpful if you notice warning signs of an attack of anxiety or depression. Meditation can be a form of stress management.

The Mastering Emotions (DBT Skills) guild focuses on meditation and techniques within dialectical behavior therapy including challenges on Deep Breathing and Calming Breaths.