Traumatic Experience Community Daily Check-in Friday 29th September 2017

Hello all i hope your enjoying a wonderful Friday. Istruggle with self care daily. It's hard for many, me included to understand why self care feels so hard to accomplish. I must write out checklist stating brush teeth, take a shower and clean room. But if we take a look at this situation as being a neurobiological issue in the frontal lobes it may make better sense. I was reading Deborah Serani Psy.D. Why Self-Care is Hard for Depressed Individuals. Understanding how frontal lobe dysfunction impairs self-care. Deborah Serani Psy.D. wrote Looking after yourself, or self-care, is vital to physical, emotional and mental well-being. Self-care is best defined as the ability to take proper care of your daily living needs, like eating, sleeping, grooming. In short, self-care is care provided for you, by you. But when you live with depression, self-care can sometimes feel unattainable. You're tired, listless, with feelings of despair and corrosive thoughts that push and shove in an endless tug-of-war within you. Often, depression leaves you feeling like your physical and emotional reactivity has been siphoned off, draining you of the ability to look after yourself.

Research says there's a neurobiological reason for this—and it has to do with the brain structure known as the frontal lobes. This area is responsible for executive functioning—a set of skills that involves problem solving, judgment and reasoning, just to name a few. Depression has long been associated with dysfunction of the frontal lobes, so it's not a surprise that people with depression find it hard to self-care.

Symptoms of Dysfunction in Frontal Lobes

Adults who are depressed frequently have trouble doing many of the following things listed below, all of which are executive functioning skills. It's important that depressed people realize, as well as family and friends of loved ones who are depressed, that having trouble with self-care is not due to laziness, or not trying hard enough or from weakness. The issue here is significant brain dysfunction that impairs self-care success. When dysfunction occurs in the frontal lobes, these skills become impaired:Attention

Decision making

Emotional control

Emotional functioning

Foresight

Flexible thinking

Insight

Judgment

Planning and prioritizing

Reasoning

Recall

Self-monitoring

Willpower

Wisdom

Working memory

It's important that we make a self care List . Start off small. Depression can be hard to overcome at first. It's all about taking baby steps. Make a goal to get out of bed. Next, aim to take a shower and putting on your clothes for the day. By reaching these smaller goals we may break away from the grasp of our depression. Our objective is to reach a more active state. Another activity we could try is making a cup of coffee for yourself. Think of these tasks as a link in a chain. Keep following along only one step at a time. Adding bigger goals as you reach the smaller ones. This will help you to heal. As the Depression lifts, you'll be able to do more activities like exercise, school or work.

Be sure to feed your five senses when you live with a chronic illness. Depression is a state of utter depletion. Recovery happens sooner when you take the time to see, feel, hear, taste and touch. Listen to some music that makes you want to dance. Walk barefooted in the grass. Get a hug from someone you love. Breath in the fresh air outside on a sunny day. Find an activity that soothes you. By doing these things you're boosting your frontal lobe functioning.

Once your depression has lessened keeping a routine and being mindful will allow you to stick with self care checklist.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201702/why-self-care-is-hard-depressed-individuals%3famp

I want to give all credit to my co-runner of Friday check ins @SoftForestHSP67 she couldn't post due to technical issues xx love you all *hugs*

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