Best Way to Cope with Depression during Bed Rest

It’s important to be aware of the signs of depression, so you can ask for help if you feel you’re experiencing the blues for extended periods. Bed rest shakes the optimism of even the emotionally sunniest. A health care professional should have the opportunity to determine if your blues warrant counseling, or whether antidepressants are required to help you through your pregnancy and bed rest.

Even if you don’t feel that you’re clinically depressed, you may have difficulty keeping up your morale. Take one day at a time. Think of yourself as living each moment to help your baby. Write a letter to your baby describing what you’re feeling and how much you love him or her. Write about who you are and who you will be in his or her life. Next, write a letter to yourself about how things are going and how you hope to make it through this difficult time. Open these letters when you feel the most frustrated with bed rest.

Keeping Control of Your Time

Feeling satisfaction at accomplishing things is very important to every­one’s mental health. Successful bed resters have found that creating a schedule for your days will help you manage your time and make you feel more productive. And conversely, feeling that you’re not getting anything done—even though helping your baby is getting something very important done—may lead you to blues and depression.

You may not be in charge of the fact that you are having a complica­tion that requires you to stay in bed, but you really are in charge of what you make of this situation, and you can turn it into a productive time. And you’ll feel better if you’re busy because it will help pass the time.

Get an appointment book with the days broken down by hours. Create a schedule for what you want to accomplish each day. Start with your daily wake-up time. Fill in your meal times and your time with children and spouse. Then write in other routine tasks such as a shower, hair care, and so on. Include times for work if you’ll be work­ing during bed rest. Schedule time for things you enjoy doing like read­ing or hobbies. Try to alternate tasks that use your brain and your body. You can even include deadlines if it challenges you to complete tasks. Review this daily schedule each morning and amend it to include unexpected but welcome visits from your mother or a friend, or a trip out of the house to the doctor’s.

Remember, you’re in charge! Keep in mind that this schedule is for you. If you find that you don’t want to do the selected thing in the time slot, shorten the time allotted or switch it to another time slot. And conversely, if you find you’re engrossed in your novel and want to keep reading beyond the hour allotted, by all means, do so.