5 MINUTES AT A TIME

Time is all about perspective.  There are 1,440 minutes in a day.  Consider these perspectives:

* If you work an 8-hour day and like your job, 480 minutes goes pretty quickly.  However, if you don't like your job, it seems like an eternity.
* If you sit in classroom for an hour and listen to a teacher with a monotone voice, 60 minutes is a long time.  However, if the teacher is funny and interesting, 60 minutes goes fast.
* If you are giving birth without any anesthesia and they tell you just 5 more minutes, those 5 minutes can be torcher, literally.

We hear so often people say 'one day at a time'.  It's not a bad statement.  It's actually very applicable and biblical.  It's means just deal with today.  Although through my experience, a day with depression can be an extremely long day and excruciating day!!!

First of all, many of us with depression do not want to get out of bed.  If you have to work, run errands, take care of the kids, etc., the day seems way longer than 1,440 minutes.  If you are depressed and you don't want others to know, you not only have to push through the day, you have to put a mask on and fake like everything is okay which, I feel, makes time go slower.

The days we can't get out of the house to do errands and/or can't bring ourselves to get out of bed, one hour might as well be 24 hours.  I titled this "5 minutes at a time" for a reason.  In the deeper depression times when it feels like you are walking through quicksand to get through the day, sometimes 5 minutes is all you can focus on.  In those times, changing our perspective from one day to 5 minutes at a time is more helpful.  Heck, set a timer to help you focus on one thing and once it goes off, you can say "I made it".  It may sound so silly, but it is not for those of us who have or are experiencing depression.  We need all the encouragement we can get.  So focus on 5 minutes and then congratulate yourself and use that as encouragement to say "I can do another 5".