All over the Web, you’ll find people advising you to “break your routines”. It has become a kind of popular meme: it keeps cropping up on improve-yourself sites, and even buzzes around on Twitter. You want to be more creative? Happier? More productive? Change your life for the better? Well, this is offered as the simple answer: “Break your routines!”
And you know what? In its vague generality, this wisdom is wrong as often as it is true. If you are suffering from depression, a general advice to “break your routines” can even be dangerous.
Let me make a few simple points. But first, let’s define what a “routine” is.
A routine is a regular habit that has become something you keep repeating almost automatically, without the need of making difficult decisions or giving it much thought.
This has both advantages and disadvantages. A routine can be time- and energy-saving, and can help you to maintain a kind of supportive, structuring schedule. On the other hand, it can also become a dull, boring kind of rut, a mindless repetition that can keep you from doing or discovering something new.
Those who indiscriminately preach the “break your routines” gospel seem to look mostly at the latter (the disadvantages of routines) while forgetting about the first (the advantages). Sometimes it looks like these people think every routine is bad by itself, just because it’s a routine. This is evidently not true.
My Points:
Point 1: There are good routines (like taking a healthy walk every morning) and bad routines (like smoking a packet of cigarettes every day). Breaking a good routine may be unwise, while breaking a bad routine may be a good idea.
Point 2: Obviously it is not wise to break some bad routine only to replace it by a worse routine, for example if you break a daily routine of smoking marijuana only to land in a new daily routine of using heroin. So we should always take into consideration exactly what activity, if any, will replace the broken routine.
Point 3: No routine is all-bad or completely-good: every routine has its own disadvantages, but also its own rewards. This goes even for a bad routine like smoking. So when we are about to break a routine, we should always rationally weigh the cons against the pros: if missing the rewards will leave us in a much worse over-all situation than before, then breaking the routine makes little sense.
Point 4: What is a good routine for one person in one situation, can be a bad routine for another person in another situation. For example, regular jogging may be a good routine for many of us, but it may be a bad one if you happen to have a heart condition.
Point 5: A severe depression tends to break your routines anyway, without replacing them with other routines. This reduces your days to one gray amorphous shapeless mass (like, you stay in bed for most of the time, giving up on whatever used to be your daily routines).
This last point is of course why, when your depression is bad enough to land you in a psychiatry ward, the staff will first of all try to re-establish some very basic routines with you. Simple daily things like taking a shower, eating a breakfast and so on.
Example
Taken together, the above points mean that a general advice to “break your routines” makes little sense: there are too many things we need to consider first, for each particular case.
Let me take an example from an online list, the “Ten ways to routinely break your routine” list. Many websites seem to have literally copied this same list from each other (see a random sample here). One of the general tips in this popular list is: “Avoid wasting time. Don’t watch television.”
Well, this is a typical example of Point 4 above: a bad routine in one situation, can be a good routine in another situation. A routine of watching TV for some hours each day may be bad if you have the energy to do more demanding, more productive things. But watching TV can actually be a fairly good routine if you are suffering from severe depression.
Depression usually brings concentration problems; when you are very depressed you may often lack the focus to read a book or play a game. Watching TV is a less demanding routine that (at least for a while) may distract you, shift your focus a little, make you forget your depressed mood for a moment. At least (here we have Point 2) it’s much better than the alternative of just sitting and brooding.
Don’t Break: Bend
Of course this does not mean that we should leave every routine as it is. The “break your routines” people are right when they say that a routine can also become a dull, boring kind of rut, can keep you from doing or discovering new things. It can be good, very good, to discard an old routine and replace it with something else.
But when you are very depressed, this is often asking too much from yourself. In a situation of depression, your first goal should rather be to keep your normal routines in place, to prevent depression from erasing them all, leaving you with nothing but a black hole.
And your second goal should be to gradually bend your routines a little, not breaking them but bending them just enough to remind you that you’re alive, that it’s still you making the decisions, that new things still can happen.
If one of the routines that help you to keep your depression at bay is watching TV, don’t abruptly break that routine. Just bend it a little. So if you routinely watch South Park or Simpsons cartoons for most of the time, try switching to a National Geographic documentary for a change. And if this doesn’t work, just switch back!
Or if your weekend shopping routine includes walking the same route through the same supermarket picking up the same items almost on autopilot, bend that routine a little by trying another supermarket where you don’t know the exact location of everything. This asks for a little more energy and effort, but it also means that you’ll do your shopping routine in a more “mindful”, conscious way.
• summary: In a situation of deep depression, your main concern should not be to break your routines, but rather to maintain your routines. They can serve as part of the framework that (hopefully) keeps you going.
In such a case, over-ambitious routine-breaking goals can leave you with a depressing void instead of new impulses.
Of course variation is nice, as is doing things in a more conscious, “mindful” way. But in a depression, it’s safer to gradually bend existing routines, not trying to break them.
May 25, 1965 –
Well, I’m guilty. Definitely. I give the advice of breaking routines to everyone who seems even remotely depressed to me.
When you see the same things and the same people every day, and you do the same actions without actually even thinking about them anymore, every day, how can you expect to fell better?
Sleeping all day is a routine too. Hanging on the couch in front of the TV is a routine too. It’s all too easy to say you don’t have the energy for anything else, when there is the option of hanging and doing nothing.
I advice people to pack up some necessities, step on a random train, move away, go see places they’ve never been (don’t even need to be that far from home, when it’s unknown it’s good), do stuff they’ve never done before…
I think when you need to focus on where you are and what you’re going to do and how to behave in a new environment, you have neither the time nor the need to ponder over how terrible your life is.
Of course, I’m sure there is a point you can’t even make that decision anymore. It’s like with fat. When you’re overweight, you should move and diet or see a doctor if nothing helps, but it’s always easier to do nothing. When you proceed doing nothing for a long time, you only get fatter until you literally can’t get up from your couch anymore to do something about your issue.
(not meaning to say that depressed people have as much fault of their issue as fat people, it’s just an analogy)
There sure are good habits and routines, and bad ones, but in essence I think disrupting all you know sort of forces you to take a new look at life.
Hi Q,
Thanks again for one of your interesting & personal comments!
It looks like I need to clarify myself a little. And if we have different opinions, well, no problem.
In general, yes, I wanted to pose a few objections here against the often thoughtless (and in my opininion sometimes dangerous) advice of “break your routines”.
A few clarifications:
1: I was thinking not of people who feel a little bit (“remotely”) depressed, but of people who are seriously depressed, and partly incapacitated by that depression. And believe me, sometimes serious depression can really make it impossible for people to do the things that want.
2. Of course I agree with you that if “you do the same actions without actually even thinking about them anymore, every day” this is not a healthy attitude in the long run. That’s why I propose to bend routines, but not breaking them.
3. You say about watching TV “it’s all too easy to say you don’t have the energy for anything else”, but do you know that sometimes, when a patient says this, it can simply be true?
4. Of course too much TV-watching is, in the long run, a bad thing. Just like smoking cigarettes is, in the long run, a bad thing. But have you ever asked yourself why, in our smoke-free hospitals, the psychiatric wards are the often the only departments in the entire hospital that still have a (semi-clandestine) room for smokers? This is because the staff is well aware that, in the short run, forcing deeply depressed patients to completely break their smoking habit would and could have disastrous effects. Even when in the long run, the same staff will of course try to get their patients to replace their smoking routine with some less unhealthy routine.
Overall, I still think that with very depressed people, the aim to force them “to take a new look at life” may simply too high-minded, way too far out of reach. You cannot simply expect that outlook from near-suicidal people who perhaps are depending on antidepressants or whatever to keep them going. And you can certainly not blame such patients (as I am sure you don’t intend to) for not succeeding in achieving such goals at once, on their own power. For such patients, an advice to “break your routines” could have detrimental results because it undermines their few, albeit habitual, albeit thoughtless, links with daily reality. It may create a situation where they indeed do nothing anymore, instead of helping to avoid it.
5. So in general, my plea here was not for not changing routines: but for doing so in a gradual, not in an abrupt way. The latter may work fine if you’re not very depressed, but can create an unwanted and dangerous void if you are.
Shall we conclude that in general, regarding this topic, it looks like you’re a little bit more optimistic about human change potential than I am? Who knows, maybe I would have written a somewhat more optimistic post here if I had been, at this moment, a little less depressed myself…
Thank you for answering so soon!
I am definitely not an optimist, I am simply very intolerant, to say it bluntly. We have evolved to this form of homo sapiens thanks to the principle of “adapt of perish” that Darwin put under words so well. I think deep down in everyone rests a trace of that ability to adapt, and if there is no adaptation immediately, I’m sure an abrupt change of simply everything will force people to at least DO something.
You are right when you say that’s often dangerous. It definitely is, when the adapting takes too long the new environment becomes a killer. But then, and now I am going to say something that might cost me your respect (and my head in the worst case): if you’re so depressed you can’t do anything anymore, and all what keeps you going is a batch of pills to flatten your emotions, what use is hanging round for another 5-10 years until you finally gather the courage to jump under a train or something? Why not take a chance? If it kills you at least you died trying…
I’m not advocating suicide, or giving up hope, or anything like that, really not. I’m just this blunt, ridiculous schizoid spreading an opinion, so don’t mind me too much ;)
No need to worry about my respect or about your head, I’m not the chopping kind ;-)
And at least you give me the chance too be a little blunt, too – you know, we can afford all this because most page visitors tend to skip comments anyway…
So as for “gathering the courage”, I did that twice in my last 10 years of “hanging around”, once by asphyxiation and once by an overdose (jumping under a train is certainly not my preferred method because it is very traumatizing to the train driver and other witnesses). In both cases it was coincidence (and my own sloppiness) that got someone else to bring me back to life. Initially I wasn’t very happy when the day after I came out of my coma and found myself in hospital.
What I wanted to say is, both times I decided to kill myself not because I was too lazy or inert to change my life for the better, but because I felt I had already tried every road to change, and had simply no alternatives left for making some real “adaptations”. Yes, in the end, I seriously kept trying anyway, including doing some unexpected, even adventurous things. Such as writing this blog, moving to another place, you name it. Breaking routines. Did it help? Hmm. I wonder. For some moments, maybe. But depression and suicidal impulses always keep lurking in the background, will always return and need to be fought. It’s exhausting. It’s the reason why in the last couple of months, I sometimes needed to sleep for most of the day: not from laziness, but from total exhaustion.
Well, sorry for this personal outburst. My bottom line? In the midst of a suicidal depression, better do not start devising some “radical change” – because before you know it, you’ll be considering suicide – the most radical change of all.
All other radical changes will (I feel) work best when you’re feeling not depressed but fairly well. When you have enough energy for trying seriously. And, importantly, when you feel well enough to take some epic failures in your stride, without such failures immediately causing suicidal depression again.
OK, shall we call it a day now?
We have different opinions, that much is certain. I must admit that my opinion (discipline, character and shout at the lazy asses!) comes forth from my own inability to deal with my inherent inadequacy and weakness caused by chronically recurring psychotic episodes and general stupidity. I’m simply being an extreme hypocrite by calling out to others to do something with their lives while I’m the queen of weakness, lack of character and failure myself.
So, in the end I don’t value my opinion very much myself.
We shall call it a day, thank you for this very interesting conversation *feels neck* and thanks for keeping my head in place ;)
“f you’re so depressed you can’t do anything anymore, and all what keeps you going is a batch of pills to flatten your emotions, what use is hanging round for another 5-10 years until you finally gather the courage to jump under a train or something? Why not take a chance? If it kills you at least you died trying… ”
I just want to say, as a person who has started to do the unthinkable and pulled back during such twice this past year…. That opinion while it is fine to have, you might want to reconsider sharing with others who might be in very different places mentally/emotionally than you…
I’m in a very dark place…. and have been for a while.. What you said isn’t anything that isn’t bouncing around in my own head back and forth daily… For 2-3 weeks last month i cried non-stop, not even tv could distract my mind from how i felt… All of my go-to distractions were not working… The tv rather than being the noise i heard was more like background noise… wasn’t even hearing the tv, i was hearing the voice in my head “i don’t want to be alive right now.. i just dont want to be here anymore..”
As someone who feels like they partially died the first time, and who feels they are already mostly dead inside anyways… your question is the same one i’ve been asking myself… why bother extending the torture and pain… i’ve frankly already extended a good year beyond the point i should have..
Your thoughts about the pills are also spot on. I don’t know if everyone feels that way, but i NEVER take medication. Even after surgery years ago i didn’t take the pain meds. Well for the year i’ve been taking these hoping they’d help… They really haven’t… frankly, i feel if i have to take meds to try to be normal… why bother if i cant be normal on my own..
Anyways… i guess what i’m saying is, while the points you raised are the same points that i’ve been struggling with and have been pushing me ever closer back to the edge… i frankly didn’t need someone re-assuring me that those thoughts were the right ones to have…
I already felt like enough of a burden on my family and a society… and you’ve frankly kind of confirmed that…. =(
Oh… BTW.. regarding the story… As someone for the past year hasn’t done anything they used to love doing as they either don’t have the energy or don’t find anything fun anymore… who’s significant other broke up with in part because we didn’t do anything anymore because i was too depressed and gave up all my routines and hobbies/activities… The suggestion by some to break maybe even the bad ones, i agree is a bad idea… as it stands now… i no longer have any routines… not even basic making breakfast… on days where i don’t have the energy… i just don’t eat… my councilor and family have been trying to get me into routines again… but it’s all rather difficult and overwhelming… So this article is rather spot on…. the real danger is being in a situation like mine… where you have no routines… and are left to ruminate in your own thoughts… aka… the most dangerous place to be…
if you have any good suggestions on actually getting into routines when you don’t have any existing to “bend” i’d appreciate it…
Anon, thanks for you comments; I feel truly sorry for the degree of desperation you’re in. At the same time, maybe it did you just a little good to recognize some things here.
I want to make one remark I think is important. If you’re really suffering from a severe ongoing (“clinical”) depression, then your policy of never taking any medication may become dangerous.
I’m not a big fan of antidepressants and other pills myself. I think most people will far too easily take them, even when it will do them more harm than good.
But the thing with medication, when deciding whether or not taking some pills, is that you always need to carefully and rationally balance the benefits against the costs (with “costs” I mean all kinds of unpleasant side effects that come with most antidepressants).
In many less severe depression cases, the costs will outweigh the benefits: which is a good reason to try doing without medication. But in really bad cases of suicidal depression, when you consider all things, the benefits of medication may actually be more important than the costs: this could be a good reason to try medication (based on proper advice and prescription by a doctor or psychiatrist, of course).
I would really urge you to overcome your intuitive and understandable dislike of medication. For once, please discuss with a good professional advisor if you should try (at least temporarily) some “pills” that may help to pull you out of the pit you’re in. You know, this may save your life.
As for your question about tips for getting into routines, I’ll write a post about that soon.
Thank you for your concern. Per your point, yes, I’ve was diagnosed with severe clinical depression. I told them i didn’t want to take meds as i felt no “pill” would solve my problem.. Frankly i feel no amount of medication can help you if the problem you have is with a broken spirit and not a broken biology. But frankly after things get to a certain point you are willing to try anything to just try and make the pain go away..
As such, i accepted my doctor, psychiatrist, and councilor’s recommendations and have been on medication for it for a little over a year now. I’ve been switched this way and that way and am now on my 4th type with imo no real improvement. Things have only gotten worse..
Anyways This is actually the first time i’ve posted or talked about it with anyone outside my doctors or family. Normally I wouldn’t do such, but i obviously stumbled across your site and i felt i needed to comment.
I’ve just found you Henk! I appreciate your take on routines and agree totally. Routines certainly help me manage depression. But I also like the way you give us permission to put aside the routine when necessary to recovery from a bout of depression.
I guess it all comes down to wisdom, kind of like that song about the gambler: “you’ve got to know when you to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run….”
Anyways, I have subscribed and look forward to reading some more!
Yeah i just stumbled upon it about a week ago too. I love it, it’s unlike any other site i’ve seen.. Frankly many of the writings it’s like i’m reading it out of my own diary.. Make sure you check out the post “1000 shades of green”. I really liked that one a lot too.. Was nice to be able to elate to something..