In the forum "Self-Help Ideas and Goal Setting" I put out a topic about the help of routines for our mental wellbeing yesterday.

https://forums.psychcentral.com/self...-goal-setting/

Since nobody has answered yet, may be this forum is better for such topics.

Science has showed that getting up at the same time and go to bed at the same time every day is beneficial for people with bipolar disorder.

Optimize Your Routine for Bipolar Disorder | Everyday Health

That corresponds with my experience (I am never formally diagnosed as bipolar, but still ...). For me it is crucial to get up and go to bed at fixed times and other routines that are good for me. For the time being I have fallen out of my routines because of a lot of unexpected happenings. I'm struggling to reestablish them. Is there anybody here that have a good idea about how to get my routines to work again?

[Guiness187055]

Thanks for the link!

could you perhaps put reminders on your phone?

write your rooteen down and hang it somewhere you can see it

start associating certain tv shows or certain events with certain parts of your rooteen

like for me,, the 5 PM quiz show, signals to me that it's time for dinner

(I am big in to rooteens too). always have been

[Sunflower123]

I don't know what to tell you about getting back into your routines but I found the link you posted very informative. It is stuff I already knew I should be doing but I'm not. Inspired me to write up a routine to tackle some of these issues. Good luck getting your routine back on track.

[IntentOnHealing]

Huh. This IS so important. And I am so random. My T says, "One thing at a time," and I agree. It's hard to add more than one thing a week to my routine. And then I often lose things that I've added. Like I'll be dressing every day, but then add washing my face, then not be able to dress every day. So I know what you mean. Thanks for posting this, though!

[Wild Coyote]

Thank you, Singer, for sharing this.

I work hard on my routine every day/week and it continues to need work. It may never be perfect, yet an improvement would be welcomed!


WC

I live and thrive by routine. If I go a different route to work my entire day can be thrown off.

[scatterbrained04]

I love routines. Helps with sleep. Also helps me keep going on "auto-pilot" when I'm not well. Helps me remember meds. I feel so lost on the weekends because I don't have a routine like I do M-F, and I don't function as well.

This is common sense really. Routines are good at keeping us on track of lots of things. When I fall out of routine it's due to serious unwellness and no amount of hoping and trying seems to pull me out and put me on track. For instance, I deal with chronic pain and sickness and sometimes I HAVE to nap, or sleep in. No amount of willpower allows me to fight against the need to do so. But I try to keep up with sleep hygiene and I'm trying to incorporate more routine in my life again. I used to be very rigid with routine and I was much better when I did......but I was much better because I was more capable at that time. Knowing what I need to do and being capable of doing it are often 2 completely different things with this illness.

Originally Posted by shattered sanity

could you perhaps put reminders on your phone?

write your rooteen down and hang it somewhere you can see it

Thank you for your advice! I did use written reminders in former time. These days it seem to help me to read about old advices that I have collected in a binder. I have put the binder on a table where I can see it.

Originally Posted by scatterbrained04

I love routines. Helps with sleep. Also helps me keep going on "auto-pilot" when I'm not well. Helps me remember meds. I feel so lost on the weekends because I don't have a routine like I do M-F, and I don't function as well.

May be you can write down a routine for the weekends. I did that once and that worked well for me. For now I have more than enough with trying to get back on track in the everyday life ...

[Nammu]

It helped me to personalize the routines to me. Like my bedtime is midnight, that might be too late for a lot of people but it works for me.

Originally Posted by ElsaMars

This is common sense really. Routines are good at keeping us on track of lots of things. When I fall out of routine it's due to serious unwellness and no amount of hoping and trying seems to pull me out and put me on track. For instance, I deal with chronic pain and sickness and sometimes I HAVE to nap, or sleep in. No amount of willpower allows me to fight against the need to do so. But I try to keep up with sleep hygiene and I'm trying to incorporate more routine in my life again. I used to be very rigid with routine and I was much better when I did......but I was much better because I was more capable at that time. Knowing what I need to do and being capable of doing it are often 2 completely different things with this illness.

Thank you for your answer! I'm not so sure that it is common sense because people without mental disorders are able to cope with life as it comes. I need my routines to stay well. Now I have fallen out of them because life suddenly became too hard, but when I am good at using my routines that keeps me going and that makes me feel that I am able to master my own life. When I'm there (in the master-mode) I use to make deviance-plans as well. An example can be when I am invited out for fun: I have experienced time after time after time that the fun doesn't stop after returning home. To be so full of happy energy, makes it very difficult to sleep. In such a state I need an extra reminder to keep me on track: Before I go out for fun, I write a plan for what to do when I come home: 1) Eat something that calms me down (ex: fish-soup), 2) do relaxation exercises, 3) ... 4) ...

I place the plan at a table where it is easy to see.

Routines for everyday life is a necessary tool for some of us to be able to live a normal or almost normal life. It is not a strict living-rule, but a tool to keep us healthy, - to live well with a MI we cannot get rid of. It is some sort of security net.

If you or anybody find it attractive to use deviance-plans, please use the idea. May be that is what you need for your physical problems, a plan for how to jump into the routine again when you had to break them ...

To all who answered! I want all of you to know that you have inspired me to go on the right path. I still have some way to go before the routines will work on auto-pilot. Sometimes in life painful happenings come out of the blue and there we are feeling that we have fallen into mud ... Then we need somebody to show us the road forward. Thanks to all!

I'm still working on my routines, feeling a bit indifferent as if it doesn't matter if I become better or not, while I on the other hand are frightened that I will not be able to write a reasonable schedule this day for to morrow.

I am writing this now, because I hope that writing this down here, will be my push to start writing one.

I have already made ready my registration sheets for the next days. It helps me to keep track of necessary "ingredients" in my recovery plan, like eating, resting and other activities.

I hope that you don't find me strange, but sitting here and at the one hand don't care and on the other hand be frightened to not manage, as I did just a moment ago, was not good, but starting to write about it calmed me down, - enough to make me believe that I will be able to make the plan now and follow it tomorrow!



Well, now the list for the first hours of the day is made. Now I can try to fall asleep with good conscience .....

Good night! (I'll take an early night).

[Moose72]

I try to stay on a sleep schedule as best I can. I have a program on my phone t hat keeps track of when I sleep, too. It tells me how I'm doing in general with my sleep over the week.

[Wild Coyote]

Still working on my routine, too.
Having such a hard time getting up and getting going.
I keep trying.

WC

Moose, it sounds wise to track your sleeping hours.

Wild Coyote, yes, to get out of bed can be tricky. I have bought my self an alarm clock where the alarm is so high that I’m sure my neighbor hear it. It calls again and again the next 30 minutes, so there is no way to escape … (May be it can help you to have two alarm clocks? Before I bought this large new one, I used two clocks and set one near the bed and the other one so far away from bed that I had to jump out of bed when the alarm started. I sat the «far away clock» to wake me up 10 minutes after the nearest one. The first «told me»: «It is soon morning, make yourself ready to wake up.» The second one told me : «It’s time to get on your feet and turn me off. If you don’t do that I will stay here and make noise for a veeeeeery long time.»)

By the way: So far this day has been good! Not all the time, but enough times to make feel successful because I was able to follow my plans for today!