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Writer's pictureIndia Haylor

Lock OCD down!

Here is our recommended daily timetable. A combination of our recommendations and feedback from clients on their ideal lockdown day for managing OCD. For those that haven’t started the recovery journey yet, introducing just a few of these elements into your day will be helpful:

AM

  • Wake up, breathe out: look down at your current stream of thoughts & remember they are meaningless traffic

  • Look around you: ground yourself by taking in your surroundings

  • Wipe the slate clean. today is a new opportunity, a new you

  • Remind yourself: ‘You are always good enough. For anyone and anything.’

  • Get up now: lying there thinking is not an option

  • Turn on some feel-good music: especially if you live alone

  • Stretch 1: spend a cat-like 10 minutes. Ease out the anxiety & prepare your body for the day

  • Remind yourself: ‘you don’t have to be anything other than you are'

  • Make your bed: respect your environment

  • Eat something: as soon as you can. Even if you are very anxious, try hard to eat so that your brain has some fuel to cope

  • Personal hygiene: mornings are tough for OCD. If so, delay inwardly focused cleaning teeth/showering until after midday

  • Work/study/children/projects/admin 1: morning is best spent being focused and mentally active. Manage that anxiety

  • Lunch: don’t skip a chance to give your brain some nutrition. Low blood sugar contributes to anxiety

PM

  • Recovery work: breathe, meditate, practice mindfulness, repeat rational statements, behaviour work, cognitive exercises. Choose one or more of these

  • Downtime: take 30 minutes to rest, have a cup of chamomile tea

  • Remind yourself: ‘you can only do the best you can do at any point in time’

  • Exercise: time to bust out some moves inside or out with family or alone

  • Work/study/children/projects/admin 2

  • Remind yourself: ‘failure is an important part of growth ‘if you don’t fail, you’re not even trying’ Denzel Washington and 'failure is where all the lessons are' Will Smith

  • Evening meal: nourish yourself and any family with great veggies, lean protein and complex carbs

  • Reach out: audio or video call a family member, loved one or friend to help you feel connected and brighten someone else’s day

  • Downtime: catch up on limited news, limited social media, reading, TV, box sets, browsing (try to avoid OCD researching).

  • Winddown recovery work: breathing, mindfulness, meditation, reading

  • Stretch 2: prepare your body for bed

  • Get into bed: aim to get to bed at a decent hour to regulate your body clock

  • Set your alarm: no later than 9.30am, an OCD mind needs daylight hours

  • Remind yourself and list all the things you are grateful for


Well done. Getting stronger every day.

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1 Comment


susanneschaefer
May 01, 2020

Thanks for this. This is actually a really helpful ‘map‘ for your day, especially if you are having a rough time at the moment. Even if you don’t ‘feel’ like it, do the recommended steps above anyway; just do it and let those OCD thoughts that will try and argue you out of doing them, just jabber away to themselves while you get on. I have been through enough acute OCD experiences and recoveries, to know this post contains very sound advice and they are steps that will move you in the right direction to empowering you and focusing your energies on doing what you want to do, and not be beholden to OCD and it’s false ‘promises’. Have faith…

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