Monday, July 14, 2025

The Importance of Routine: How Women with Bipolar Disorder Manage Daily Life

 

The Importance of Routine: How Women with Bipolar Disorder Manage Daily Life

One of the greatest lessons I have learned on my journey to better health and mental wellness is the importance of forming Structure, Routine and Healthy Habits in my daily life. In fact I learned the lesson so well that the phrase structure, routine and habit is a daily mantra I say to myself as a reminder of how important these pillars are but how implementing these three ideas have changed my life and overall mental health mindset.


Some might say I am rigid in my routine because I create daily to-do-lists that incorporate everything from making my bed to brushing my teeth but I don’t see it the same way. As a blogger, writer and a lover of journaling I find comfort in writing things down. I also pull from my past experience as an event planner where attention to details is key and everything is considered an event. I combine the two skillsets and come up with a robust list of daily tasks that keep me busy and focused. 


I have never been a lover of chaos or surprises, I thrive on predictability and structure as they give me a sense of stability and control which oftentimes by the nature of my mood disorder I have no real say over when a Bipolar episode occurs. When I am in the midst of an episode I feel overwhelmed and my thinking is disorganized so when I experience remission I use the tools that I have learned to create structure, routine and healthy habits that contribute to managing my Bipolar Disorder and the chaos that can come with it. 


What others may call rigidity I consider finding my rhythm in a world where I come with my own background music that isn’t always pleasant and can sometimes be too loud. By writing down my goals and objectives for the day I stay on-task and I feel a sense of balance especially because I give myself grace knowing that my lists can sometimes be ambitious and may not be completed but as the great Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind said, “Tomorrow is another day.” 


In this article I will discuss why routine matters, how to build a routine that works for you, I will give an example of my own daily task list, discuss the role of healthy habits, what you can do when your routine gets thrown off and how to stay consistent when developing structure, routine and healthy habits without burning out or feeling overwhelmed.    


Why Routine Matters for Women with Bipolar Disorder


Routines are essential to women experiencing mental illness as they provide structure, reduce anxiety and give individuals a sense of control. Predictable daily routines can help alleviate decision fatigue, decrease feelings of being overwhelmed and promote a sense of stability. Routines also help regulate sleep patterns creating a healthy Circadian Rhythm (sleep-wake cycle), increase energy and assist with the regulation of emotions. Developing a routine can also increase a person's sense of safety when experiencing unstable moods. Finally, routine acts as the opposition of chaos which can often arise during a Bipolar episode. 


Routine can be especially important to women who are balancing multiple roles like parent, daughter, professional and caregiver. When wearing multiple hats in your daily life, routine can help compartmentalize those roles and assist in navigating your way through the challenges that may come with each. Routines can also support the consistent management of your  mental health and keep your illness in remission for an extended period of time.  


Building a Routine That Works for You


When building a sustainable routine that works for you it's important to take things one step or one habit at a time. For example, I would not recommend an overhaul on all your all your habits good or bad, at once. Rather choose 1-2 sustainable positive habits that you currently practice daily and 1 habit you find challenging or want to change.  


Before you start building your daily routine ask yourself what foundational habits you already practice and write them down in your dedicated Tasks and To-Do-List journal: 


  • Do you wake up at the same time? Do you go to bed at the same time?
  • What time of day do you have breakfast?
  • What time of day do you shower/dress or brush your teeth?
  • If you take medication what time of the day is that task assigned to?
  • What time do you eat lunch? What time of day do you eat dinner?
  • When are your work hours?
  • How many tasks do you complete in a day? (be realistic and kind to yourself when considering this question)
  • When do you usually have downtime? What are some self-care activities you do during this time?


After reflecting on all these questions it is also important to ask yourself if there are any habits you have that you would like to change? Anything you would like to do differently? Are there any tasks that you wish to change or add? Building a routine that you can follow daily will not be easy, it will take work to develop and implement but the benefits will be evident once you have finished building a routine that works for you. 


Below is an example of my daily routine (don’t laugh at me please) and honestly 85 per cent of the time I follow it to the letter but there are times that life, caregiving responsibilities or my illness gets in the way and I’m unable to complete everything. During those periods I have learned to give myself grace, self-compassion and understanding that I’m human. 


Onika’s Tasks and To-Do-List 2025

  • Wake up- 5:00am
  • Meditation and Prayer
  • Make Bed/Clean and Organize Space
  • Shower/Brush Teeth/Dress
  • AM Medication-6:00am
  • Coffee Time!
  • Prep Gym Smoothie
  • Gym Time-7:00am-8:30am
  • Banking, Budgeting, Bills
  • OnikaDainty.com (write 3 articles)
  • Counselling (weekly)
  • Education Hour
  • Update and Review 2025 Calendar
  • Check Email/Social Media
  • Dinner & Downtime at 7:00pm-9:00pm (self-care activity, journaling, audiobook or listening to music)
  • PM Meds and Bedtime-9:30pm

At-a-glance my daily routine might seem “over-scheduled” but the reason it has worked so well for me is based on my life experiences and being able to determine what I need to make my life flow in the right direction. Certain items on that list are “non-negotiables” for me like waking up and going to bed at the same time daily or taking my morning and evening medication. Others I am more flexible about based on my mental state and other daily responsibilities like being a caregiver to my mother who is experiencing dementia. Life always will get in the way of your plans but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one.


The Role of Healthy Habits: A Lived Experience Perspective

Developing healthy habits was the hardest of the three pillars for me. My life– prior to two years ago– was full of unhealthy habits. I was a smoker, a binge eater, non-compliant with my medication, I spent most days in bed watching Netflix and I rarely exercised. The one thing I did do for myself during the summer months was go hiking on the weekends. I made a lot of excuses to justify my habits because I simply wasn’t ready to change. Being healthy is hard and being unhealthy was easy. At least it seemed easy until I started to self-reflect and really examine the toll being unhealthy was taking on me physically, mentally and emotionally. I made a decision to change and I became determined to act. 


The first year of healthy habit building was not easy. I quit smoking (1year and 7 months) and started addictions counselling; With the support of friends and family I lost 22 pounds by developing a nutritional plan that worked for me; I took control of my medication management with the support of my healthcare team. I finally joined a gym that didn’t feel intimidating and have lost 15 pounds since starting my daily walks on the treadmill. 


To create healthy habits for my mental health I restarted regular counseling, joined a local recovery college where I learn psychoeducation and self-care strategies. I sought out psychotherapy for trauma treatment and I set boundaries with family and friends advising them that alone time was needed and supportive time with them was valuable and needed to be scheduled unless there was a dire emergency. Setting boundaries with the people in my life was key to protecting my peace and emotional wellbeing as I found in the past I would get overwhelmed easily by others and I would turn to bad habits to cope with stress.  


What I have learned in the past 2 years is that healthy habits are a choice. They are based on the decisions you make to better your life and the commitment you make to yourself to make a change. None of the above changes were rapid or else I know I wouldn’t stick with them and sometimes I falter (ex. I had pizza for dinner last night) but I give myself grace and know that a setback is not a failure and in order to be successful I can’t give up on my goal of maintaining healthy habits and continuing to develop new ones as I grow and learn on my journey to wellness and mental stability.


What to Do When Your Routine Gets Thrown Off


So what do you do when your routine gets thrown off? Be honest with yourself, it will happen. For myself, it's usually related to mood shifts or episodes, especially the extreme lows when I don’t have the energy to get out of bed, much less make my bed. I also find myself not checking off boxes when my caregiving duties to my mom call me away or simply when you get a life surprise like your car breaking down. What always helps me regroup is giving myself grace rather than feeling guilt and remembering what Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day.” 


If you fall off your routine for longer than desired here are some recovery tips:

  • Just do one thing
  • Shorten the list. Go back to your core 1-2 habits
  • Give yourself grace, self-compassion and understanding
  • Remember your “why.” Why did you start to build your structure, routine and healthy habits in the first place?


Getting thrown off happens to everyone once in a while. It's what you chose to do with your setback that will define your successes in the future. Learning from your experiences is essential to getting through your down times and growing into a person who values their mental, physical, emotional health.


 Consistency and balance are important so do not force yourself to rebuild a routine before you are ready. In order to maintain structure you also have to be flexible. So avoid all-or-nothing or black-and-white thinking when it comes to determining how successful you are at creating and maintaining your structure, routine and healthy habits. Consistency lives in the grey area and ultimately is defined by you and the unique experiences that are a part of your wellness journey.


There is no shame in using tools like alarms, calendar reminders and voice notes to help you maintain the new system of daily life you are building. For example, after a really rough mental health episode I usually have to set 4-5 alarms to wake at my designated 5:00am and if I can’t get up I go back to sleep because I know I am tired and I know my body still needs rest. I remember to give myself grace, show myself compassion because 5:00am comes every day and when I am living in my wellness my structure, routine and healthy habits will return or I will be flexible and readjust. 


Final Thoughts


It’s important to note that structure, routine and healthy habits won’t eliminate Bipolar disorder but they can make life more liveable, more joyful and uniquely yours. I don’t know where I would be or who I would be without the systems I have put in place to find my rhythm in this Bipolar world that lives inside my mind. What I have learned about myself is that even before my diagnosis I was not a fan of surprise and chaos. I simply didn’t have the knowledge or tools to control the instability around me but now I do and I use the tools to my advantage daily. 


I’ve also learned not to feel bad about myself or try to control the outcome of my day when chaos inevitably comes regardless of the structure, routine and healthy habits I’ve established. A part of finding my rhythm is also discovering my flow and there are certain triggers, times of the year and unexpected events or surprises that will throw my routine off. When these times happen I give myself grace and remind myself like Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day.” 


Remember, today is an opportunity to do something you’ve never done before so ask yourself: What’s one small habit you can commit to this week—for you, and your peace?

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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Balancing Success and Setbacks: What I’m Learning About Growth, Grace, and Rest

 

Balancing Success and Setbacks: What I’m Learning About Growth, Grace, and Rest

Success is a complicated subject for me. If I’m honest I’ve always feared success more than I have failure. Failure is easier to overcome and far less daunting than the pressure you feel when you succeed at something. Failure means you still have mountains to climb, obstacles to overcome, goals to achieve and dreams to hope become reality. Success on the other hand can feel like a dead-end street. You have walked the path, you have climbed the mountain, you have reached the top and when you look back you can see all the faces of those that helped you achieve your goals and make your dreams come true.  You can see the pride in their eyes, the joy in their smiles and the hope that you will continue on to greater things…but what if the greatest thing you will ever achieve is happening at the dead-end street called success? What if you can’t reach higher, be better, do more than you have already done? What if you can’t work faster, harder, smarter to achieve greater success?

The thing about success versus failure is that one breeds high expectations and the other low. When you are staring from the bottom you have somewhere to aspire to be–the top. When you reach the top all you worry about is the fast and hard fall to the bottom where life isn’t full of high expectations and even higher risk. So which should I prefer, which brings me more comfort? Failure or success? I have experienced both and currently I am seeing more wins than losses but regardless I feel fear. 

The title of this article is Balancing Success and Setbacks but because of who I am and where I come from I chose to use the term failures going forward. You see, a “setback” can only be categorized as such once a success is born from it and truth be told success in my lived experience can only be born from a flat-out, in-your-face, soul-crushing, disappointing failure. 

No one knows a setback is happening except in hindsight of its occurrence and in my case hindsight hasn’t always been 20/20 rather its been finding balance in the setbacks of my past a.k.a failures, so that I can learn to feel gratitude for the success I have and faith that I will continue to achieve the goals that I have set for myself and continue to make the people who love and support me proud. There is no guarantee that my long and lofty hopes and dreams will ever become a reality. 

There is every possibility that I will experience failures on my journey to achieving my goals but its how I choose to handle those failures, what I choose to learn from each experience that will determine whether my failures will one day be considered setbacks on the road to success rather than a crippling defeat that keeps me stuck and stagnant. 

Over the course of my life I’ve learned that for myself the only way to avoid getting stuck in your past failures is to challenge yourself and condition your mind to practice what I call the Four G principle of turning setbacks into success. Growth. Grit. Grace. Gratitude. 

A Bipolar Woman’s Lived Experience: When Growth, Grit, Grace and Gratitude Align

For several months in 2023 I lived in a women’s shelter in Whitby, ON. The shelter was minutes away from my family’s home but I was deeply in my illness and my family and I were estranged. No one could help me (believe me they tried), I had spiraled out of control both in my mental health and my previous substance use disorder. 

For the first time in my mental health journey I had fallen so far and fast but there was no one to pick me up, dust me off and set me back on the right path. I was alone, I was sick, I had failed myself and disappointed the people I loved. I consider the shelter experience the beginning of hitting my rock bottom. I had no idea what awaited me that year–9 hospitalizations, an attempted assault, a robbery and an eviction. The year 2023 essentially kicked my ass. 

The failures/setbacks seemed never-ending and it was during this difficult period I realized that regardless of the chaos around me I needed to find the blessing in the hard lessons I was learning. It was slow forward movement but I began to re-introduce principles like structure, routine and good habits into my daily living. I ensured that I managed my medication regimen, I began to practice self-care and I addressed my substance use through addiction’s counselling. 

I began to do all the things that I knew previously would get me on the right track only this time I had to be self-motivated. There was no social worker or nurse to take me to appointments or manage my mental health schedule. For the first time on my mental health journey I had to walk alone and learn how to manage my illness independently and with minimum support. I call this process of learning, implementation and the unwavering fight to better my circumstance Growth and Grit.    

Fast forward to the present. It has been two years since my shelter experience and today I live in Oshawa ON, in a beautiful private home where I rent. I've been in mental health remission for a year and a half as well as sober for the same amount of time. I draw on all my community mental health resources such as case management, psychotherapy and trauma treatment programs to continue to address my mental health concerns. I manage my medication as well as my mental health schedule such as psychiatrist appointments and blood work on my own. 

I have not seen the inside of a Psychiatric Unit in over a year. I have started a successful blog chronicling my experiences, both the successes and the setbacks, to share with others on similar journeys. I have reconnected with family and friends that I previously believed were lost to me (they look at me with pride and admiration now). 

Finally, I continue to develop structure, routine and good habits that are designed to keep me in remission and experience wellness despite my illness. I still have moments of extreme highs that can lead to impulsive behaviours and rapid mood shifts  and low-lows that will have me in bed for a week at a time. During these periods I give myself Grace and allow myself to feel every emotion rather than avoid what I’ve learned is unavoidable. I practice a lot of self-care or as I call it my “eat, pray, love" moments and allow myself to step back from the full and robust life I’ve created for myself knowing that when I get through the hypomania or depression my beautiful life will be waiting on the other side. 

For all these successes born from what I know now was never abject failure but rather temporary setbacks, I feel a daily sense of Gratitude, for all the experiences past and all the experiences to come.

Words of Encouragement for Women Looking for Balance in Success and Setbacks

For the women of the world trying to balance success and setbacks whether it's finding equilibrium in mental health, managing a mental illness, dealing with the stress of your career, balancing being a caregiver and a parent, building a business, starting something new or learning to let go of past experiences I encourage you to take a deep breath, close your eyes and hit pause. As people we are in constant motion, mulitasking, wearing multiple hats, juggling all the elements of our lives, like a circus act. However, what would happen, what could you learn about yourself in stillness? There is wisdom that lies beneath the surface of chaos but it can’t be seen or heard through all the noise of the world. 

Once upon a time I bought into the lie of productivity, the untruth of “do more” even when you find success. Recently, because of the success I have been experiencing I took a break from my blog to focus on the opportunities that have been born from my commitment to succeeding on this platform. My mind told me I could do it all but the growth I have experienced over the last two years reminded me that I don’t have to. I can pause, I can be still, I can stop and smell the sweet rose of success without feeling I needed to achieve more in that moment. I gave myself grace and allowed myself to take a break for the month of June in order to reflect and realign, asking myself where is my creative energy needed the most? Where will it serve me best when trying to achieve success? Finally, where will I experience setbacks if I don’t allow myself to experience grace?

 Final Thoughts

Although I stated this in the above article I believe that it is important to state it again: There is nothing more powerful or precious in this constant world in motion than Pause. Taking a break from the chaos that often life can bring is okay. I want to be clear however pause does not mean running away. Pause does not mean avoiding your life and pause does not mean letting go of your responsibilities to participate in self-destructive behaviours. Pause can mean taking deep breaths when you are feeling overwhelmed. Pause can mean practicing self-care like mindfulness activities, meditation or taking a walk. 

Pause can also mean breaking away from  the people, places and things that drain your energy and replacing them with people, places or things that fill your cup. When you embrace “the pause” you can also practice self-reflection and come to the realization  that you are more than just one experience, one success or one setback. As humans we experience duality in our emotions. For example, it's okay to feel pride and pressure over your successes and disappointment and relief over your failures. By taking a pause to reflect on your emotional experiences it will be easier to understand the why behind your feelings and how they ultimately affect the path to success you are on.

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