3 Ways Meal Planning Saves Me When Depression Hits

As someone who has lived with chronic depression (and chronic pain) for most of my life, I can safely say the one thing that has supported my mental health in the last year is not what you’d expect.

But first, a little backstory: Dinner has been my pandemic nemesis. I began to dread it. Not just cooking it, but figuring out what we would eat, shopping for the food, even eating it began to feel like a chore.

After a year of pandemic and political upheaval, I am not alone in feeling exhausted. While dinner itself is probably not the thing that’s breaking me, the idea of having to come up with, shop for, make and then eat yet another dinner is enough to send me right over the edge. And yet, dinner shows up again anyway.

Please note: With a 3-year-old, “not making dinner” isn’t really an option. 

Enter: Meal planning.

As someone who always waited to feel inspired to decide what to make for dinner, it took me a long time to warm to the idea. But I have to admit, it’s made my life dramatically easier.

1. Meal-planning saves me bandwidth.

I make a plan for dinners one month at a time, so I only really need to think about the planning part once a month, rather than trying to figure it out every, single day. Between work, parenting and everything happening in the world — on top of mental health and chronic pain challenges — I’ll admit I get overwhelmed. Some days, it’s a crush to get everything done.

My mantra in those times is, “Let it be easy,” which is to say: Don’t force it and don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be. That’s where the meal plan comes in. It saves me the daily decision-making that can be so exhausting with depression, and keeps me focused on following the directions from the plan. It keeps things simple so (at least) dinner doesn’t add to the overwhelm.

2. I don’t have to feel “inspired.”

With depression, sometimes it’s not a matter of thinking about “what sounds good” for dinner. Because, honestly, nothing sounds good at times. I just want to crawl into bed and not eat at all. Meal planning doesn’t require me to feel excited about what I’m making.

It doesn’t require a flash of brilliance or originality. I just need to make what’s on the plan. I keep the meals themselves fairly simple and low-lift, so if I have a low-energy day, I haven’t signed myself up for anything complex or difficult.

3. Meal-planning gives me structure, but I can still stay flexible.

There are, of course, days when I simply cannot make the dinner. At that point, I throw out the plan (for the day) and either pull leftovers from the fridge, or call an audible and order takeout. I know the structure is there to support me on a daily basis, but it’s not written in stone.

The meal plan is there to make my life easier, so if and when it doesn’t feel like it’s accomplishing that, I’m allowed to change the plan. But the next night, I’m not starting from scratch again: There is the plan. It’s like a safety net under my trapeze: It keeps things from crashing to the ground, but it has some give to it, too.