Why A Change Of Scenery Should Be A Part Of Your Postpartum Depression Recovery

Even 13 years later, Graeme Seabrook can still vividly remember how she felt when she got home from the hospital with her newborn son.

“It was like a gray wall had come down between me and the world, and everybody else was on the other side,” she says. “I was on this side with this tiny baby who depended on me for everything. And I felt all-consuming rage, like 24/7; nothing made me happy. Nothing made me even peaceful. It was really hard to sleep. Breastfeeding was torturous. It was scary.”

Seabrook, now a mom of two, says she felt claustrophobic in her two-bedroom home in Charleston, SC, where she lived at the time.

“It felt like I didn't have any air in that house because there was baby stuff everywhere,” she says. “I had no place to go. I had no way to get out. And even when I tried to, my anxiety was so bad that I couldn't leave.”

Seabrook was ultimately diagnosed with postpartum depression (PPD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and, with treatment, was able to emerge from the fog. She now lives in Colorado and created Whole Human Mama, an online support space for moms.

But you don’t need a diagnosis to know what it’s like to feel trapped. It’s common for new moms to feel stuck at home, even without PPD, says Catherine Monk, Ph.D., psychologist and division chief of Women’s Mental Health in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Columbia University.

Postpartum brings on a dramatic lifestyle shift. During pregnancy, you may still be going to work, meeting friends for coffee, and generally living on your time. Once the baby arrives, your world gets a lot smaller, and it’s often just you and the baby following the same routine day in and day out.

“Feeling trapped in one's house or apartment … can just really amplify the stuckness of the mood,” says Monk. Plus, if you’re already in the thick of PPD, getting out of the house, or even off the couch, can feel impossible.

But even the littlest of wins can make a big impact on how you feel, says Monk. This isn’t about uprooting your life or your comfort zone. A small change of scenery can do wonders to improve your mood.

How environment impacts emotions

You know how a smell can take you back to your grandmother’s kitchen? The same can happen with certain environments. Memory research has long shown that the brain connects memories with places, and memories bring emotions with them, says Monk. Now picture a new mom whose whole day happens in the same couple of rooms (probably covered with burp cloths, diapers, and breast pads). It makes sense that emotions would get tangled up in those surroundings.

Taking care of a baby means routines come alongside chaos, says Monk. “People's worlds can start to feel centered in maybe the bedroom or a baby's room or the living room,” she says. “People can get quite planted and rooted.”

Science has also looked into whether how a home looks and feels can alter your mood. A 2011 study of about 2,100 mothers found that moms whose homes were crowded or noisy had slightly higher odds of screening positive for depression. A small UCLA study in 2010 also showed that women who described their homes as cluttered and full of unfinished projects reported feeling down as the day went on, while those who described restful, relaxing spaces reported feeling less down.

The argument for going outside

A natural solution for getting out of the house is going outside, and it works. Spending time in nature, whether that’s hiking a trail or simply taking in the scenery, could help you feel better, says Gina South, M.D., M.S., associate professor of emergency medicine at Penn Medicine, who studies how nature affects mental health.

“There is something very specific about nature that we connect to at a very deep level that impacts our brains and our experience,” says South.

One reason lies in something called fractals, or repeating geometric patterns found organically in nature. Consider a tree: The trunk splits into big branches, which split into smaller branches, which split into twigs, and those twigs split into leaves with leaf veins — all those splits follow a similar pattern.

Research shows our brains can process these patterns with little effort, which may ease mental fatigue, reduce psychological stress, and improve attention, says South. In fact, a 2015 study found that healthy adults who took a single 90-minute nature walk showed lower activity in the region of the brain associated with rumination than those who walked just as long on a busy road.

In her own randomized controlled trial, South and her co-authors surveyed the mental health of residents living near vacant lots in Philadelphia before and after some of these lots were planted with grass and trees. Those living near the new green spaces reported fewer feelings of depression and worthlessness than those near the untouched areas. “It showed that if you change the environment, it could change the trajectory of someone's mental health,” she says.

Getting outside is also associated with socialization and physical activity, both of which have been shown to improve mood, says South. “Those social connections are very important for mental health, for depression, including for postpartum depression where people can feel isolated and [that they have] low social support,” she says.

So what exactly counts as “being in nature”? It can be taking a walk by a green space, sitting at a park bench, going to a nearby lake, or even as simple as stepping out to your backyard for five minutes.

“Include nature in your toolkit,” says South. “Going outside is not going to prevent [or treat] depression, so it’s also important to talk to your physician. It's so hard to change behavior; it's so hard sometimes to get out of a rut, but start small.”

How to find your safe space at home

Even if you desperately want to get out of the house, planning an outing with a newborn — even if it’s just a walk around the block — can be overwhelming. If the thought of getting outside paralyzes you with worries about blowouts and meltdowns, there are ways to change your environment without leaving home.

Create a list of things that please you, even if they seem silly or insignificant, suggests Monk. They can be as simple as drinking tea in a special mug, eating a meal at the dining table instead of the couch, taking 15 minutes to call a friend, feeding your baby in a different room, or lighting your favorite candle. Small actions can break up your routine and remind you this stage isn’t forever, she says.

If you feel like you have nowhere to escape in your own home, just taking a step to transport your mind can help shift your mood, says Monk. This can look like opening up a book, streaming a favorite TV show, listening to music or a podcast, she says. These are “things that can both be distracting [and] focus the mind elsewhere but are taking an action,” she says. “That underscores, ‘Oh, I can do things to help myself feel better.’”

Determined not to feel trapped again, Seabrook created a place that she could call her own when she was pregnant with her second child. She transformed her screened-in back porch into a colorful, cozy oasis, which served as a visible reminder that she was going to be OK, she explains.

“That was my safe space,” she says. “I had a scheduled C-section, and I knew when we were going to the hospital that morning that I had that [space] to come home to no matter how bad it got.” She didn’t experience PPD with her second birth, but that porch still became her favorite place in the house.

This tactic has now become her go-to advice for postpartum moms who feel boxed in. Simply put: Claim a spot, she says.

“And it needs to be clear of baby stuff …. It doesn't have to be a big spot. It could be a chair,” says Seabrook. “If there is enough room, make it a room. You're worth that. Who you were, who you are now, and who you are going to become — you need space for all of that.”

Presented by BDG Studios