Do you have trouble remembering to take your mental health medication? Remembering to take your medicine can be hard. It is really important to take your mental health medication as prescribed otherwise it won’t work like it is supposed to.
I know that remembering to take medication is hard from my own experience. I take pills in the morning and at night. It seems like I’m always struggling to stay on track.
You want your medicine to be working 100% for you so you want to find ways to take your medicine consistently and stay on track. I have found a few ways that work for me and I want to share them with you.
1. Setting Alarms
One of the things I try to always do is set alarms on my phone. There is an alarm for the morning dose and the evening dose. It really helps me remember the times I truly forget.
The only thing I will say though is that when the alarm goes off you need to get up and take it right then. I have a bad habit of turning off the alarm and saying I’ll take it in a minute but then never taking it. That doesn’t help.
I believe setting alarms can really help you remember to take your medicine if you use them consistently and make yourself take them right when the alarm goes off
2. Leave yourself notes
Another thing I do is leave myself notes around my house to remind me to take my medicine. When I moved into my new apartment I put up sticky notes on the bathroom mirror, fridge, and the front door. All places that I see regularly. I just wrote on them “take your medicine” but you could write whatever you want to jog your memory.
3. Habit Tracker
I just started using a habit tracker this year and have found that it works amazingly for me. I like to be able to put the “x” in the boxes every time I do take my medicine. It lets me have a visual of when I did good with my medicine and when I didn’t do so hot. And also I use a printed habit tracker so having it laying on my kitchen counter or table is also another reminder to take the pills.
I have created a free printable habit tracker that you can download at the bottom of the page by entering your email and subscribing to my mailing list. Once you enter your email you will get an email that says confirm your email and when you do, it will give you the habit tracker. It’s super easy and worth giving the habit tracker a try.
4. Buy a Pill Box
I use a pill box for my medicine every week. The pill box below is like the one I have. It has 4 rows so I set up two rows of morning medicine and two rows on night time medicine so that the pill box lasts me two weeks. I find I do really good at taking my medicine when the pill box is full but the problem is when I run out of pills i’m a slacker about filling it up again and end up not taking my medicine until I fill it up again. So if you make a pill box set a time on the last day to fill it up again and stick to it.
5. Keep your Medicine where you can see it
This may not always work but one thing I do is keep my pill box out on the table in plain view as a visual reminder to myself to take my medicine. If you keep them out of sight they will be out of your mind and you don’t want that. But like I said it may not always work for example if you have small children or animals that could get into them you might not want to keep them out in the open.
6. Ask Family and Friends to Remind You
If you have family or friends that know about your mental health struggles you could ask them to remind you to take your medication. Most of the time they would be willing to help you. Just don’t count on them solely because other people can forget too. They could be busy one day and forget so you want to put some of these other suggestions in place to make sure you remember.
I hope these six suggestions will help you to remember your medicine. Remember you want to take your mental health medication consistently as prescribed for it to work for you. I have seen what consistent medication use can do. I went from being depressed, suicidal, and hearing voices to not hearing voices and being good most of the time. Taking the medication will not take away all the bad stuff or all the bad days but it will definitely help you.
Leave a comment and let me know what tips you are going to work on to remember your medication and don’t forget to download the habit tracker down below.
If you liked this post you should go read 10 ways to improve your mental health