Sometimes it helps to focus on concrete sensory tasks to get out of my head, and just commit to putting in the life maintenance versus coasting along while my house and life details collapse due to negligence.
I dunno, it depends on the actual distress and what it's coming from. I definitely have stopped judging myself so rigorously -- my logic expects me to act like a machine and accurately all the time, but I'm just a person who is getting older, so I forget things, or I'm just overwhelmed, or I'm burned out, and beating myself up about it or harboring a lot of anxiety about things is not useful to my happiness or ability to function. I have to give myself some leeway to act less than efficiently.
Also have had to accept my feelings are not aliens assaulting me but part of who I am, providing me signals I need to parse as well as just being part of the experience of being alive. I can't disassociate from them, I have to accept them and process them somehow, and it's okay to feel things.
I'm still trying to figure out how much of connections I need to function. I want connections but don't feel like I usually have them nowadays, especially with the social distancing going on. It will probably always be a struggle, but it's worth having them if simply to feel that someone else is listening and also that you can stop focusing on your own burdens and help someone else bear up under theirs, among other reasons.
And that need to be mentally productive -- I tend to veer between the extremes. Sometimes distraction is necessary to keep your sanity, but it can also prevent you from doing things you really want to do, because it's the path of least resistance (play another game, watch another movie, etc.) So in that case, it's good just to shut it all down and stare at the blank page or whatever you want to work on, so you can focus and commit to just creating an artistic mess because that's how you get someplace new. Yet at the same time, it helps to jolt yourself out of mental ruts. I am trying to put on more music in the background, and go outside more with the weather improving, because the sensory impressions of moving through the world or listening / stirring up moods, other similar things, helps break any brain lock you might be experiencing.
I'm pretty sure I am experiencing some level of depression currently, but it's not really a med thing, I think it's mainly just about life in general and I'm tired and haven't been taking care of myself and my body as well as I should have. It's ironic because I used to get so intense about my depression in my 20's but now it's just old hat, I don't feel very intense about it and it doesn't signify as much to me. ("Oh. Hey. I guess I'm depressed again.") I've already made the decision countless times to keep living, so that is what I do, and it's just a state of mind / feeling I deal with without trying to give it too much credibility or emphasis.