I know I’m not alone when I say that the past few years (maybe decade?) of life have been putting my mental health to the test. Trying to run and grow a small business on top of all the other challenges of life and the world has pushed me to develop habits that have gradually made me feel more grounded and resilient (*knocks on wood*). In these trying times, I figure we need all the help we can get, so time to share what I’ve learned.
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Master your emotions. Whoa. This one is big, y’all. Our culture has ingrained most of us with some very unhealthy habits of repressing and avoiding difficult emotions. We often let those emotions control us instead of the other way around, and most of us probably don’t even truly understand what we’re feeling or how it’s impacting us. Learning how to do this might be how we heal the world.
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- Start trying to notice when an emotion arises – when you have a strong reaction to something, when you feel sensitive, or when you notice changes in your body like your heart racing or face flushing. What does it feel like?
- Let yourself feel the emotion without fighting it. Pushing your emotions down doesn’t make them go away. It just builds and creates tension in your body that is just waiting to release. Give yourself freedom to feel whatever you’re feeling for at least 20-30 minutes without judgment. You are human, and all of our feelings are natural.
- Name what you’re feeling. The Feelings Wheel is great to have handy as a reference.
- Journal daily. Writing down those emotions you’ve felt and what sparked them will help you understand yourself better and notice patterns.
- Learn healthy coping mechanisms and ways to regulate your emotions. You’ll be surprised at how much it releases the energy to just let yourself feel what you’re feeling and name it. (I highly recommend following @nicoleneuroscience on Instagram for self-regulating tips!)
- Consider working with a therapist to help you develop these skills. In my experience, it’s surprisingly unintuitive, and having someone who’s trained walk you through it gets you there way faster than doing it alone. There is no time like the present [state of the world] to build the skills to maintain a well-regulated nervous system.
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Minimize the habits that drain your energy and ultimately make you feel worse. Feeling maxed out with no extra capacity to add healthy habits to your to-do list? Consider building a not-to-do list instead.
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Limit the time you spend thinking about/dwelling on/obsessing about your problems to 15-30 minutes a day. Have you ever thought about how much time you spend thinking about your personal woes or the woes of the world? How much time do you spend having fake arguments in your head or ranting about something frustrating to yourself? It helps to process things, but there’s a threshold at which those thoughts start to have diminishing benefits. Give yourself 15 minutes then change the subject or move on to another task. This was a game-changer for my overthinking brain! You may be as shocked as I was at how much energy this frees up for you.
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Apply this same strategy to doom-scrolling or consuming the news. When you want to stay informed but find yourself getting overwhelmed and drained, try to limit it to once per day. Read, watch, or listen on your commute, during your coffee, or on your lunchbreak, and then move on to other things.
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Give yourself a pre-bedtime and post-wakeup screentime buffer. Jumping right on your phone when you wake up might feel like the most natural way to wake up, but it’s actually interrupting the natural cycles of your brain and priming you for stress, distraction, and reactivity for the rest of the day. The first 15-30 minutes are the perfect time to
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Journal or make a gratitude list.
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Sit and think while you drink your lemon water, coffee, or tea.
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Try to remember your dreams.
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Meditate or practice breathwork.
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Pray or set an intention for the day.
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Pull an affirmation or tarot card.
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Stretch or practice yoga.
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Listen to music.
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Go for a walk.
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Plan your day.
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Stare out the window.
When you wake up in the morning, the theta waves in your brain are ideal for free thinking, ideation, and guilt-free processing. Don’t deprive yourself of that time. And we all know that riling ourselves up and exposure to blue light before bed are recipes for not-so-sound sleep.
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Nourish yourself with healthy self-care practices.
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- Set aside time for yourself daily. Even if it’s just a 15-minute sliver of your day. Can you think of a more accurate reflection of what we value than how we spend our time? It’s normal for many of us to spend our entire days dedicated to serving other people’s needs. This might sound noble and altruistic, but it also leaves us depleted and with unmet needs of our own. Dedicating time to self-care daily is a message to yourself that you matter too and an opportunity to properly nourish yourself (which will also help you show up for everyone else in your life).
- Do at least some exercise 3-5 times a week. Exercise impacts everything – our sleep, our energy levels, all those little aches and pains, our confidence, our digestion, our cognition, and yes, our mood and mental health. If you feel too exhausted to exercise or in too much discomfort, it may very well be a sign that this is exactly what your body is craving. Short on time? Try doing a 7-minute workout. (I love the 7M Workout for Women app!) Almost all of us have the ability to carve out 7 minutes of our day, and even just that a few times a week can make a meaningful difference in how we feel.
- Get excited about fueling your body with nutrient-rich foods. I’m personally not a big dieter. I’m a flexitarian who already limits my diet for various ethical reasons and food sensitivities, so I’m not big on adding more restrictions. But I am motivated to add a wide variety of whole, healthy foods to my diet because I know I’m feeding my brain and body with the nutrients it needs to function well. I want to feel sharp, energized, strong, and dare I say radiant, and food plays a vital role in all of that.
- Add helpful, wholesome supplements if you feel like you could use an extra boost. If I’m not feeling my best, I enjoy looking up what foods or nutrients will help improve that. I take magnesium for energy and improved sleep. Ashwaganda for stress management. Lion’s mane for improved cognitive function. Vitamin D when I’m starting to feel those winter blues. Probiotics for gut health. I try to prioritize foods and beverages that deliver these nutrients, but add daily supplements as well. Check with your doctor to see what could be most helpful for you!
- Don’t forget to nourish your soul too! Input equals output. What are the activities that light you up? What are the types of media that leave you feeling inspired, seen, motivated, soothed, or stimulated? Who are the people that bring out the best in you? Those things don’t always show up in our schedules passively. Be proactive about spending your time with the things that feed you and the person you want to be.
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Do those little things that help you feel confident and ready to take on the world. One of my self-care practices this past year was to “do something about it” every time I didn’t feel that cute. Sometimes it’s easy to resort to the bare minimum we feel like we can get away with. I found that putting in a little extra effort felt indulgent, but also helped me walk with my head a little higher and more pep in my step, and that was well worth the extra 5 minutes. We’ve all experienced feeling less than our best as we face the world. Self-care might be overly associated with aesthetic or physical pampering, but we’ve found that a little love in this department does make a meaningful difference in our confidence levels. Some ideas:
- Level up your hair, skincare, beauty, body, or oral care routines.
- Make a weekly everything shower or monthly bathtime ritual. (Baths can use extra water depending on how long your showers are, so we like to limit them.)
- Do a hair treatment or face mask.
- Give yourself an at-home pedicure.
- Add dry brushing or facial massages with a gua sha or facial roller.
What self-care practices have been helping you? We’d love to hear and learn from your experience too!
-Alex Gamboa Grand
