5 Self-Care Tips You Can Apply Right Now to Protect Your Peace
At the end of it all, you should always put yourself first.
Seasonal depression along with everyday stress and disappointment is among us. I’m not sure how or when self-care got trendy, but it’s a necessary topic to discuss — I’m not mad at it.
Taking care of ourselves should be of great importance to us, but sadly it isn’t prioritized.
I get it.
We all have a billion things to worry about.
Taking care of the kids, working late nights to pay the bills, caring for elderly loved one, carrying emotional stress for your significant other — life has never been fair.
Despite the crazy game we play called life, we have to make time for ourselves to keep our heads above water. Everybody breaks down one way or another, and we can prevent this from happening often.
Here are 5 tips that have personally held me down. Hear me out before you just look at the tips and click away.
Address Your Issues
To this day I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a bad procrastinator. Social media and constant anxiety keep me from addressing things that need to be handled.
In addition to this, I also have notoriously sweep’t how I’ve really felt about any given situation under the rug and panned it as not caring.
Which is stupid — shit does bother me.
Making a conscious effort to address my concerns right away has saved me from bits of insanity.
Whatever it is that is bothering you needs to be given a sufficient amount of attention, and then you must move forward with a plan of action.
If the energy you’re getting from your friends, partner, parents, boss, or whoever is bothering you — evaluate that emotion you’re feeling and move forward with a decision on how you want to address it.
Talk to Yourself
Yessir! It’s normal.
But don’t take it from me.
Dr. Jessica Nicholosi — a clinical psychologist — shared with NBC News that talking to yourself is perfectly normal and done constantly in our heads.
Go ahead and chop it up with yourself.
Talking to yourself out loud is more effective, but a session in your head is fine as well.
“If we speak out loud, it forces us to slow down our thoughts and process them differently because we engage the language centers in our brain.” — Dr. Nicholosi
Before looking up a creditable individual to give you some validation to look crazy, I can personally say that this has worked for me — she knows something.
Having conversations with myself make me feel better and helps me see the flaws in my thinking. I will literally end up debating myself with multiple valid points.
It’s like a venting session with 100% trust.
Mediate
If you’re not meditating by now, what are you doing?!
Meditation isn’t as shallow as people think. There are different variations of the practice and benefits that you wouldn’t have thought breathing could do.
Personally, meditation is relaxing and improves my overall focus. Worrying about just my breathing takes me away from reality for a second.
Some other benefits of meditation include: lowered heart rate, improved blood circulation, and decreased anxiety.
Take 5 mins before you go to sleep or in the morning to practice. It doesn’t cost a thing; it’s easy and has a handful of benefits.
Don’t Respond / Respond Late
I’ve always thought it was extremely rude to ignore people or get back with them late.
Yeah, F%*K them people!
Your peace is more important than them getting a response from you.
If somebody says something that triggers you in the slightest way, stop and take your time to respond or don’t do it at all.
If you’re not in the greatest mood, get back with them later.
Log Out of Social Media
Don’t close out the app — literally log out of your accounts.
Closing your app or putting your phone away won’t keep us from habitually and unconsciously opening up the app again.
When we catch ourselves opening up those social apps again and getting a log-in screen, it’s a fat reminder that we are social media crackheads that have to put in effort to stop.
We all like to blame boredom, but we can find some other entertainment besides mindless scrolling.
Logging out of social media is self-care because being on these networks is very stimulating and draining. Waiting for notifications and absorbing everyone’s thoughts throughout the day can be exhausting.
You can easily be triggered by a thoughtless post someone decided to share.
Take a break.
