Five little pick me ups

            Hello! Happy Tuesday. I hope everyone is doing well and thanks for coming back for another blog post!

            Last weeks posts were pretty simple ones and I want to start off slow with my blog before I delve into personal details about myself and share my secrets with the world. 

            Today I want to tip toe into topics related to mental health. 

            I’m going to share five tips and tricks for how to pick yourself up when you feel down or anxious. These are all things I do on almost a daily basis.

            As much as I hope you don’t feel down or anxious, or even depressed, I hope you can enjoy reading these little tips and take some for yourself for when you need it.

My nightly routine.

1. Exercise 

            The first tip is to work out. This is probably hard when you’re feeling down in the dumps and the last thing you want to do is throw yourself on a treadmill. However, I really do swear by this. 

             I’m sure everyone and their mother knows this by now but exercising releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy (and happy people don’t kill their husbands. They just don’t!) (that’s a movie quote I’m not crazy). But it’s true! I’ve never gotten off of the treadmill feeling mentally worse than I did getting on. 

            I personally work out in my basement, in the privacy of my home so I can sweat and be embarrassed by how pathetic my stamina is in peace. I’m sure this also has to do with how good I feel after exercising so if you can, I would recommend working out in your own home. 

            This tip really works if you’re feeling anxious and have jittery nerves to burn off (and possibly a pint of ice cream). The best thing I can do after a bad day is put on good music and run on the treadmill for an hour. It just feels so good and the endorphins kill my negative thoughts. 

            A key point I make when I work out is to leave my phone in my room and only use my iPod for music. I think escaping from social media, my friends, and the internet for an hour or so is good because I rarely am without my phone and we all know our cell phones are making us more anxious. So if you can, ditch your phone while you work out. It’s so worth it.

            Not to mention this is kind of a killing two birds with one stone scenario. If you feel badly mentally, you should try to make yourself feel good physically to compensate. Sitting on the couch won’t help you feel better physically and all the bad feelings will just pile up until you explode. So try running on the treadmill or going for a spin on a bike! Whatever you enjoy doing.

2. A Cuppa Tea

            This is probably a really self explanatory tip but it’s not something that many people do on a daily basis. I know that drinking tea in warm weather is gross but now that the weather is getting colder, it’s a good time to get into the habit of drinking tea every night.

            I also felt the need to specify that it should be decaf tea. Two reasons: 1. If you’re hypersensitive to caffeine (like me), then drinking caffeine at night will increase your inability to sleep and after all, the best thing you can do when you feel down is to just sleep it off. And 2. Caffeine is a known trigger for anxiety and will make your mind race even more. So you’re better off with decaf tea or even decaf coffee if that’s more your cup of tea (that was a pun on a level I don’t even understand).

            Something I try to get into the habit of doing is having a cup of tea every night at 9 p.m. That sounds so random but it’s for a good reason. Creating a daily habit helps keep you grounded if you suffer from anxiety. Grounding is basically bringing your anxious brain back down to reality when your negative thoughts make you feel like you’re floating away from your body. Having a daily habit is a constant reminder that you’re still alive and okay, and when it’s at night time it’s a milestone to show you that you made it through another day. It also gives you something to look forward to everyday so that you don’t feel so hopeless. 

            I know if you’re not naturally a tea person then getting into the habit of drinking tea can be difficult. There are so many people that associate drinking tea with being sick, but I think if you feel anxious, you should incorporate decaf tea into your life. 

            Also, if you find tea gross (you’re wrong), I would recommend trying out a place like David’s Tea because they have an amazing variety of flavored teas that don’t taste like dirty leaf water. If you need a good flavor recommendation, I am your gal. I love that place. 

3. Read

            This list is starting to become things you probably already do or know you should do. But oh well. With that, I still recommend escaping into a good book. 

            Reading is another activity that only certain people really enjoy doing but it’s something that I will always recommend you try getting into because it’s worth it and is very good for you. 

            I recommend reading because it’s a good way to step away from your phone, and it really helps your brain distract itself from all of its anxious thoughts. I mean if you think about it, when you’re reading words on paper, your brain is too busy making sense of what your eyes are seeing to think about other (negative) things.

            Reading is one of my favourite escapes. Even if it’s just doing a textbook reading for school, I have to read on a daily basis. Might I also recommend reading my blog on a weekly basis as a way to incorporate reading??

            If you don’t enjoy reading, you probably haven’t found the right book yet. Once again, I am your girl to go to if you want a good book to read. My collection expands every month and it’s one of my favourite hobbies. Escaping my thoughts in a good book feels very very good. 

            You could also conjoin this with tip #1 to work out and do two good things for your brain and body. But don’t knock reading until you really try it.

4. Talk to someone

            For this little tip, I’d say you have two options: talk to someone face to face, or over the phone. I think the key here is to be able to hear someone’s voice instead of texting someone back and forth when you can’t read their tone and behaviour.

            When you’re in a state of anxiety, talking to someone helps because you put your focus on maintaining a conversation and responding to what they say rather than going over the same anxious, negative thoughts in your brain. 

            I often find that if I’m at work or out with my friends, I feel okay all day because being around people that make me happy distracts me from my anxiety. The moment I’m away from them and in my room alone, my anxious thoughts come full force and hit me like a brick wall. 

            Obviously it’s impossible to spend your entire life surrounded by other people (and you’d probably go crazy if you’re an introvert like me), but spending as much time as you can handle talking to people you enjoy really helps elevate your mood and distract your mind.

            Talking on the phone is low commitment because if you feel like you really just want to be alone, then you can say you have to go and hang up the phone. In the moment, having someone to talk back and forth with is comforting because they’re giving you their full attention and you can even choose to vent to them about whatever is bothering you.

            Of course physically being with someone feels a lot better because they can read your facial expressions and even be able to offer you a hug. For me, my person who always calms me down is my mom. When I’m really really anxious, I’ll just go sit in the living room with her and watch TV. Every time I do this she looks at me like a stranger who just walked into her house because I normally sit in my room and avoid human interaction at night. But we can sit in complete silence and her presence naturally calms me down. If you have someone in your life who plays this role for you, then I’d recommend you stay around them as often as possible. 

5. Light a candle, wrap yourself in a blanket, and watch a video 

            If all else fails, I support and encourage you to just admit defeat and wrap yourself into a human burrito and hibernate for as long as necessary. It’s sometimes the most effective remedy for a broken heart or an anxious mind or even just a bad day. 

            Step 1: light a candle. Or two. Or three. Four might be pushing it. I am a candle hoarder. I’ll admit it. Candles make me so happy and I think I’ve figured out why I love them so much. For starters, they make any room automatically smell delicious. But I also recently noticed that the way a candle flickers mimics a heart beat. If you stare at a flickering candle when you’re anxious and your heart is pounding, it can help (at least it does for me) regulate your heart beat by kind of mimicking the flicker. If that makes sense…

            Step 2: wrap yourself in a blanket. Any one will do. Fuzzy ones are appreciated. Ones that are twice the size of your body are even better. The goal is to become the rice and beans of a good burrito. Blankets burritos feel like human contact. When you feel anxious, sad, overwhelmed, or just down in the dumps, getting a hug from a giant tortilla wrap makes you automatically feel better. If you get sweaty, crack open a window. But do not leave the human burrito blanket until you feel ready to. If you never do, then so be it. The world can wait until you feel good and ready to go participate in it.

            Step 3: This step has various options. I personally always go for a YouTube video from a vlogger that I enjoy. The familiar face and voice is very comforting and helps me feel better. You can also go with a good Netflix TV show or even a movie. A stand up comedy act is a great way to force yourself to laugh when you can barely manage to crack a smile. The key is to watch anything with audio and visual content to temporarily distract your mind and racing thoughts. Allow yourself to get lost in the video. The best way to shut your negative thoughts is to just run from them. (That’s terrible advice, don’t run from your problems like I do).

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            I hope you enjoyed these little tips and plan to use them right now or the next time you’re feeling under the weather! (Although I hope you don’t feel that often).

            If you have any other tricks that I didn’t mention then feel free to share in the comments! I’d love to hear some different ideas. 

            I also hope that whatever you are going through that is bringing you any feelings of negativity, anxiety, or sadness is only temporary and that you are strong enough to overcome them and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

            Thanks for reading and enjoy your week!