Happy Friday ABM world! For many lucky people, this is the start of a wonderful 2 days off of work. I personally had a rare early day and even though I have to go to work tomorrow, I got to thinking about all the things I would love to be doing instead of working on a Saturday.
It has been an exceptionally gloomy winter for us this year. We live in an area where there are 2 seasons – winter and rain. The sun hardly comes out so it’s quite easy for our bodies to shut down quicker and feel overworked and super tired.
Sometimes we just have to take time out to care for ourselves! Today my husband enjoyed playing video games and I took some time out to write which helped rejuvenate me a little. I’m always looking for new ideas on how to relax myself without wasting time – I really hate the idea of being inefficient but honestly, I get so worked up wondering if I’m being efficient that it becomes hard to function sometimes. Sometimes, you just need to give in and take care of yourself.
Here’s a list of a few things that I find helpful to calm me down and mentally de-stress:
- Read a good book – Even if it’s a juvenile book from when you were 12. Reading calms us down and allows us to escape to another world and forget our own thoughts for a while. Plus it helps get our creative juices going. WIN WIN
- Take a bubble bath – One of my all time favorites, plus I take a book in with me so I get to double up the relaxation!
- Go for a walk – just you and the sounds of nature. You might run into some people and have a bit of a chat which can also help your socialization needs meter rise or you can put on some earpods and just enjoy the view to a happy playlist.
- Color/Paint/Draw/Sketch – release the creative monster inside. Go ahead, color outside the lines – enjoy acting like a kid for a little while!
- Catch up on episodes of your favorite show – Take time to knock a show off your list. It’s great for when you’re feeling too tired to do anything physically demanding.
- Watch a chick flick – sometimes you just need a good love story to remind you that everything is okay in the world again. Even if it’s happening to someone else and Patrick Dempsey is NOT enchanting you as your maid of honor 🙁
- Call a friend and catch up – Sometimes it’s easy to lose touch with people because we ‘get too busy.’ Let’s be real. That’s an excuse because we’d rather be scrolling through social media seeing how other people live their lives rather than actually discussing it with them or living our own lives.
- Write/Journal – Take some time to put your thoughts to paper. Sometimes the movement of pen to paper helps us work out how we feel and as a bonus, it helps the creative side of our brain work with the logical side so we can understand ourselves better.
- Define your goals for the next week/month/year – Make a rough guideline of where you want to be or what you want to accomplish in the near future. Many times writing down the goal is the biggest step in actually accomplishing your goals. It just kind of throws it out into the universe. Like a to-do list for your life.
- Work on a Puzzle – Concentrating so hard on finishing something takes your stress away from you without even realizing it. It allows your brain to relax from what you’ve been agonizing over all day and just helps focus on one thing: WINNING.
- Digital Detox/Unplug from Technology for ONE night – This is probably the hardest thing to do on the list. I personally want to throw my phone as far away as possible the second I get home…but then I worry if my family members have a crisis and HAVE to reach me somehow but they can’t and how I would regret it if they were seriously injured… It is a process. I haven’t been able to completely unplug yet but I have taken a couple of important steps:
- I uninstalled all social media apps on my phone. This is huge because I don’t spend 2 hours creeping on what everyone else is doing.
- My husband and I flip over our phones during dinner and activate silent mode. That way, we only check once in a while to see if anything urgent happens. It helps us to spend more quality time together and worry less about everyone else.
- Create a Bucket List – Make a list of all the places you want to travel to. Keep it as a working list so you can keep adding on to it when you think of new places you want to include.
- Cook or Bake something for FUN – It is WAY different when you’re cooking because you have to vs cooking something because you WANT to. You can get creative and not stress about the results. It can do wonders for your mental health.
- Focus on a hobby – It is so easy to push our happy place far away so we can get stuff done that “needs to be done.” We can easily forget to do the things that make us happy. Think of a hobby you want to get back into or try a new one that you’ve always wanted to explore! The world is your oyster!
- Take an enrichment course – A class that you want to take for fun! It doesn’t have to be anything wild or educational plus it forces you to spend time on yourself.
- Browse through old photos – Sometimes we fly through life and forget to stop and smell the roses… take some time to reminisce about the good old days. The endorphins from the euphoria will calm you down and remind you of the good things in life.
- Have a Dance Party – sometimes it’s fun to just dance it out. Put on a fun playlist and get active dancing like no ones watching.
- Spa Day – Taking care of your body helps to take care of your mind. They both go hand in hand! So grab a friend or go solo and enjoy a nice massage and a mani/pedi.
- Get rid of toxicity in your life – Anyone or anything that is damaging to your mental health needs to be removed from your life. You should be happy and positive all the time, and if someone or something is making you unhappy, take the time to figure out what it is and get rid of it! You will feel much happier afterwards!
- Figure out what inspires you – Take the time to figure out what makes you happy and what you’d like to be doing 5/10/20 years from now. What inspires you? Make a vision board or a list of things that make you happy.
- Meditate – I’m not great at it quite honestly. I don’t like silences so I just spend the whole time talking to myself and I don’t really think that’s the point of meditation. I did download a free app recently and that’s helped me to focus a little better. It does help to clear your mind but I’m not sure if it’s for me.
Well, there you have it. Things you can do to take care of yourself physically and mentally.
Click on the link below to get this list in an easy to download/print format and let me know in the comments if you have any other ideas to add in!
Thanks for hanging out!