SELF CARE – BE AWARE!

You can enhance your own mental health right now!  Start with the basics.

Sleep!
Sleep affects your mood, movement, memory, and cellular repair. Prioritize your sleep and practice tips to help ease into sleep. Gently stretch each night and slow your breathing to 6 counts in, pause and 6 counts out and pause. This can help you slow your mind and get better rest.

Set some goals for yourself.
There are three different kinds: process, performance, and outcome. It’s kind of like visualizing the whole process to get what you want. Process is the route to the goal and performance is measuring progress along the way. Each step should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.

Create rituals.
Close your eyes and imagine how you want your future self to feel. Use all five senses: how will it look, what will you hear? You are creating a scene from a first person perspective. Make time for this, have a special cup of tea, sit in your favorite chair, or even outside.

Control your breathing.
This is the fastest way to calm your anxiety and relieve stress. Be aware of your thought patterns to better control negative thinking. Inhale by tensing your whole body then let out your breath in one looooong exhale until you feel you need to inhale again. This is a great strategy to try anywhere – at your desk, standing in line, you name it! You can even find apps on your phone to help with this. Or calming podcasts to listen to right before you go to sleep.

Be nice to yourself.
Replace negative self talk with positive affirmations. “You’ve got this” or “You’re ok” or whatever else strikes your fancy. Use third person talk (you) instead of first person (I). Research shows it’s more effective. And replace “I’ll try” statements with “I will”. Believe it or not, you will start to listen to these positive statements.

Be Grateful every day.
Gratitude is good for the soul. Taking the time to express gratitude for 3 things each day (work to make them different) can improve your mood, productivity, and relationships. Try writing it down in a gratitude journal. Send a note or text to someone who is important to you.

Look for the Silver Lining.
It’s not just a song! For every disappointment try to find the upside. Seems kinda corny that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But there is a lot to that! It may be hard a first, but it will become second nature to find the one good thing in the bad. After all, there are not mistakes, just learning opportunities.