Healthy spirit: Lifehacks to start a new life right now
The change of seasons is fraught with irregular moods, and many after a long winter experience exhausting fatigue. If you feel bad and the condition does not improve, it is worth considering to consult a doctor. Nevertheless, you can start helping yourself right now: good habits and a comfortable lifestyle for a couple with specialist consultations will be safeguarded both day by day and on the threshold of life changes. Alice Taezhnaya, who has already spoken about the experience of treating depression, shared a few life hacks to whom she came during and after psychotherapy.
Keep a mood diary
In some periods of my life mood changes several times a week, or even a day. It is impossible to keep track of him: in one state, it is terrible for me to take responsibility, in another - it seems that I can change the whole world, and it becomes impossible to plan something realistically.
The mood diary is useful to anyone who loses his footing and has long forgotten the days when he woke up and fell asleep in the same mood; The diary's task is to trace the connection between life events and mood, which we constantly lose sight of. Every day, for at least three months, it will be necessary to note a change of mood and write in the diary events that have become an occasion for it: work situations, meetings with certain people, causes of stress, new acquaintances, dating and sex, communication with friends.
After a couple of weeks, you will most likely see a mood pattern: for example, you feel bad in the morning, but it gets better in the evening, do not like Tuesdays, but like Fridays, some things inspire, and others anger. The mood diary helps to analyze different situations and to build a distance in relation to mood: when you see how many times it changes within one week, it will be easier to take its regular shifts. This is the first step to learn how to adapt to your condition and not to confuse your mood with the real state of things. The diary helps a lot with psychotherapy: a good specialist needs an interested and motivated patient who looks at his mood critically and does not dissolve in him.
I love notebooks, pencils and pens and made a paper diary myself, but you can buy it ready or use the virtual one (for example, as an iMood Journal app). I bought a large calendar with turns for three months and divided every day into four equal squares: morning, afternoon, evening and night, where I mark the mood with flowers. The color scheme everyone likes their own, and in my case it is from white to red. White - moments of complete peace and confidence, pink - mild fatigue or irritability, orange - an acute feeling of uplifting and anxiety, red - an SOS situation, such as panic attack, hysterics, quarrel, conflict, or vice versa, an attack of euphoria and flight of happiness.
WHAT HAPPENED:I had a clear schedule of life with the ability to plan events in advance. I learned how to control the moment when light discomfort comes to a critical point, learned how to give up extra work, no matter how encouraging they are. I became more disciplined and learned how to build links between events and reactions. Psychotherapy has accelerated significantly: I was able to respond to the doctor’s arguments in the case, rather than relying on immediate sensations.
Eat balanced and regular
Lack of regular meals led me to exhaustion, which I was not fully aware of. I could forget to eat until hunger was like a headache. Episodes of malnutrition and overeating alternated, and the pleasure of eating was associated with a sense of shame for what I finally felt good.
Unfortunately, in Russia a calm attitude to food is not always instilled in childhood: “I don't want to eat,” “you won't leave the table until you eat,” “grandmother’s spoon”, “you cannot eat after six hours” - this harsh language that imposes responsibility on the child for almost his entire family. As adults, we often do not know how to understand moments of hunger and fullness, and we don’t even always know what kind of food we like. Thousands of books have been written about nutrition, but the main thing to remember is people with mood swings: most likely, your nutrition is also impulsive and not always balanced.
The answer to many questions can be found in the results of a biochemical blood test, which will show a lack of elements, and an analysis of the hormones responsible for appetite and weight gain; interpret the results must endocrinologist. If there are no violations, do the simplest thing: buy an inexpensive multicooker and cook healthy foods at home from your favorite foods. Let it be the basis of your diet, not counting trips to cafes and guests. There are different versions of what is harmful and what is useful, and the attack of public opinion is fat or gluten.
It is best to surround yourself with the maximum amount of healthy products such as fresh vegetables, greens and a small amount of fruit, whole-grain cereals, fresh meat, poultry and fish, a dairy farm kitchen with short shelf life - in general, those that have undergone minimal processing. Cooking and taking care of yourself regularly is the key to ensuring that the body receives nutrients, regardless of mood. While eating you shouldn’t talk about bad things, quarrel, check social networks, get distracted by work: meditate on your breakfast or dinner, smile at someone who sits with you at the table, feel the taste of each piece and don’t eat diets. Healthy nutrition can be mastered by learning to just listen to yourself.
What happened: I eat on the basis of the feeling of hunger according to a convenient scheme, with a stable ration of favorite foods, I calmly feel about the features of the body and its needs, and after the evening chocolate I do not feel guilty, which previously could have poisoned me for half a day.
Do sport
My desire to move depended solely on the mood, and friends running the marathon caused envy. At the same time, the sporting past made itself felt: training could not be a pleasure if you were brought up, which is overcoming, and is associated with obligatory hours of sweating in the gym or an internal record requirement.
The fact that we were not born to sit at the desk, many realize, but to force yourself to play sports is difficult. It is very important to set achievable goals. It’s not necessary to target the Ironman if you just want to improve flexibility and endurance. The easiest way is to walk; however, not everyone has time even for an hour of walking. Then you can carve out a day a week for a long walk, no matter what happens - once a week I walk 30-40 kilometers. In extreme cases, you can not even leave the house and train under the videos.
To form the habit of physical activity is as early as possible: someone starts for this dogs, with which you need to walk, someone in the dry season moves on a bicycle, someone stands in the bar for five minutes a day. The most important thing is small steps and tiny achievements, by which progress can be measured, a habit that does not depend on mood and does not need records and approval.
What happened: Almost every day I go in for sports at home under YouTube videos, choosing classes according to my mood: even the most relaxed stretching and the subsequent shower are better than nothing. For three years I improved my form and made it easier for me to start the day - the most problematic hours. The release of hormones after exercise and walks helps to get started in a good mood.
Meditate or do breathing exercises
I found it hard to believe that ten to fifteen minutes of meditation a day can change the view of things — besides, talking about meditation often seems religiously colored. I did not believe in meditation and was skeptical about the idea of enlightenment and clarity of mind, but still decided to try.
Any habit is better to start in good spirits, and not during, for example, exacerbation of depression. I began to meditate irregularly a few months ago and, perhaps, because of this, I did not survive a nervous breakdown during a very emotionally difficult enterprise for me. The road to successful meditation can be long, but the main thing is not an instant effect, but the habit of not identifying yourself with thoughts and flashes in your head. I started with the basic and expensive Headspace app, but it’s enough to make a “Guided Meditation” query on YouTube to get a lot of commercials with calm voices or sounds of nature.
The main property of meditation and breathing exercises is the opportunity to see the automatism of actions, thoughts and impulses, look at it from the side, realize and give yourself the opportunity to shut down. People with years of experience can meditate for hours, but you can start with a short meditation with audio support in the mornings at least several times a week. To maintain motivation, follow the mood diary - sooner or later you will see a connection between mood and physical condition in those days when you meditated and played sports, and when you did not.
What happened: I learned how to switch off from reality at the moment when I need it, and to switch attention from the momentary to the long-term. Perhaps I have become a little more stressful, although it is too early to judge. One of the main skills practiced by meditation is not to think about and contemplate anything, perfectly replaces the automatic scrolling of social networks, procrastination and the fear of being left alone with your thoughts.
Calm about money
In a bad mood, I was worried that she was financially vulnerable, and she ate buckwheat alone, spent a lot of money on the good one; up to adulthood, I did not know how to save money and plan a single spending strategy. With a decent salary, I didn’t have any savings for a long time; I lived for one day, taking revenues on vacation and pleasure, and any stressful situation inspired fear.
To calmly treat money is often called upon by those who have it and who have already learned how to regularly replenish the "airbag". Unfortunately, in Russia financial literacy often suffers even among thirty-year-olds. At the same time, the ability to calmly manage resources, save money and plan expenses is the foundation on which you can build a family budget and a business strategy.
You can save 10-20% of regular income, inquiring about interest rates on deposits and other ways of investment, knowing that this money is not on vacation or large purchases. It is the habit to create accumulations under any conditions that can free one from the anxious feeling “I can do nothing” if there is a question of emergency assistance, loss of work or other negative events. You can do something and are already doing, taking care of your financial security.
Another useful financial habit is regular charitable donations: you can set up automatic debiting of small amounts in favor of a credible foundation or respond to individual requests for help on social networks. Such a small and simple action makes you feel connected with other people: it is not necessary to be a very rich person in order to manage money fairly and find small amounts for good deeds.
It is important that the revision of the budget will not work without optimizing spending and getting rid of impulse purchases. It is a pleasure to reward oneself for a success with a gift or a tasty cupcake, but this should not be the main way to please oneself. There are several dozen budget management applications, but the main thing in this matter is not technical equipment, but awareness in relation to money. It does not negate broad gestures, beautiful gifts to others and participation in the lives of loved ones and has nothing to do with conjugation.
What happened: I learned how to save money, planning leisure and making savings, deny myself short-term purchases and postpone decisions about short-term acquisitions. Instead of online shopping, I spend time on movies and books and set up automatic deductions for charities. I have never had loans, and I do not even consider such a possibility.
Rest without guilt
I've always had confused and troubled sleep, and I treated him as a waste of time. Passive rest was associated with laziness and inability to spend time interestingly, and I was annoyed not having thought of my own business, but at the same time, fatigue imperceptibly became the background of life.
From the experience of communication, I can say that behind every second person with a long low mood is a complex excellent student and years of unconscious workaholism. Leisure time causes guilt, and the habit of clogging the schedule with vigorous activity makes us kings of multitasking. But only until the fall, when, after processing, you do not want to get out of bed and have to force yourself to do things through the power. The main reason for such a long overload is hyper-responsibility, the inability to allow yourself to rejoice, the fear of not meeting other people's expectations, and the disturbing lack of self-confidence often implicated in the impostor complex.
The mode of work and rest should be changed, if once favorite affairs cause a commitment, and you still hardly say “no” to all counter offers. First you need to let yourself sleep without an alarm and understand the optimal sleep duration. Some seven hours are enough, and I need at least nine; at the same time, feeling guilty, I did not systematically get enough sleep.
It is very important to allocate time which you will spend only in personal interests, not fulfilling social roles for others - that is, perhaps, to be bored and idle. It is the lack of time for yourself that is connected with the loss of inspiration, the dulling of sensations to what was once liked, cooling to the environment and pathological fatigue from social functions. Many of us, instead of the work regime, need, on the contrary, to build a rest mode. And it’s time to understand that nothing will happen if you don’t have time to do something in time, beforehand and correctly warn about it.
What happened: I parted with a sense of guilt in my free time, learned how to sit back and soar in the clouds, and realized what meditating people call “being in the moment” - not to rush into activity when this is not required. I admitted to myself that I thought better when I had a good sleep, and learned to turn off the phone for the night forever - and in two years of a new habit I missed only two important calls and one delivery.
Write morning pages
During the working day I find it difficult to prioritize, and within a week there is no opportunity to think about what is happening strategically. I did not have enough moments so that I could think about what was bothering me with a clear head.
Morning pages are a long-time, simple and effective therapeutic practice: right after waking up, you write three pages of everything on a piece of paper that comes into your head, without thinking too much. It can be dreams, memories of yesterday, the causes of today's concern, moments of doubt in making decisions - anything that sits in your head right after you woke up. You do not need to reread the morning pages, you should immediately go in for meditation or sports, and you should return to what you have written in your free time or in the company of a psychotherapist.
This exercise is a way to quickly free the mind and subconscious from obsessive thoughts that can distort the perception of reality. Morning pages provide an opportunity to splash out thoughts that haven’t been out of my head for weeks, and calmly let go of expectations so as not to be distracted by them during the day.
What happened: The morning pages helped me to analyze the changes in mood and well-being, to monitor the progress of the state, its banality and predictability. I developed self-criticism and distance in relation to my diagnosis (cyclothymia) and better understand the context of my states.
Get rid of unnecessary things and connections
Familiar situation: the wardrobe is full of clothes, but there is nothing to wear, there are a lot of books on the shelves, and there is nothing to read. The social networks are full of friends, but they are not the people who want to call late at night and come hugging. With all the abundance of information, links and subjects for a long time I was left with a feeling of loneliness and estrangement.
It is hard to live in a house where things that you don’t like are piled up; it is even more difficult to be distracted by casual contacts when you want deep and solid connections. But in order for them to appear, you need to make room - in the literal and figurative sense. Tidying up at home and in the workplace helped me systematically disassemble the surrounding things. Why keep gifts that almost strangers gave you symbolically long ago? Jeans that are hopelessly small or large? Outdated technology? Getting rid of unnecessary things, you should not replace them with analogues, but focus on what you really need every day.
Cumbersome things that are difficult to part with, you can take to a paid storage and not overload the house with them. Valuables - to sell an ad, the rest - to give to charity or for recycling. Вещи могут помогать нам на определённом этапе жизни, но становиться ненужными после этого, и регулярно избавляться от лишнего - здоровая привычка. В идеале - избавьтесь от всего, чем вы не пользовались год и в присутствии чего вы не чувствуете радости.
This principle also applies to social relations: you have every right to distance oneself from people whose communication makes you tired and not very happy - follow the mood diary, which meetings inspire you, and which leave you empty. Of course, there are inevitable contacts with parents or colleagues, but many other connections can be adjusted and dispensed. Allocate time to those who listen to you without judgment (and do not condemn others), from whom you learn new things and with whom even to be bored is a pleasure. In an unpleasant, but mandatory relationship, it is better to concentrate on their functionality, and unpleasant and optional relationships can be safely thrown overboard. Removing too much, we get rid of the fear of remaining in the void; and free space is filled with cases, things and people, much more relevant to us with the present.
What happened: From a set of random things and burdensome connections, I came to people and objects that I love and always happy to see. All the working contacts are emotionally comfortable for me, the amount of information noise is minimized, Facebook is used to communicate with friends and expand horizons. I calmly part with objects that no longer bring pleasure.
Be grateful
In daily stress I did not feel joy from what was happening around me, and gratitude seemed to be a far-fetched ritual. The mention that some people were born into the world to die of starvation or war a few years later did not bring me closer to realizing my own road to tranquility. Roughly speaking, I did not appreciate what I had at my disposal.
Practices of gratitude can be implemented in two ways. The first level is the realization of the colossal luck that we were born in relatively free time, got a profession and education. You can be thankful by default for the fact that your parents were not killed in the war, you were not given to marry forcibly and were not subjected to female circumcision. You can be grateful for insurance at work, the ability to choose their own schedule and do what they love. Feed the family or have free access to a huge amount of knowledge.
Every day you should write in the diary five such basic thanks for your privileges. Five more things should concern the past day and its events. Did the partner make breakfast? Did you hold the metro door? Successfully ended the negotiations? Was a great dinner? Hear the voice of a loved one? Stroll through the spring city? These items may be quite small, but there should be five of them.
Practices of gratitude are often automatically included in the critical moments of life, but during depressive episodes it takes time to pay attention to the good. It is worth doing this in writing to understand - the list is endless, regardless of our mood. It is best to write thanks in the evening to fall asleep safely, knowing that even in the most difficult day you can find a lot of good. Losing this exercise in the head, it is difficult to achieve clarity, which is striking in his writing.
What happened: I learned to gently part with recent events, to see the good in the moments just lived and to realize my privileges daily. I do not need to compare myself with others in order to be grateful for my life: in the end, it has joys and difficulties that fall only on me.
Photo: alivepix - stock.adobe.com, michaklootwijk - stock.adobe.com, bjphotographs - stock.adobe.com
