Anxiety & Winter Self Care

Life get’s so overwhelming sometimes, and it’s so important to take regular steps back and just let yourself breathe – but admittedly, I’m not very good at doing that, and not everyone is.

This time of year is pretty rough anyway; the air is cold, the sky is grey, it’s rainy, windy, potentially snowy, and it just doesn’t do anything good for my mind. I absolutely hate going outdoors at this time of year, but staying in only makes me feel worse, which is why I think implementing more self care during the winter is vital to our well being.

Recently, I was driving home from work via my usual route along the seafront and I caught sight of the most beautiful sunset. Usually, I’d just keep on driving, but after a pretty overwhelming start to the year in terms of my anxiety, I thought I’d pull over and spend a couple of moments taking it in.
   I got out of my car, walked to the beach, snapped a couple of photos, and just took the time to stand there and really appreciate it on my own. It was the simplest thing I’ve done for a while, as my days usually consist of working then being too tired when I get home to do anything else. Those couple of minutes on the beach were so refreshing, and I couldn’t believe how peaceful I felt for the first time in a long time.

So many people think self care needs to be something like running yourself a bath with all these extravagant ‘ingredients’, taking an hour out of your day to exercise, find a new hobby to enjoy etc, but sometimes finding the time and motivation to actually do these things can be so hard. 

On that note, I wanted to share a few really simple things that can make all the difference.

• Eat at least some fruit – I personally struggle with the whole ‘five a day’ thing
• Drink at least a few glasses of water every day – keep a glass by your bed to drink before you go to sleep, or as soon as you wake up
• Listen to relaxing music or a positive podcast on your commute, while you’re studying, in the shower, or at any other time when you can pair it with something you’re already doing
• Take more notice of your self-talk and try to turn it into positive self-talk where possible
• Take more notice of the way you talk about other people / things and try and make it positive where possible
• Spend less time mindlessly scrolling on social media and try to do something you love instead (read a couple of pages of the book you’ve been meaning to read, write something to get your feelings out, talk to a friend for ten minutes, etc)
• Let someone know how you feel. Whether it’s a friend, family member, colleague, or even someone you speak to online – just opening up to someone else takes a little bit of weight off you. If you don’t feel like you can talk to anyone, writing it down helps too, to get it out of your head.

 

Sometimes, self care really is as simple as stopping to look at the sunset.

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How are you? If you don’t have anyone to talk to, you’re absolutely welcome to send me a DM on whatever social media you can find me on!
   What little things do you do to take care of yourself?