[2021-11-01] Mental health self-care
I did more clean-up in my backyard today, transplanting some herbs so that I could bring them in from the cold, harvesting the last of my jalapeño peppers, removing nasturtium from a planter, and sweeping the deck. It felt good to prepare my outdoor space for next year's gardening adventure.
Doing an inspiring home project is one of 50 mental health tips suggested by Self magazine in its recent article 50 of Our All-Time Best Mental Health Tips to Help You Feel a Little Bit Better. Tip #2 is this:
Take on a small, doable, uplifting home project. Giving your space a little upgrade can create a nice, comforting sense of control—especially helpful when you’re feeling anxious or uncertain. Plus, at the end of the project, you’ll have a happier, healthier space, which can do wonders for your mental health too.
I also like Tip #7:
Make a list of things to look forward to in both the near and far future. Sometimes it can feel like there is nothing to look forward to, so we’ll start by saying we know that this is easier said than done. That’s why we’re proponents of creating things to look forward to too. That might mean reframing your thinking (you can look forward to something as simple as the next warm sunny day, or getting into bed with clean sheets) or adding something to your calendar for next week, month, or year.
The pandemic has interrupted so many routines, traditions and social events. Illness and a major life change can further disrupt our lives, making it hard to look forward to happy occasions in the future. I like that the magazine included simple pleasures among the things we can anticipate enthusiastically. We can look forward to receiving pictures of our friend's growing baby, to ordering seeds for next year's garden, and to visiting a sugar bush in the spring.
The article's Tip #14 is equally brilliant:
Make a list of all the hard or uncertain times you’ve already gotten through. If you’re reading this, you’ve survived 100 percent of your bad days. Surviving isn’t always easy—usually, it’s not—but reminding ourselves of this can encourage further resilience. Plus, if you’ve gotten through that, who’s to say it’s impossible that you’ll get through this too? So write down the hardest times you can recall. Perhaps you can use some of that same resilience now.
It's so easy to forget the hardships we've faced in the past. And while that can be a good thing overall, it can also make us feel that each new challenge is worse than anything we've experienced before. When I was about to start chemotherapy, I remembered how awful I had felt when dealing with morning sickness. That made me a little less scared to begin my cancer treatment.
Each of the 50 tips in the article links to a longer piece published by Self. So if you want more details on how to create one thing you can control, reframe your regrets, pause your goals or any of the other tips, click through.
