“Live like someone left the gate open!”

We’re living in a time where because of the pandemic, many of us are far more sedentary than we even were previously.

Our collective anxiety levels are much higher, so there’s also a tendency to consume more alcohol (which is a depressant) and to eat our feelings with salty and sugary foods.

This pandemic has been going on for many months now, and the cumulative effect of the anxiety, poor sleep and poor eating habits is taking its toll on our mental health.

If this is you, please consider changing some of your daily habits to help yourself start to feel better!

Start slowly to incorporate these into your days and soon they’ll become good habits! (If you rush to change everything all at once, it really can overload the brain and it’s tempting not to continue!)

Find enjoyable moments in each day!

Our mental health requires us to seek out the positive things which help us to feel better!

It’s hard to feel joyful when we’re over-tired, so getting good sleep plays an important role. Get enough hours of sleep, look into supplements which help promote restful sleep, reduce the foods and beverages in the evening hours which interrupt a good sleep, and think about doing some mild exercise like walking which helps promote better sleep!

The quality of our food affects our moods, as does eating regularly so we don’t become “hangry” when our blood sugar levels drop! Eating a lot of processed foods with chemical preservatives and food coloring can also negatively affect us. Apart from not being good for our health, they can also trigger moodiness in people. When my daughter was a child, red dye #4 would trigger temper tantrums.

Eating too much sugary foods isn’t going to just affect our waistlines, it can trigger mood crashes after the “sugar high” wears off.

Try to get out and take a walk! Try to get out once or twice a week and build from there!

Change some of your unhealthy snacks for healthier ones! (Don’t eliminate everything, because that’s too hard in the beginning!) Experiment with different things… try to find healthier snack foods you would actually enjoy!

Cook some meals from scratch instead of relying on high sodium, high fat, high sugar prepared meals! Add a salad or vegetables to your meals! Add fresh fruit! I understand that cooking from scratch isn’t always possible, but some meals will be an improvement. Maybe double the recipe and freeze some for another week!

Maybe take some supplements for your health! See if they work for you!

Drink a hot herbal tea after supper and about an hour before bedtime instead of more alcohol! There are some lovely non-caffeine teas which taste amazing, so experiment with a few! Honey doesn’t always taste good in some of them, but Maple or Agave syrup does, if you’re looking for a sugar substitute!

Get to bed at a regular bedtime instead of staying up really late!

These are a few small changes we can tweak in our days and weeks!

If you do well with your new plan, congratulate yourself each day! If you do well for a few days and then don’t do so well for a few days after, speak gently with yourself!

Making changes in our lives can involve a lot of the proverbial “take two steps forward, and one step back” sort of thing, because it’s hard for our bodies and minds to completely switch over to a new schedule or plan and manage to stick to it 100% of the time!

When we’re understanding with ourselves, we want to get up and try again if we stumble!

If we’re hard on ourselves, we usually want to chuck it all, because we really don’t want to face our own wrath and displeasure again!

So, whatever you’re planning, incorporate speaking gently and encouragingly to yourself! You’re much likelier to want to listen to yourself afterwards!

Wishing you a lovely day!

I’m sharing more post which may be helpful for you:

• 10 Steps to Owning Our Happiness
• Setting “Boundaries with consequences”
• Making a change… “How do I take that first step?”
• Affirmation: Today is a new day! I can do this!
• As we practice being gentle and kind with ourselves, we actually help to speed the process of helping our lives become more positive!
• Always believe that wonderful things can happen!
• A healthy outside starts from the inside!
• Brain Rewiring

More good stuff:

Teaching ourselves to like, even to love ourselves

By changing our inner dialogue, we change EVERYTHING!

Challenge: When a negative thought enters your mind, think three positive ones. Train yourself to flip the script!

Red Ocean or Blue Ocean? How do you think?

An answer to dealing with the Inner Critic!

My top 10 most viewed posts, plus a few bonuses!

A helpful trick to be able to overcome negatively Comparing Ourselves to others…

Do you only accept yourself if you look a certain way?

A new you! Is this possible?

Please go to my Archived Posts page to find more wonderful posts to check out!

Blessings!
Thank you for sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara
https://tamarakulish.com/ Archived Posts: https://tamarakulish.com/archived-posts/

My books: Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audio book available!

Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:

Removing Inner Blocks,    Anger Journal,    Guided Anxiety Journal    Joy & Mindfulness Journal     My Boundaries Journal   My Inner Thoughts Journal   

Thanks for buying my books on Amazon!

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