How I Practice Self Care

The fact that I struggle with my mental health is not a secret. Most of you know that I've been on and off sick leave for the past two years and I've been diagnosed with burnout, anxiety and depression. At the moment I'm in a good place and it is largely due to my self care routine. I try to create a life that's as stress free as possible and make sure I take care of my basic needs so that never feel like I've completely lost control over my life. If you're interested in what works for me, here's how I practice self care.

1. Create a routine.
   Not having a routine is what broke me. Having lots to do, but no structure doesn't work for me, so I had to create a schedule for myself. Even if it's just a simple "wake up around here, eat lunch around here, dinner around here and go to bed here. Do these things in between." that's fine. I just need a structure in order to keep myself sane.
2. Prioritizing fun.
   The best advice I've ever gotten was something my old therapist told me; schedule and prioritize fun. That felt like such a weird thing to do. Wasn't I supposed to prioritize my studies as a student? She was right of course so I started to shift my priorities. Whenever I make a schedule I start by deciding when I should wake up and when I need to go to bed. Then I add when I should eat lunch and dinner and after that I make sure to schedule in enough fun and relaxing things throughout the week. I won't be able to do my work if my mental health isn't at an okay level so it does make sense to put these blocks into my schedule before my work hours and for someone who has a difficult time relaxing without a guilty conscience, this helps me. If it's scheduled in my calendar I know I have the time.
3. Plan flexibly.
   Having a schedule where every minute is accounted for is not a good idea. Make sure there's enough time between appointments and make sure your entire week won't fall apart if one thing goes wrong.
4. Allow yourself shitty days.
   Shitty days will come and sometimes you just have to have them. If your Wednesday is absolute crap, allow yourself to have that shitty day. Don't force yourself to do extra work that you don't really have to do. Do the bare minimum and postpone the rest. You can start again tomorrow.
5. Plan a clean day.
   As you may have noticed I rely heavily on my routines, but I truly believe in them. Saturdays are my cleaning days. I try to start my day by doing my laundry and clean the apartment while it's in the wash. Knowing that Saturday is my cleaning days makes it so much easier to actually clean. Procrastinating the cleaning doesn't happen as frequently and it actually gets done. Whenever I don't feel like it I try to push myself to at least put on the laundry. Putting on the laundry usually triggers me to continue and I do a bit more cleaning. Telling myself to do some speed cleaning for 10 minutes or 30 minutes usually also gets it done. Once I've started I usually finish and feel a lot better about myself because my surroundings are clean and less stressful.
6. Be ruthless with your unfollowing.
   If you realize you don't feel particularly good when you see posts from a specific account, just unfollow. It's okay. Your social media feeds are for you and you have zero obligation to follow anyone who doesn't make you feel good. You can unfollow anyone and everyone. If your friend Ellie only posts about horses and you have zero interest in horses, just unfollow or mute her. Same with your cousin who joined an MLM and tries to sell you stuff. You may be related, but you don't have to follow them if they don't add something to your life. Remember to be ruthless. Also unfollow accounts that make you feel apathy. You want to get inspired by your feed, not get bored.
7. Take a walk and disconnect.
   Make sure you schedule time to disconnect from social media and reconnect with yourself. Leave your phone at home and go out for a walk. You know you need time off from being accessible. It drains your energy to be reachable all day every day. Tell the world to fuck off for an hour.
8. Be selfish.
   You may want to please everyone and be a positive happy person that everyone likes, but that's never going to happen. The only person you need to spend your entire life with is yourself and that's the person that should be your number one priority. I'm not saying you should be an ass to everyone, I'm saying you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you assist others. If you've had a really stressful day at work and all you want to do is to curl up in bed alone with your laptop and watch Gilmore Girls when your friend asks you to join her for a beer it's okay to say no. Will your friend be disappointed, perhaps, but if you know it's the best decision for you, it's okay to make that decision. In the end, you won't be able to help other people with their oxygen masks if you're choking to death yourself.
9. Remember that your feelings and experiences are valid.
   You may think your experiences aren't as bad as someone else's, but that doesn't matter. If you're feeling like crap you're feeling like crap and you're allowed help to stop feeling like crap. You may struggle with depression and think that since you don't want to kill yourself your struggles aren't bad enough to deserve attention, or you have really bad anxiety, but since you don't suffer from regular panic attacks there's no reason to seek professional help, or maybe you suffer from something else but you deem yourself high-functioning enough not to seek help. DO NOT DO THAT. You may not be diagnosed with a severe condition, but that only means you should seek help before you get there. We don't wait to give cancer patients help until the cancer has progressed to stage IV. No, we consider it a bigger win the sooner the cancer is detected. Your problems are valid, your feelings are valid, your experiences are valid and your symptoms are valid. Seek help if you struggle.

"Mental health doesn't discriminate."

- Samantha Ravndahl