5 ways to get out of a bad headspace
If you’re anything like me, you might find routine and genuine self care a bit of a gray area.
Recently, I found myself in a bit of a rut, not knowing what to do with my spare time and spending it mindlessly scrolling through social media.
Living like this put me in a bad headspace because I was consumed with obsessive thought patterns. I constantly felt like I was procrastinating from something, and I wasn’t showing up for myself.
It’s important to sit in your own space with your own thoughts, so you can be aware of how you are speaking to yourself and how much love you are giving yourself.
Loving yourself is the only true way to love others and serve your purpose here.
I started my own little mindfulness project taking it right back to basics.
I noticed how going through the motions resulted in me unconsciously being unkind to myself, overly critical and analytical.
My first port of call was learning to love myself again.
Here are 5 ways I recently went from being mildly depressed to happy and resilient.
Hypnosis and Meditation.
The inner voice comes from the subconscious mind, which we seem to neglect when in a funk.
A method we can use to subtly readjust that voice, is listening to hypnosis videos before bed.
Practicing deep breathing alongside the hypnosis, just for a few breaths, helps you detach and soothe your anxieties. It encourages you to see different perspectives and scale out from the ego.
Allowing yourself x amount of time just to exist, breathe, not seek stimulation is important for anyone. It takes discipline, but it makes you feel nice.
It’s crazy what a few moments of disconnect from the ego can do. There is no rush, there is no pressure, there are no real time constraints. There is a plan for you, and this will all be in retrospect one day.
I always forget, but when you are not tapped into this basic state of feeling calm and safe and grounded, we stop truly living and start existing in survival mode. We become disempowered.
It is natural to live in that state after a traumatic event, but it is not natural to live there. Life is something to play with, not be a slave to.
This was the foundation needed to transform my state of being. I will link some of the videos I have used below.
Move every day.
Your brain has a funny way of tricking you when you’re inactive, creating the illusion that life is worse than it truly is, and reality is bleaker than it really looks.
I don’t care if you go to the gym, walk in nature, take a dance class or a yoga workshop- get up!!
One of my favorite things to do in Sheffield is get ready, take my headphones, and let my body guide me wherever it feels like going. When I mindlessly walk I often come across the best things and bump into people that I have literally just been thinking about out of pure coincidence. I like to think of it as an exercise for intuition. I trust my legs to surprise me.
As the great Ant and Seb from x factor 2008 tells us; “come on move ya body”.
Write down all the inspired thoughts you have.
When you scroll as a way of killing time (which we all do) you unknowingly suppress all the cool inspiring ideas that flow through you. That’s why the inner voice gets quieter.
High speed technology makes our memory worse, and not only is this detrimental to our mental health but it also means that inspired action becomes less and less available to us.
When you write down an idea, you are changing it’s vibration and grounding it into the physical world.
The more you pay attention to your ideas, the more you will get and the more likely you are to act on them and come back to them.
You shift the energy from lack and void to abundant and optimistic.
Write yourself a to do list for the next day before bed, incorporating some attainable inspired action in there. You’ll get a huge dopamine rush when you tick it off the list.
Take. Your. Vitamins.
I have been taking Ashwagandha consistently for the last week and it has reduced my anxiety and improved my mood INSANE amounts.
I have also been eating well, which 100% contributes to feeling good (health starts in the gut). But not everything we need can be absorbed through food.
My housemate Kaya writes for a blog dedicated to wellbeing and making sure people know what they need. Here is the link for you to get more vitamin savvy.
Compartmentalize your life
We can be as mindful and hippy dippy as we want- life is still gonna be full of triggers.
One way we can minimize triggers and anxieties is by breaking tasks down a little more. This makes it easier to identify what exactly is triggering us, and makes it easier for us to calm ourselves down.
As a personal example;
The other day, I planned a date for my boyfriend and the booking process wasn’t working. This was giving me major anxiety, a disproportionate amount to how minor the situation actually was.
I took a step back and wrote all the things that were on my mind at that moment.
‘Catch up on shorthand, get ready for work, plan a date day, figure out what to eat this week, prepare for 4 exams, buy clothes rail’.
I realize that underneath it all, I’m actually stressed because the things I actually can control are being put off and added to a long list of things I can’t control. All of a sudden, date day looks minor to me. I think of a solution, I book the date day for a different date, and I trust it’s all gonna work out.
Next time you feel stressed, brain dump and put things into categories.
Life / work / study / relationships / budget.
Create small, manageable tasks out of all the things that are in your mind.
Create to do lists for each day, and plan your days so you get to cross off one task from each category each day.
Next, make a table of things that give you energy- and things that take your energy.
For everything you do that takes energy, do something that gives you energy.
That is the key to not getting burnt out.
Finally- after following these to do lists each day, write down your ‘daily wins’.
This is my fav new thing that I do.
Write down all the small silly things you did to make yourself proud each day.
“Made £x at work today”
“Got invited to x event”, “made x smile”
“Remembered to take my vitamins”.
Positive reinforcement is doing wonders for me, and by noticing all the small things I would otherwise overlook I am increasing my enthusiasm for life.
At the end of the week I take the highlights and write my weekly wins. I just like the way that phrase flows off the tongue.
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