I’ve been reading a lot of non fiction books. Self help mostly. Productivity, happiness, habits, success etc and there a few things they all seem to have in common. Exercise, eating well, gratitude, tiny steps, and mindfulness. Apparently all five are basically self help panaceas.
It makes sense. Exercise is good for both body and brain. I’m constantly fidgeting as I write and go out for walks when I’m consumed by anxiety. I love swimming too though I rarely get a chance to. I hate other exercise though and can’t seem to keep it up on my own in any other way.
Eating well keeps you healthy and at premium functioning too. Eating poorly does the opposite. For example I ate half a key lime pie today and got sick to my stomach. Whereas eating fruit peps me up. And having a protein rich breakfast helps me start the day out better.
Gratitude…. Well. I have clinical depression. My happiness baseline is set on ‘meh’ and that’s actually an improvement. Gratitude, while I can do it, it doesn’t have much effect on me. Apparently you can be grateful and miserable at the same time. And then you feel guilty about being miserable because you have so much to be grateful for because that’s what depression does for you. But maybe it just takes longer to do in these circumstances so I’m going to keep trying. I mean it won’t exactly do me harm.
Mindfulness is a big one. Just learning to live in the moment and accept things as they are without judgement is a game changer. It alters your brain in so many positive ways and you don’t need anything special to do it. Though I do love incense cones. There are so many benefits I forget them all. It’s just hard to do when you’re stressed so you have to practice when you’re not too.
Finally tiny steps, micro habits whatever you call them are the new big thing. You make the task or first step so small you barely need any energy at all to do it. Like I managed to put all my clean clothes away by just taking five hangers at a time (I hang up all my clothes. It’s easier to see and go through) and changing my sheets I start (while still lying in my bed) to put the notebooks and books and laptop down on the floor next to my bed, clearing it off. Then I kick off my comforter and pillows then change the sheets. Easy peasy, energy efficient steps I barely need any energy to do which is good because my depression takes away a lot of my energy.
You can apply the micro steps to anything else too. Exercise? Do it for one minute then add another minute each week. That gets you almost to an hour a day after a year. Mindfulness? A minute of meditation. Gratitude. One thing you’re grateful for. Eating well add or replace something with one fruit or vegetable. You have writing goals, write one sentence, or even just one word and go from there if you can.
These things all seem to just give you a better life in general. They come up everywhere. Even in mental health and basic self care. I’m not going to say it’s easy, but they’re obviously effective and micro habits make things easier to handle when you’re trying to make these changes. Try it out. Or look it up. The library has a lot of online books you can read or do micro learning on apps like Deepstash where I got most of my info.
I hope this helps anyone even just a little. Have a good day.
