Your Guide to Taking Better Care of Yourself

Your Guide to Taking Better Care of Yourself: It's not always easy taking better care of yourself. Often, we're so busy taking care of others that we forget to look after ourselves. The problem is that when you don't take good care for yourself, you can end up feeling drained and unwell, which then makes it difficult to do anything else! So here are some tips on how to take better care of yourself:

1) Avoid the news & Social Media. 

Not only do a lot of news articles exaggerate and miss out information but they can also fabricate stories in order to get 'Click Bait.' Team this with constant status updates from people on your friends list sharing their own stresses/dramas/fears/conspiracy theories and it's bound to make you an anxious wreck! My advice for peace of mind is to stay off them for most of the day at this time. I have been avoiding Facebook a lot for the past week, I deleted the app and I stopped checking the homepage feed. I have also muted the word 'Coronavirus' on Twitter so that I can't see any posts mentioning this word and I only allow myself to watch the daily update by Boris Johnson himself. Constantly being fed this kind of information all day everyday is mentally draining and not good for us! So switch off and spend your time doing something more productive for your energy and mental health

2) Exercise

Exercising will do wonders for your anxiety and mental health! Doing a little exercise everyday, whether indoors or walking outside in the countryside will make you feel so much better. Exercise doesn't have to be hardcore HIIT workouts, it can be yoga, stretching or even walking but it i bound to make you feel ten times better and lift your mood.

3) Breathing Exercise/Meditation

When having a panic attack one of the best methods that helps me is breathing exercises and mediation. Breathe in slowly and deeply from your stomach, hold your breath for a second and then breathe out through your nose, repeat this at least five times until you start feeling calmer. A really good app for mediation (and sleep music if you're struggling to sleep) is 'Calm.' This app has everything you need to meditate, breathe, sleep and feel so much calmer! It's brilliant. 

4) Take some time out for you, away from media & phones.

Have a bubble bath, stick a face mask on with a glass of wine, read a book or paint your nails, whatever you need to do, to switch off, forget about the world and feel calmer. Please ensure you put this on your to-do list at least once or twice a week. Give your mind a rest to just relax for a little while. We need to look after ourselves before we are any use to others. 

These tips are only small tasks but they have helped me greatly during difficult times and so I hope that they provide some help for you too.

If you find yourself suffering with anxiety or mental health problems contact your GP for advice. You can also have a read of our in depth anxiety guide here, which is filled with advice and resources for you to gain more support.