9 Easy & Simple Ways To Better Manage Your Mental Health and Routine: Ways to "Work on Yourself"

Do you feel like your life is starting to spiral and you’re not exactly sure how to get a hold of your life again? Do you feel mentally drained? Are you fresh out of a relationship and people are telling you to start working on yourself? Work on yourself? How do you do that when you feel like your life is falling apart ! Trust me, I get it… but listen up honey, YOU CAN AND YOU WILL GET TO A HEALTHIER PLACE! I have done it and you can too. Battling overcoming a toxic relationship, having college stress and pressure on my back 24/7, dealing with family issues, and overall transitioning into a new phase of my life...this past year and half has not been easy on me. However, once I really started to gain control of my life again through easy changes in my day, I discovered general happiness through the storm. Mental health is extremely important to your life and it is highly important to maintain it.

So you may be asking yourself, well how do I do that Melanie? I’ll tell you how, but you have to be ready and willing to take these simple actions in order for your life to come into full swing.

So to start, try to follow these basic tips. Know that you don’t necessarily have to follow all of them but they are all suggested!

1.)Start a consistent and realistic morning routine

Rather than waking up, rushing around grabbing something quick to eat and leaving to go out the door or contrary waking up to stay in bed and be lazy the rest of the day, SWITCH IT UP! Instead, start your day by waking up early. Now this can go both ways; to wake up super early around 5-7 am to go out for a nice morning jog, walk or gym session; or to wake up at a normal time between 8-10 am( my preference). But once waking up I found that my day feels more organized when my bed is made and my room is clean. This prevents me from being lazy and falling back into my cave. Next, I suggest playing some high frequency music or podcasts to keep your mind happy and distracted from overthinking. Keep these on while making your bed and breakfast which is crucial in the process of changing your mood with a happy start to the day. Making a nice meal, while enjoying a fresh iced coffee while listening to upbeat music is actually super enjoyable! ( I know, it’s astonishing.) After that I suggest having a fun quick workout that leads into a shower. After that, your routine is basically over. All you have to do is get dressed and go on about your day. The only difference is now you're not groggy or anxious about being late!

2.)Incorporate Exercise: (even if it’s light work)

Another way to improve your mental health throughout your days is to incorporate some kind of exercise into your everyday routine... or at least in most of your days of the week if not always possible. Exercise is so important towards your mental health and has so many benefits including helping you control your weight, reducing your risk of heart diseases, helping your body manage blood sugar and insulin levels, helping you quit smoking, improving your mental health and mood, helping to keep your thinking, learning, and judgment skills sharp, and much more. Some easy ways to start incorporating this into your routine is by walks, runs, gym sessions, yoga, daily stretches, or at-home work out videos( Chloe Tings workouts on Youtube, highly recommend).

Once completed, endorphins, dopamine, and more will fill your body and you will instantly have an improved mood. Start slow if you’re not there yet but I promise it's worth getting into. You’ll thank me later.

3.) Change your diet & drink more water!

Alongside with exercise, also try to incorporate a healthier diet into your daily routine. Start off with little swaps in your day to make food healthier. For example, change out your regular milk to a nut or oat milk, change your soda to a seltzer or lemon water, swap pizza out for a healthy personal homemade tortilla pizza , or change your sugary Dunkin coffee to an at home, healthier, creamy sugarless iced coffee. With these little tricks you can escape the fast food and lazy days with a healthier and tastier option.

Furthermore, you can also take a vegan, plant-based, keto, or vegetarian route. I personally eat mostly vegetarian( with occasional cheat days because it’s ok!) These foods can actually be extremely tasty and good for your overall health and there are so many recipes for them as well.This new shifted focus on your diet will give you something new to look foward to everyday. With that being said, never restrict yourself too much. Enjoy these new meals and try not to be too picky with things. Ultimately, be open to new foods!

With that being said, drink more water as well. It is recommended by mayoclinic.org to drink 15.5 cups of fluids a day for men and 11.5 cups for women. There are also so many benefits to drinking water like clearing your skin, aiding in weight loss, fighting off infections, detoxifying your body, boosting your energy, improving productivity, and much more. I suggest going to a store today and picking up a cute and cheap gallon bottle to carry around with you. This should motivate yourself to drink more.

4.) Get off social media, and dive into something healthier

A different approach to your daily routine is to ditch out on the social media. Now, obviously you should not be cutting this out completely because sometimes it is crucial to obtain, but what is important, is to limit your time on these outlets. Scrolling through these media outlets such as Instagram, can be extremely detrimental to your health because it can ruin one's self esteem. Especially for me, I can proudly say that I have been a victim of this. I personally do not find it enjoyable to scroll through my feed looking at all these pretty girls with amazing bodies, taking pictures and being confident on camera like they are. More so, I tend to compare my life to theirs and wonder why my life isn’t as fun, inviting, and beautiful as theirs. It gets tiring!

So my advice to you is to cut out the stalking, scrolling, and comparing, because simply, no good can come out from that. Also, attacks like cyber-bullying and mean comments can ruin one day so I suggest that if you are going to use these outlets, to do it with the intent to socialize or message and respond to others, specifically towards friends or family only.

Instead, try watching a movie, sports show, reading a book, watching your favorite Youtuber, or take any small steps to pursue your future dreams and ambitions. Overall, do anything else to avoid that negative feed scrolling and self-comparison and focus on other things that actually do matter (like your future)!

5.) Listen to music and/or motivational podcasts throughout the day

As mentioned earlier, have music playing constantly. High frequency and music in general have so many benefits to our well-being and sanity. For example according to gethealthystayhealthy.com, music typically improves mood, helps regulate emotions, reduces stress, lessens anxiety, improves exercise, improves memory, eases pains, provides comfort, improves cognition, and more. Most of all, it boosts the brain’s production of the hormone dopamine. There are many ways to incorporate music into your routine, whether it be in the morning, in the car, on a walk or run, while studying, or when you’re taking a shower etc.

Likewise to music, I found that podcasts really changed my life too. I like listening to motivational and transformative podcasters that are relatable and easy to listen to( some examples are The Courtney Sanders Show: Soundcloud, Inner Devine Podcast: Soundcloud, or Blind Dating with Tara Michelle: Spotify, Gary Vayner: Youtube). As for yourself, search around until you find a channel that really touches you in a special way. Listen to them every morning or before bedtime, and notice the change in inspiration and motivation you will gain. More so, it keeps the mind busy and depletes any overthinking- type thoughts.

6.)Provide a consistent skin-care/ hygiene regimen

As for hygiene, never go to bed or wake up with a dirty face. With that being said, invest in makeup wipes and/ or micellar water to remove your makeup and keep your face clean throughout the night. Sleep is the time where our bodies regenerate cells and clears its system out. So, that is why we must make sure that our skin is breathing during our sleep. With that being said make sure you continue to take cold showers since they are better for your health(don't worry nothing wrong with a long hot shower either).

Make sure too, to wash your face with a proper cleanser and warm water/ then splash your face with ice cold water when finished to seal your pores and keep you feeling fresh. Further, find a proper skin care regime that fits your particular skin-type’s needs( for advice on products, visit Skincare bye Hyram on Youtube. He really is good at breaking down what’s best for you and explaining the science behind your skin).

Overall, a strong skin care routine not only feels nice on your face, but it guides you to feel more confident. It’s a domino effect really, when your skin is nice, you gain more confidence, and when you gain more confidence your combined mood is improved, and when your mood is improved, you have a better day.

7.) Return back to your old hobbies or start new ones

Now this may sound cliche, but if you dropped your old hobbies because life got in the way, now is the perfect time to get back into them! For example, my roommate is a figure skater and was in a relationship with a boy she thought she loved. During her relationship, she completely dropped her love for skating and never really pursued it throughout it. After her breakup with him, she discovered her new refound love for it and now practices everyday as a healthy form of therapy( and maybe also as a way to show him what he missed out on). Not only does jumping back into these hobbies provide you with basically free therapy, but it also adds light to your image. In essence, you will attract more people and (maybe even a potential lover) through these.

If you never had a hobby, well in the nicest way possible, find one! It can be something basic like painting, or start something spontaneous like rock climbing! Whatever it is, you will find something you enjoy and can escape your brain from reality for a while. For me, I got back into my love for art and writing which are old passions of mine that I am reviving to put into a better use such as career purposes and as a way to destress (I also realized that I now have something to actually say when people ask me what my hobbies are).

8.) Go outside!(Quarantine edition)

Another great way to heal yourself is to actually go outside! Being anywhere but home is the goal you want to make for yourself. Often when being home for too long, you can find yourself stuck in your head of stress and or depression and anxiety. An easy way to alleviate this is to actually get out for once. I know this can seem hard during a pandemic, but it’s really not.

Leave your home, go for a walk, sit in your backyard, go to a store, go to work, run some errands.go for a drive and blast some music, etc. I know it sounds like common sense but let me provide you with a story so you know what I mean. My roommate and I were stuck quarantining for a bit and both of us were off work, so we were really got bored. AND I MEAN BORED! So, we decided to take a drive to Philly and blast some music and we honestly felt amazing during and after it. Something about it was so freeing. Like just to get out of the house and do anything else was enough for us. Another example is today actually, I decided to lay a blanket out in my backyard and do some homework then went for a nice walk with my friends. Something about being in the sun rather than stuck in my bedroom all day was way more satisfying. The zoom fatigue really disappeard. Like it felt really good to just not be inside for once. Plus, it’s something that you can literally do today!

9.) Clean up and get cozy: Night Time

As for night time, create a clean and cozy environment in your room before bed. This means make a comfy space! Well how so? Simply light some candles, spray some lavender or jasmine scents particularly ones that are good for sleep, practice meditations and or do a tarot reading(if you know how), play comforting music, drink water or sleepy tea, and dim those lights( highly suggest investing in led light or the sunset projector light). This really will help you create a positive energy to sleep in before bedtime. Right before bed too as I am trying to fall asleep, I found that listening to positive affirmations for sleep really prevent any type of late night anxieties and overthinking. Taking these steps are crucial to getting a good night's rest.

Similarly related, go to sleep at an early enough time to get the right amount of sleep. Affordablecollegesonline.org suggests that college students should get abut 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Through that alone, you should be able to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to conquer the next day.

WRAP UP:

These may all seem like simple concepts however, that’s the point! Once you consistently have these routines in place, just watch how different you will feel. These tricks and tactics truly do help in the long haul and I highly suggest you try at least one of these to see a positive change in your daily life. Start working on yourself sis!