Self-Care for Hard Times

Things won’t always go your way, or work out the way you’d hoped. So, how can you get through these hard times, maintain a steady center, and know that you’ll be okay—that you have the skills and resilience to get through whatever life throws your way?

Go Back to Basics

When I say “Go Back to Basics,” what I mean is that you should focus on the very essential elements of self-care—drinking enough water, getting lots of sleep, and eating whole foods that will nourish your body. When we’re stressed, we tend to turn to things like coffee for an immediate boost in mood and energy (or at least I know that I do this), but it’s amazing how much a very simple thing like drinking a cold glass of ice water can help. The same goes for eating nourishing foods—foods that will comfort both your body and your soul. I share a very nourishing soup recipe from Danielle Walker’s blog below. When times are hard, you can also focus on giving yourself enough sleep. Restful, restorative sleep is the most beneficial state for your body to be in (check out Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep for more on the many benefits of sleep), so it’s worth prioritizing sleep to make sure this happens. I have little kids who wake early, so my best bet for getting enough sleep is going to bed early—even if I read for a bit and don’t fall asleep right away, I find lounging in bed incredibly relaxing. Other tips: invest in high thread count, soft sheets and wash them often, keep your bedroom cool, and find comfy pajamas that feel "just right" when you put them on.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetable Soup

by Danielle Walker

go here for full recipe and method

Deliberately Spark Joy

What kinds of activities fill you up? Make a list of them right now. There are no right or wrong answers—some people are bored by shopping and view it as frivolous or superficial, but it’s something that I really enjoy. Make a list that reflects who you actually are, not an aspirational version of who you’d like to be. When you’re having a great time, or when you feel most like “yourself,” what do you tend to be doing? Once you have this list of things that make you happy, things that you love, try to put as many of them into your day as possible. Can you do at least one thing on your list per day for the next week? Can you do a short, 15-minute version of one of your preferred activities between tasks at work? Keep the list somewhere visible so you remember to do it.

In her book, Thrive, Arianna Huffington wrote about placing what she called “joy triggers” around her home, where she’d see them every day. For example, she placed a much-loved photo of one of her now-adult daughters when she was a toddler on her bedside table, as this photo sparked her memory of that time in her family’s life and always brought a smile to her face. What kinds of joy triggers (some people call these “glimmers”) can you place in your environment?

Also think about using media to boost your mood. Kate Bowler has written about making a ritual of watching (and re-watching) heartwarming movies every evening in the period soon after she received her cancer diagnosis, as coming back to these uplifting storylines created a space in her day when she could temporarily set aside worries and fears, and connect to something happy. Do you have a favorite movie, TV series, or book? Maybe now is the time to get lost in a new book series you’ve been meaning to try.

Get Outside in Nature

Sunshine and fresh air—it doesn’t cure everything, but it certainly helps. I’m lucky enough to live near the ocean, and one of my favorite things is turning back onto my street after I’ve dropped my daughters off at school and admiring the deep blue of the ocean at the end of our street. When I was in graduate school and living in Boston and, later, Cambridge, I always gained a feeling of strength from looking at the Charles River from my seat on the train as it went over the bridge. Being in graduate school churned up a lot of anxieties for me, and there was something comforting about looking at a large body of water and observing its stillness, its constancy. I would think to myself—this river has been here for a long time, and it will continue to be here for a long time after I get through whatever it is that is causing me stress today. I would take a deep breath and try to call some of that stillness, that constancy, into myself.

Do Something Kind for Others

When I am feeling down, stressed, or anxious, one of the best things I can do to help my mood is to do something kind or helpful for someone else. It helps to look outside of yourself, to not get too mired in your own disappointments or frustrations. It helps to feel like you’re maybe part of the solution, even if your part is incredibly small—it’s still helping someone, making them feel less alone. As I write this, a quote I’ve always loved comes to mind: “We’re all just walking each other home.” (The Internet tells me that either Ram Dass or Rumi said this.) Without getting too caught up in the attribution, I think the essence of this quote is very meaningful. We’re here, on earth, for a short time, and our job is to love each other. We can each show love in many different ways, in ways that match who we are, what our strengths are. Use your strengths to lift others up.

Move Your Body

Anxiety and grief both have somatic components. Moving your body will help you work through these emotions. Much to my chagrin (and yours too, perhaps), it often seems to be the case that “the only way out is through.” We have to feel hard things, not stuff them down, but let our bodies and minds truly process all of the difficult things that life can throw our way. I think sometimes we don’t feel or face things, not because we don’t want to heal, but because we don’t know how to face hard things—it may feel too overwhelming to do so safely, or like if we take the lid off that box, we might never get it back on again. But grief can move through your body, once it is expressed. And anxiety too. Move your body in any way that feels good for you. Take a walk (outside in the sunshine). Dance to music you love. Do some gentle stretching. As you move, set the conscious intention to work through what is bothering you, to leave some of it behind. See if it helps—at the very least, you’ll likely get an endorphin boost from having moved.

Adopt a Positive Mantra

            Mantras can seem silly, but they actually work for me. One of the reasons they work is that our normal self-talk tends to be negative and self-critical. Consciously choosing an uplifting mantra feeds your mind with something positive to focus on for a change, and this can help your mood.

“I am a force for good in the world.”

That’s the one I’ve been using lately. Try it out and see if it helps you.

As we move forward into this new world together, know that I have your back, I can see the good in you, and that we will get through this together.

We’re all just walking each other home.

--Someone wise, whose name starts with an R.

Image by Matt Hardy via Unsplash.

Alt text: The image shows the deep, blue ocean, slightly churned up.