We all owe it to ourselves to look after our own wellbeing. By making the commitment to devote time to your own wellbeing, you’re giving yourself the absolute best chance to have a meaningful, fulfilled life.
What works for one person won’t automatically work for another but here are some tips that everyone can use to improve their wellbeing.
Get Active
A healthy body is important for a healthy mind. Don’t look at activity in terms of weight or dress size, but just moving to nourish and take care of your body. Your body is an amazing tool, accept it and use it.
Walk a bit more, dance in your living room in your underwear, anything that gets your moving.
Find Something You’re Passionate About
Modern life is busy. Between work, family and other demands on your time, its easy to get caught up in just existing. Any free time you do have is spent checking your phone or binge-watching something on Netflix.
Prem Rawat (https://www.wopg.org/prem-rawat/) once said, “happiness is your own treasure because it lies within you.” Your free time and how you spend it is so important your overall mental wellbeing, you deserve to spend it doing something that makes you happy.
Pick up an old hobby again. You might love painting, hiking, writing but haven’t done them in years. Well, pick up that paintbrush and get creating.
If you don’t have something in mind then it’s a great opportunity to have fun finding out. Join a local sports club, painting class, book group.
Remember, there’s a difference between a hobby and just doing something or procrastinating.
Give Something Back
Did you know that helping others is good for your health? Donating to charity, volunteering and providing support to someone in need can increase your levels of happiness, lower your blood pressure and even make you live longer.
Practice Mindfulness
Our minds are constantly switched on, we’re constantly analyzing the past while planning for and worrying about the future. The only place it’s not currently living in is now.
Professor Mark Williams of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre defines mindfulness as “knowing directly what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment.”
You can practice mindfulness on your own, or download one of the many apps such as Headspace, on the market to help you get started.
It will be difficult at first as you’re mind is forced to concentrate on the here and now, and get you out of your own head. Soon though, you’ll wonder how you ever go along without it.
Learn To Accept Your Emotions
We spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to others over every little thing. Our job, home, size, fashion. This extends into our feelings too.
Let go of how you should feel, and start recognizing how you do feel. It’s only when you allow yourself to accept your emotions that you can recognize if you have any issues.
Burying emotions is not only bad for our mental wellbeing but our physical health too. It’s often easier to confront our emotions than it is to avoid them or cover them up with food, drink and other vices.
