Hi folks!
(Okay, I desperately need a better opening for my posts... All suggestions are welcome.)
As promised at the end of my last blogpost some time ago, I would give you some tips and tricks to deal with your own mental health.
I know the following tips will not sound applicable or interesting for everyone, I just want to share what works for me. See it as some inspiration. I'm not saying this is the best and only means to work on your mental health, there are lots and lots of other things which can help you as well.
So, as you already can deduce from the title, I will talk a bit about mindfulness and how it helped me to balance my worrying thoughts and stress.
I can now honestly say (it took me a long time to be able to confess this and accept this of myself) that I am a perfectionist.
Nothing wrong with being one, but it tends to go wrong when your inner perfectionist is taking control over your mind and your behaviour.
Being perfectionist is not WHO you are, it should just be a PART of you. And for me, it slowly took over who I was. To that extent even it caused me having worrying and dark thoughts, bad sleep and stress.
I've always have had the sensitivity of letting perfectionism taking control of me. One trigger was enough to set the whole system into working.
And one of these triggers is pressure and the demands of other people, especially the pressure you get in school.
Fortunately enough I noticed I was losing myself in my perfectionism and I pulled the alarm bell. I had to do something about it.
And that's when I discovered the healing hand of mindfulness.
For some years now I have been interested in mindfulness and tried some things out.
I also have done some yoga and the two work a bit hand in hand.
And you know how it goes with a new year: you set some goals and resolutions ('This year I will practice yoga, twice a week.') and somehow, it's a miracle, you just fail in reaching those goals. Well yeah, been there, done that.
I have been doing some yoga this year, but like once a month ...
BUT, fortunately, this did not happen with mindfulness. This year I have been trying out several apps which offer good, proper mindfulness exercises.
And although there are some really good apps out there, I'm still a poor student, so paying for an app is not in my dictionary.
For those not minding a Euro or two, download Headspace! Now! It's great and has such a beautiful lay-out.
Headspace is like the popular guy when it comes to mindfulness. Everywhere it is praised as THE best meditation app and it also is so beautifully made.
Unfortunately for the poor students out there, it only gives a restricted amount of exercises for free.
But, fortunately though, they have a blog as well with some podcasts, tips and tricks and of course there super funny and colourful cartoons. Take a look here: https://www.headspace.com/blog/​
So, as said before, I have been trying out almost any mindfulness app in the App Store which looked safe to me.
And eventually, I have found my match: Simple Habit. *sigh*
Simple Habit is less colourful and cartoony as Headspace, but it has so many exercises for free, it's a gift from heaven!
I think, but I am not entirely sure, it is also made in Australia just as Headspace, but there are a bunch of mindfulness teachers from all around the world on the app.
Why I like Simple Habit that much is because there are so many themes and categories to pick from. It is also restricted in that way it offers not every exercise for free, but you have more options as a free user.
I for example try out all kinds of exercises, most of them are packages of 7 days, but you also have some covering a month: from sleeping better, freedom from stress, gratitude, working with thoughts, panick attack, motivational etc.
You can even choose a teacher who you like the best, because some voices sound more soothing than others.
For me, being busy with mindfulness helped me a lot to control my worrying thoughts. Especially at night, when lying in bed, it's like a battle in my head between my thoughts. To relax and sush these voices in my head, mindfulness is my savior. I always fall asleep immediately after listening to an exercise, even if it is just 5 minutes.
Sometimes I also listen during the day, when I feel stressed out.
But, apart from these apps, the biggest and most important tip I can give you to release tension, stress and panick is accepting the internal critical voice in your head and just see him as being present, but not as who you are. When this voice is rambling on about what you are doing wrong, just acknowledge him instead of fighting him, because that will even make it worse.
I know this all sounds so easy, but practice makes it easier.
And of course: think about your breath!
If there is one thing I take with me daily, it is thinking about my breath. We all breathe entirely wrong, with that I mean: we breathe in our chest instead of in our belly.
Mindfulness taught me the wonders of breathing correctly and exercising different ways of breathing. And damn, I never believed this could be true, BUT WOW, our body is really a miracle. Just by noticing how you breathe and exercising belly breathing can relax you in an instant. I do it everywhere I can, without someone noticing: during lectures at school, while walking, before an important meeting with someone, before an exam.
Trust me, practicing belly breathe will release so much tension in your body. And that is mainly, for me, why I chose to work with mindfulness.
By being aware of your breath, your mind is shut down.
When it comes to my perfectionism, I learned other things as well: mindfulness also helps me to accept perfectionism as a part of me and that being enough is even better than trying to be perfect.
To be honest, I try out mindfulness in combination with other mindful exercises I learned from others. The combination of all this tips helps me to cope with my sometimes exaggerating worrying mind.
I really am revealing a lot about myself here, by being sensitive about who I am. And I am entirely confident and aware of that. And for me, I feel there is nothing wrong with being honest about not always being a strong person. I am sensitive and I get easily afraid and worried. But that's who I am. And there is nothing wrong with that.
So, I think you can understand now why I also get easily annoyed when people criticize others for being honest about being mindful and not always feeling great. That's part of being human and especially in a society with so much pressure, I even think it's uttterly becoming normal for sometimes feeling under the weather. So away with criticism, we are just human!
So, enough chitchatted about mental health and mindfulness. Try out some apps and hopefully you will find your match as well.
Or: just let me know what you use to work on your mental health!
Have a nice weekend!
Lots of love,
MJ