What’s in your Wellbeing Toolbox?
With everything that’s been going on the past few months, I feel that this topic is so important. Now more than ever we need to really take care of ourselves and each other. One of my strategies is to have what I call a ‘Wellbeing Toolbox’. Self care that I know works well for me and strategies I can dip into if I’m not feeling my best.
Now I’d like to be completely open here. I’ve had to lean quite heavily on all of my wellbeing tools these past couple of weeks.
The longer days (those lovely summer nights) have meant that I haven’t been shutting off as early so that I can have a good night’s sleep. I’ve gotten quite lax with my night time routine and as a consequence I’ve had trouble falling asleep. The longer evenings have also meant eating dinner late. Eating later really affects me and I’ve noticed I wake up in the night. If I wake up my mind immediately switches on and insomnia follows.
This lack of sleep caused a domino effect with my other healthy habits. I didn’t have the resilience to avoid foods that I know don’t agree with me. Falling back into my all too familiar emotional eating patterns. This in turn affected my mood, stress, energy levels and motivation.
This experience was a reminder to me of how holistic our health truly is, not one thing stands on its own. I think of our health as more of a spider’s web. If you tug on one thing others are affected too. This is what I mean by the domino effect.
I was speaking with friends at my local coffee shop and they asked me what my strategy was for when I’m feeling low.
Well, first comes the awareness of how I’m feeling. In that conversation the realisation that I wasn’t doing as well as I thought.
Once aware I can implement my strategy. I reflect on why I’m feeling low and use all of my wellbeing tools (eating well, sleep, movement, nature and connection) to help support me and get back on track.
I started with the why and by looking back at where I began to unravel a bit. In this case I wasn’t feeling low because of something that had happened. Turns out my sleep was the culprit. I could see how one thing affected the others.
So, I started there. I made sure that I shut off early enough and stuck to my night time routine. I did a lovely yin yoga class and meditation to really relax my body and mind. I made sure all screens were off by 9pm and read.
The result, I had a much better sleep!
Because I slept better, I had the energy for my morning routing of yoga, meditation, journaling and exercise. I ate better during the day too. I can already feel myself getting back on track with my mood, energy and motivation. This discipline with my morning and night time routines gives me the freedom during the day to really dive into the things that light me up and move me forward with my goals.
I would like to mention my stress levels separately here. We’re in a time of so much uncertainty and challenges. These routines and my wellbeing toolbox have meant I’ve felt like I could cope and manage my stress better. Again, once, my sleep was affected so to was my stress. Becoming unmanageable and in turn effecting my mood. Those dominos again (or spiders web).
It’s been more important than ever for me to really up my level of self care and create a wellbeing toolbox that really works for me at this time.
“A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.” – Irish Proverb
Here’s a list of some of my favourite wellbeing tools I’m using at the moment:
Meditation
Yoga
Sleep
Rest & relaxation
Journaling & gratitude practice
Whole foods (and as many vegetables as I can eat!)
Walking in nature, being around trees
Cuddling friends’ dogs (cannot wait to have one of my own!)
Coffee with friends in my community (physically distanced for the moment of course)
Video calls with family and friends abroad
There’s of course so many more that could work for you. Running, taking a hot bath, watching a good movie, laughing, kindness, reading, simple pleasures, the list is endless really.
I’d love to know in the comments below what are some of your go-tos in your wellbeing toolbox that you’ve been using. Especially at this time.
