Self-Care Practices for Emotional Wellness

October is Emotional Wellness Month and, because of this, I thought it would be a great time to dive deeper into one of my favorite topics: self-care. Maintaining our emotional wellness is just as important as maintaining our physical wellness. Our emotions can affect how we navigate our days and, ultimately, how we live. Think about it, it’s no mistake that your work day may seem more difficult while experiencing an emotionally taxing event. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), how you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities, your relationships, and your overall mental health.

Inspired by this month’s theme, I wanted to share a few self-care practices that focus specifically on supporting and improving emotional wellness. These practices are what I turn to when I am looking to work with and work through emotions.

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Self-Care Practices for Emotional Wellness

Purge-Writing

There are times when our thoughts are wrapped up in our emotions and they become so thick and cloudy that it may seem difficult to navigate or find the mental space to process. Times like this, I turn to writing. Writing gives your emotions a place to go, a place to land outside of your body. The process of purge-writing is simple: you are giving life to your emotions word by word and freeing your mind and body of their weight.

Purge Writing in Steps

1. Find a place to put your words. This can be a journal, the notes app on your phone, or on a piece of scrap paper— anywhere is okay.

2. Write whatever’s on your mind and do not censor yourself. Let it all out. Express yourself however you need to.

3. Write as little or as much as you need to. There’s no set amount of pages or words—the goal is to release.

4. Center yourself. After you’ve let it all out, find your center, your peace. You can do this by placing your hand on your heart and moving your attention to your heartbeat or the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe.

5. Create closure. Now that your feelings are out—leave them where you put them. When journaling, I create closure by folding the pages in. When writing on a stray sheet of paper, I receive closure by shredding or crumbling the paper.

Square Breathing

When emotions are high (or low), breathing exercises are always a good idea. Medical research suggests that regular deep-breathing exercises can reduce anxiety & depression, encourage muscle relaxation, stabilize blood pressure and decrease stress. Currently, my go-to breathing exercise is square breathing. It helps me to be mindful, still and centered while replenishing my body.

Square Breathing in Steps

1. Find a comfortable position, either seated or lying on your back.

2. Inhale while counting 1…2…3…4

3. Hold your breath & count 1…2…3…4

4. Exhale while counting 1…2…3…4

5. Hold your breath & count 1…2…3…4

6. Repeat

Need more guidance? Here’s a tutorial.

Improve Your Sleep Hygiene

My emotions always feel off when I haven’t had enough sleep. If I haven’t had at least 7 hours the night before, my day (and emotions) feel all over the place. “Studies have shown that even partial sleep deprivation has a significant effect on mood. University of Pennsylvania researchers found that subjects who were limited to only 4.5 hours of sleep a night for one week reported feeling more stressed, angry, sad, and mentally exhausted. When the subjects resumed normal sleep, they reported a dramatic improvement in mood.” (Sleep and Mood, Harvard Health). While it can be hard to get “normal sleep”, especially if you are prone to sleeplessness or insomnia, you can improve your sleep by amping up your sleep hygiene.

Tips for Better Rest

1. Set your bedtime. Setting a bedtime (and sticking to it) will help your body form the habit of seeking rest at a specific time.

2. Brain dump. Thoughts and emotions can keep us up at night. Practice a little purge writing before bed so that you can rest with a clear mind.

3. Create a bedtime ritual. Getting yourself ready for bed helps your body slowly relax. My bedtime ritual? A warm shower or bath followed by a cup of hot tea.

Personal Inventory: Consider Yourself, Check Your Standards

Photo by Larie Taylor

It’s the the beginning of the year and it seems that everyone is going hard at their 2019 goals, myself included. With all of the promises a new year brings, it’s hard not to want to work on everything, all of the time and work my absolute hardest. However, after “going hard” (day after day, for the first 10 days of the month), I found that although my productivity was off the charts, my ability to relax, let go of my internal to-do list and allow myself to unwind became difficult.

I found myself making checklists in my head during yoga classes, on my phone setting reminders during “Netflix & chill” time with my partner, falling asleep feeling like I’d forgotten something and waking up with my brain buzzing with tasks. I was happy that my to-do list was shrinking and I was making such good progress with my business BUT I felt overworked and anxious—something needed to change ASAP.

So, I took a moment to sit down and check-in with myself. I wrote down my feelings, as you know, I’m a big fan of “writing it out”. I revisited a self-care & work-life balance post of my own, in hopes to re-discover anything helpful that I may have forgotten along the way.

After some thinking, I felt that I could solve all of this by answering one question: How can I create and maintain my CALM while also keeping up with my own standards of productivity? The moment I asked myself this, I laughed, because the answer made itself clear within the question: MY OWN STANDARDS. The standards, goals, deadlines and “to-do” lists were all MINE. I was the author of this story, so, I had the power to change it.

I know I’m not alone here, how many times have you done this? You find yourself in a heaping pile of tasks and deadlines that must be done “a particular way” by a certain time…and it’s all because you created this standard of productivity for yourself. I’ll never forget, my partner once told me “You can’t produce at your highest level all of the time, because you create this expectation (of yourself). People will expect you to deliver your best work in a short amount of time, always, and that’s just not sustainable”. He was right. Working this way is NOT sustainable, whether you work at home, remotely or in-office; you’ve got to create some realistic boundaries and standards for your lifestyle, emotional wellness and health.

So, now, knowing that I was the author, how did I change my story?

1. I checked my standards. I considered myself. I let go and chose to be kind to myself. Once I understood that I was the one putting the pressure on myself, I simply stopped. You’d be amazed at how different hard or complicated tasks can be when you choose to take the pressure off. Whether you yell at yourself (in your head) -OR- practice self-compassion and patience throughout the process— the project will still be completed (but you’ll feel a lot better if you choose the latter).

2. I prioritized my self-care over everything else. Revisiting my post “Keeping Sane & Self-Cared-Up While Working” can show you how to make tiny choices throughout the work-day that can improve your well-being.

3. I lessened my screen time. For me, if it’s there, I’m going to look at it. So, during “Netflix & Chill”, before bed and during down-time, I chose to put my phone in another room or some place less accessible. The emails and social media will be there, take the time you need.

Doing these 3 things, consistently has helped. I’ve noticed that I am still just as productive but my stress levels are lower. I don’t feel anxious about work and I’m okay with “missing out” on a few hours of social media and emails—my me time is absolutely worth more.

Have you been here before? How did you find your way back?

My Self-Care "Aha!" Moment & How I Define Self-Care

“Despite what you might be thinking, self-care is not the same thing as pampering, although some pampering is certainly nice now and then. At its root, self-care includes any intentional actions you take to care for your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. ”

— Shelley Hunter Hillesheim, Self-Care 101

Self-care is trending right now and, as a self-care advocate, sure, I have mixed feelings about that. I don't want it to lose its value. However, I am happy that its trending.

I'm hoping that the current trendiness of self-care will lead more people to dig deeper and discover the importance of true self-care, develop their own definition of self-care and implement self-care practices. It may sound a bit dramatic, but, self-care saved my life. It changed the way I think about myself, the ways I interact with others, and the thoughts I have about others and the world.

It was after spending the bulk of my mid-messy-twenties doing the absolute most that I realized I needed to stop and reevaluate the way I was treating myself. What led to my exact self-care "aha!" moment? It was the day after my 27th birthday festivities, I woke up in my tiny bedroom in Bed-Stuy next to one of my best girlfriends, still wearing my makeup and outfit from the night before and feeling insanely ill. This ill-feeling wasn't your regular hangover, my entire body felt as if it was ready to shut down. I couldn't eat anything, I couldn't even stomach water.

I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. For me, this was a gut-punch because I was a "model who lived a healthy lifestyle" (serious side-eye to my younger self). In reality, my lifestyle wasn't very healthy at all, I ate and exercised for body-size at the time. I wasn't concerned with being healthy, I thought that thin = healthy. So, that meant I could eat steak and chocolate cake washed down with a couple of glasses of Pinot as long as I had some greens and made it to the gym the next day. 

Finding out I had GERD was a wake up call. For the first time in my life, I had a health complication that, if not treated properly, could change my life. My mother is a colon cancer survivor whose beginning symptoms were regular digestive issues; it was time for a lifestyle change.

Initially, the notion of self-care sounded to me (as it sounds to many people) as something completely self-indulgent. As someone who was already being called-out for leading a "dangerously selfish lifestyle", I felt the last thing I needed to do was invest more time and energy into myself because I was already "self absorbed" as is. Clearly, I had no idea of the true meaning of self-care. I thought of self-care as amping-up the things I already did to make myself feel good--so that just meant more manicures, beach days, glasses of wine and shopping days. No? No. 

So how did I begin to understand the actual meaning of self-care? Well, there were many factors, because it was also at this time that I was beginning to transition from carefree-ignorance-is-bliss-model-who-danced-on-couches to half-woke-baby-feminist but, the major influences were...

1) Talks with a woke-as-fuck-feminist-activist-educator friend.

2) Group talks with my roommates who were also Black women living the NYC hustle and becoming more intentional about self-care.

3) Seeing Angela Davis speak. Hearing her story, from her mouth to my ears motivated me to take care of myself so that I can better care for my community; specifically other black women and black girls.

4) Being introduced to Audre Lorde's story and work. This was the first time I'd heard of self-care, for Black women, to not only be necessary but a political act. 

I began to take better care of myself. I started with my diet. I began to avoid certain foods and became more intentional about eating fruits and vegetables. I began to treat myself to a green juice after the gym rather than a doughnut. I began to cook for myself, using mostly vegetables (I couldn't afford much meat anyway on my starving-artist budget at the time). I began to walk more; from Brooklyn to Manhattan, from Midtown to Soho. I gave my spirit what it needed; I wrote, I found a church I liked, I took frequent trips to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I shared myself differently, I began to pay more attention to my friends and family, offering love and support rather than gossip and good times. I noticed my life starting to change. No, I wasn't "whole and healed" overnight, in many ways I was still messy and would sometimes dismiss my dietary restrictions; but I was different. I cared for myself in a new way, I cared about myself in a new way, I felt more worthy. I was doing the work.

Over time, I came to understand that self-care is not selfish it all. Self-care is a necessary part of life, as necessary as eating and sleeping. I began to understand that self-care is required, it is the only way that I can replenish what I give to the world, daily--so that I can wake up and give again the next day. I learned that self-care is not simply indulging or spoiling myself; its digging deeper and listening to what my mind, body and spirit needs; refilling the cup from which I pour. 

My definition of self-care is the act of giving yourself what you need in order to create and maintain mind-body-spirit wellness. To me, it is the single most important practice in life. You have to show up for yourself, first, before you are able to show up for anything or anyone else. 

How do you define self-care for yourself? What was your self-care "aha!" moment? Leave a comment! I'm always interested in hearing your thoughts.