Over the past few months, I’ve been introducing what I call ‘great habits’ to my life and my schedule as a coping method for my increasing anxiety due to the current climate. I’ve had various levels of anxiety over the years, started when I was a teenager, disappeared until my late 20s and then came back with a vengeance in recent years.
I’ve slowly been discovering triggers, things that help, as well as new approaches to make things easier. That is how these ‘great habits’ came to be. It was just basically me trying to add structure, help throughout the day, as well as encourage a more positive lifestyle.
Great Habits To Try – Especially If You Deal With Anxiety Like Me
Use A Planner
I’m stationery obsessed, but for me, using a planner, a journal or a notebook daily really helps organise my thoughts, schedule my tasks, as well as helps me focus on my work – and is probably the easiest of the ‘habits’ to add to your life. Working from home sometimes can be distracting, even more so at the moment as my husband is also working from home and we have builders working on the house, so by jotting down my work, my goals and ideas I can keep track of what needs to be done.
This year I started using a bullet journal to simplify my process. Now don’t get me wrong, bullet journals are a little intimidating, all you see online is beautifully decorated pages. Mine is more a space to plan my different jobs, my chores, as well as the renovations – it is basically a lot of lists, separated by months. The thing with bullet journals is you can make it work however you want. I started off doing fancy weekly spreads, then lockdown hit and every day rolled into one, and now I work on a monthly basis. I do separate double-page spreads for each section of my life – editorial work, freelance projects, blog and then home, with extra pages dotted about for inspiration – like I have one for the house renovations, garden plans, as well as Christmas – yes, I like being organised.
Plan Your Meals
Planning what you eat might sound a little extreme, so bear with me. I find that doing a little planning, whether it is roughy deciding what to eat for a week really helps not only keep my food waste down, which in turn saves money on our food bill, it also means that I don’t get stuck in a routine of eating the same meal on repeat.
It has also helped my husband and me to be a little more adventurous, choose recipes we have been wanting to try, and actually cook together. Now each Saturday we choose something new, we’ve smashed and loved Rachel’s Better Than Takeaway Sweet & Sour Chicken recipe, we did a cottage pie for a touch of British comfort food, and this weekend we are having chicken teriyaki.
Staying in is the new going out for date night, and it is moments like this that I’m so grateful to this new norm we are living. Yes, the restrictions are ever-changing, but home still remains my favourite place to be.
Drink Plenty Of Water
I know this sounds a little obvious doesn’t it, but strangely when I first starting working from home, I used to forget to eat lunch and definitely didn’t drink enough – it led to crazy headaches and made me feel more fatigued. I try to now drink 8 glasses, through a combination of water, tea, cordial and juice. That occasional can of fizzy pop certainly doesn’t count as one of your great habits.
But some little tricks I’ve picked up over the years to increase my own water intake are to drink a glass before I sit down for a meal, fed up with plain water add some fruit like lemons or even strawberries to flavour your water, and my final tip, probably more usable in summer, is to eat foods high in water such as melon – try adding watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew melon to your breakfast.
If you really struggle, my best suggestion would be to buy a reusable water bottle – and then carry it everywhere you go throughout the house, out running errands, even while walking the dog – it will really make you drink, but more importantly help you keep track of how much you actually drink.
Enjoy A Cup Of Tea Without Distractions
This might seem silly, but it has become one of my habits every morning where I choose a different teacup from my beautiful vintage collection, I then select a new tea, I love tea leaves, and then I enjoy that cuppa without any distractions. The best way I do this is by leaving my mobile phone on my desk. I then select a spot, whether that’s outside in the garden, which was much easier during the summer months, in the conservatory, or even in the kitchen. Basically, anywhere that allows for quiet reflection. It also offers the perfect opportunity to step away from my computer, and with working from home, I find that my screen time can be a little obscene.
Don’t sit for longer than an hour at a time
When people say you don’t do as much work when you work from home they don’t understand that actually, you can really get into a habit of sitting in front of your computer for much longer than you would in an office. Sometimes I can be at my desk at 7am, might move for lunch, and then back at it until 6pm. This is a bad habit and I’ve worked really hard to make sure that I don’t sit for longer than an hour at a time. Even if it is just to make a cup of tea or walk around the garden for 5 minutes – get up from your desk or the sofa.
Fill out a gratitude list every night
If you are extra anxious or worried focusing on the positives can be a little hard. One way I found to expel the worries was to jot down what I was grateful for every night before bed. Some days it might be seeing the squirrel in the garden, hitting a goal from my journal, smashing through a great article at work, or just simply not crying. The way it works best is, to be honest, and raw.
Writing things down helps me stop thinking about it when the lights go out, but more than that, I use my gratitude list as a pick-me-up on really bad days. Something that made you happy a couple of months ago, could just be the memory you need to get you back on track on a really difficult day.
Get outdoors daily – even in the rain
Having a dog really helps with this point. But getting outdoors daily, yes, even in the rain, will really help your mental and physical health. As the saying goes, “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes”. Invest in a decent raincoat and you can still get out and enjoy the outdoors. Nature really has so many benefits, and I’ve found my daily walk as a way to take time away from screens and to relax. Even in bad weather it really helps improve my mood.
Another great way to get outdoors is to grow your own vegetables and fruit. Not only will nurturing something help your own wellbeing, getting to eat something you’ve grown is a really nice feeling. As we get into winter that might be a little more difficult, but this summer I had so much fun growing my own tomatoes that I’m investing in a greenhouse and planning out my own vegetable beds and mini orchard. Why not start small and grow some herbs on a sunny windowsill.
Don’t be afraid to turn off your social media
Having regular social media detoxes is not a bad thing. With the average person checking social media for more than 2 hours a day, research has suggested that taking time to cut back on social media usage can actually help reduce stress and mental health issues like anxiety. Yes, switching off can be difficult, there is that fear of missing out, but think of the benefits, even just a few hours away can improve your mood and allow you to reconnect with the world around you.
I’ve spoken before about embracing a new unplug philosophy ‘Scrolling Less, Living More’. Just by making simple changes, like no phones on a Friday night, removing Facebook off my mobile, taking weekend breaks from Instagram to enjoy time with friends and family, as well as switching off daily from 9pm – it really has helped me stay more present.
Create ‘good habits’ with morning and bedtime rituals
When my husband was going into London every day we had a routine, he was up at a specific time, and we would generally go to sleep after the 10pm news. This went slightly out of the window when his commute stopped, we were staying up late watching movies, we were getting up at random times, and it generally made me more lethargic. Having a bedtime and wake-up time schedule – can really help.
During the weekdays we have an alarm at the same time each morning, 7.20am, gives my husband time to get up first and get out and walk the dog, leaving me to get up around 8am, while still leaving plenty of time to get breakfast together before the working day starts. Then in the evening, we’ve scrapped the news before sleep, it was creating more anxiety for me, so now we watch something fun – currently, we are rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my favourite TV shows ever!!! So bedtime is generally around 11pm.
Find a schedule that works for you. We don’t have any rules at the weekend and I think that works best for us – but if you find you’re not making the most of yours, why not set an alarm on a Saturday and a Sunday to encourage you to get started with your day.
What habits do you swear by for a healthy lifestyle?
