What can you make easier in your life?

Human brains tend to make stuff more complicated than it has to be and if we don’t keep that in check it can add a lot of extra stress to our lives. Maybe there are also things in your life where you could ask for help from others. That can be housework, a habit that needs more accountability or a work task you cannot get done by a deadline without burning yourself out. Maybe working in batches could help you when it comes to work tasks, life admin or meals.

What can you stop doing?

Is there something you do that is not important and not adding much positive effects to your life? Get rid of it for now, even if it is something like meditating in the morning. If it doesn’t add to your life and actually stresses you out, then discontinue that part of your routine for a while. Maybe you also worry a lot and could just journal about the worry to analyze it once and for all and have a reference point to stop the thought if it comes back. Maybe there are life projects that simply don’t take center stage right now and should be put aside during your stressful time right now.

What can you ask for help for?

Like I mentioned above you should find things that make your life easier and then you can figure out for which ones you can ask for outside help. Maybe you’re struggling with getting a project done on time and need to ask help from someone you work with or need to extend the deadline. Or you struggle with checking in with others and can ask them to be the ones checking in with you (that can be a hard lesson for who real friends are by the way). Maybe you can even afford someone to help you with some household chores and that can get rid of extra stress.

Which habits help you reduce stress?

Figuring out which habits in your life reduce your stress and which ones stress you out because you have to push yourself to do them is very important. For many, meditation can feel like a chore, but a morning walk can help them clear their mind in the morning. For some, working out in the morning is ruining their energy for the rest of their day and they should switch it to the evening. Some people find peace from journaling, others need a friend to talk to for the same results.

Prioritize your goals and tasks

If we don’t know what our priorities are, we will be overwhelmed and concentrating will be hard for us, even more so if we are neurodivergent. Prioritizing can be hard in very stressful times. Sometimes we need a full pro and con list to figure out which things will have the most impact or are the most important to us. At the end of the day you should have top goals and your daily tasks should also be ranked by priority. That doesn’t mean the hardest task needs to be done first, that doesn’t work for everyone.

Make a Low Energy Self Care list for yourself

We all have low energy days and weeks and having a low energy version of our most essential tasks at hand can be super helpful for both our self care, as well as tasks that are necessary to be done daily or weekly. Maybe you can’t work our on a day like that, but you can stretch. If you can’t journal on a day like that, you can write a one liner about how you feel. Maybe you can’t meditate that day, but do some breathing exercises. If you can’t clean on a bad day, you can at least wipe down necessary areas.

Those are my tips for how to reduce stress. As you can see a lot of big energy shifts come from tiny changes and progress and rest can still fit into a low energy day. Especially when stressed we tend to forget our needs and fall deeper into stress. I made a little eBook about fulfilling your own needs for my email subscribers to tackle exactly that. Go check it out now:

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Meditation & Mindfulness

Mindfulness and meditation are not the same thing and meditation doesn’t have to be about sitting down and closing your eyes. There is a mindfulness practice for everyone. For some a basic meditation in the morning can make all the difference. For others yoga is a good way to regularly come back to their bodies. There are also walking meditations, breathing techniques for throughout the work day and exercises meant for you to stay present and feel your emotions healthily. It’s trial and error for what works for you, but once you find the right thing, implementing it into your week will make a lot of difference for your stress levels.

Spend time in nature

This is one of my favorite things to do when my life is too overwhelming for me and I need time alone. Walking through fields and forests regulates your nervous system immensely. This can be anything from a slow walk to take everything in and take pretty pictures of flowers, to a full-on hiking experience. Going for a nature walk right in the morning can do a lot for your stress levels for the rest of the day and also gets your blood pumping early on in the day. An evening walk can also be a good activity to wind down around dinner.

Take a nap

There is more and more research done on taking short naps. This doesn’t work for everyone, but if you sleep less than 7h at night you should implement a nap into your day and find the right length for you. Based on the studies I’ve read, 10 minutes seems to be a good time to be refreshed and 90 minutes is a full sleep cycle which recharges you the most. I’ve also heard several times that 30 minutes are working for the least amount of people because that interrupts you in the middle of a sleep cycle. See what works for you and if you struggle with falling asleep also learn techniques to fall asleep more easily.

Journal your thoughts out

If your mind cannot rest from thoughts you aren’t getting high quality rest. If you have a lot of tasks you need to get done on your mind, do a brain dump and write them all out of your system and order them by priority. That way they aren’t something you have to remember the entire time. If your thoughts are more on the side of worrying about a problem you should try prompts for that. My favorite method is to write down the worst case scenario, then the best case scenario and from there write down the most likely outcome for your worries. If it’s a solvable problem you could also just jot down ways to solve it or ways to process your emotions.

Practice positive self talk

This also connects to the point of your mind not being at rest if you’re spiralling. If you constantly worry or talk down yourself for resting and other reasons, you need to start countering those thought patterns. If you think you’re lazy, for example, you can counter that with the fact that humans aren’t machines and need to rest to function and that laziness is a concept that has been made into something negative due to mankind being defined by their productivity. Telling yourself that you deserve to rest or feel whatever else you’re feeling and having compassion with the part of you talking down on you are very healthy coping mechanisms to develop.

Play, be childish

This one isn’t talked about enough in my opinion. Connecting to your playful side and inner child are both healing and relaxing. It’s okay to be a little goofy or do things that you’re too old for by society’s standard. There is nothing wrong with watching childhood shows, playing with board games geared to children, getting into TTRPGs or dancing with the level of joy a toddler has. Play is a need we often don’t fulfill enough, even though it helps us with getting to know ourselves better and makes us more resilient. So go and be a little childish if you want to, nothing wrong with that.

Literally just lay there, no phone

I feel like especially millennials and Gen Z (still don’t know which one I belong to lol) for the most part have lost the ability to just BE. Many of us take a break from work, sit down and within two minutes we are concentrated on scrolling through social media. While I think social media can be a great tool of connection and inspiration, we should start realizing just how much we’re escaping the present with our phone. Relax more without your phone. Whether that be by using more useful distractions like a good book or really just laying down and doing absolutely nothing.

There you have it, 7 ways to rest more. These all seem so basic at the end of the day, but I am just as guilty as anyone when it comes to forgetting about half of these. Learning how to be good to yourself and fulfill your own needs is such an essential part of early adulthood in my opinion. That’s why I made a little eBook about it a while ago for my email subscribers, so they have an easier time naming their unmet needs and finding ways to fulfill them. Go check it out for yourself:

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Do what you loved as a kid

Children have the biggest amount of creativity, because they don’t yet know the boundaries of what is possible and what isn’t. That’s why you should absolutely think about what you loved doing as a child, either once or regularly. We usually remind the things we loved doing the best, so this should not be too hard. Maybe you really liked drawing with no prompt or fingerpaint. Maybe you really like playing with your mom’s make up products or tried to design clothes. Also think about what you liked doing and seeing in nature. Many of us forget how much inspiration and creativity a forest or meadow can bring into our lives.

Create something similar to what you usually do

Do you already like drawing random doodles with your ballpoint pen? Maybe you should try making a mixed media painting out of one of your doodles by adding watercolor or alcohol markers. Maybe you really like baking chocolate cupcakes and should try to make your own recipe or a cake that has a lot of details. Think about what you already do and how you can create an outside of the box version of it. Getting out of that routine will usually give you a boost to do new creative things more often because they feel rewarding.

Pick up a new creative hobby

Whether you’ve been wanting to try something new or not, you should really start that new creative hobby. Have you seen a lot of gouache paintings recently that you wanted to recreate? Get a small set of paints and start trying to use it more often. Or maybe you’ve been wanting to learn how to dance or sing. Find a group or teacher for the things you struggle with committing to, but don’t be too rigid with your routines either. Creativity should balance you out just as much as it challenges you.

See what you can take from a different medium

Especially in the age of online short-form video content you might see inspiring visuals that you should try drawing. One of my favorite examples for this is sketching people’s progression of movement in dance videos. It can be as easy as trying to paint a sunset with acrylic paints or as hard as challenging yourself to get better at proportions of the human body. Another idea if you are a visual thinker is reading poems rich with metaphors and descriptions and painting something to them.

Change your routine

This tip is not spoken about enough. A lot of our creativity is lost to being in a dul routine that we’re not trying to break out of. Often this is because it takes so much energy to break out of a routine, but if it’s done right it will give you some form of energy back. For some people that is energy through social connection and for others it is just being in a new environment. Both instances can be heavily inspiring to our creative side. Maybe you should try doing some of your admin work in the local library or have a weekend picnic. Even if it doesn’t give you all the creativity you want, it will certainly give you energy for something. That can be work, conversations or creating new systems in your life. 

Make creativity a daily habit

This one is also a tip many don’t take to heart as much as they should. You don’t need to spend one hour daily on being creative, because that might be unsustainable. What you can do is adjust your daily creative output to your energy levels. Personally, I’ve had the pact with myself for 3 years to write something every day. That could be a journal entry, a blog post, a social media caption, a short fictional text or a summary of something I’ve learned. Because of this variety I rarely had a day where I didn’t write something and my English has gotten amazing during that time. The same can be applied to drawing, nutrition, movement and many more creative things.

So these are some of my tips for how to be more creative. These have all helped me to stay creative and made me feel less guilty for task switching between creative activities. Don’t put yourself too much into a box unless that box is a system you can fall back on when in doubt.

I have written more about getting out of an actual creative rut in a little eBook for my email subscribers. It’s filled with ideas and prompts to get out of that silent mental space. Go check it out:

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Meditation

Of course, I’m gonna mention this one first. Meditation has the biggest impact for the smallest amount of time. You invest 10 minutes and you get at least a couple hours of a more relaxed mind. Meditation has also been researched to reduce issues connected to trauma, as well as improving your hormonal household. If you wanna learn more about all the cool things that meditation can do for you, you can read THIS post.

Journaling for healing

There isn’t just one way to journal, there are dozens. You can obviously write a journal in diary style which will definitely help you figure out some of your problems and patterns. The journaling that I mean here is different though. I mean prompt-based journaling that targets the spots that make you realize faster what in your life and mindset needs a change for your life to improve. I’ll link a free download with 90 of those journaling prompts at the end of the blog post.

Drawing for fun

Did you know that drawing and painting induces a flow state? That flow state is very similar to meditation and can be great in alleviating stress and negative thoughts. It’s the best when you let yourself draw without an expectation of it having to look good. That is a skill to work on in its own right. If you are a perfectionist about small things like that, you can spend your self care time healing that in tiny steps.

Reading your unread books

I don’t know about you, but I have about 20 books on my TBR list that are on my Google Drive. I love blocking myself off from social media and reading a chapter whenever my brain lets me. I find that having my books on my phone has made me read way more, because it’s easier to access and in the same place my brain already associates with distractions. Still need to finish those three physical books left on my list, oops.

Learn a new skill with Youtube

Is there something you’ve always wanted to learn or get better at? Invest some of your self care time into doing it without pressure. It could be anything from making jewelry, over embroidery, to making candles. I spend my most bored freetime with watching tutorials for beatboxing at the moment. Actually a really cool thing to do for all the anxious brains out there, since it’s basically self-stimulation (commonly practiced by neurodivergent and anxious people).

Cooking healthy

I know cooking healthy is a privilege if you don’t have the time or money for buying healthy food and cooking. But if you have the means to do it, you should get into doing it more. It’s a form of self-love in my opinion. You’re giving your body something it needs and put time and work into it. Not to mention how positive the effects of this are longterm.

Working Out

I had to say it, because it would be weird not to. Movement is always free, you just have to find something you like to do and reduce the friction between you and doing it. In my case I try to go on as many walks as I can every week. The easiest way for me to do that is by doing it in the morning and not pushing myself for a long walk if I’m not feeling like it. The smallest efforts compound to a positive impact.

Those were some ideas for self care without spending money. I promised you 90 journaling prompts earlier in the blog posts. You can get them by becoming a part of the newsletter squad. That will also give you access to many more free downloads and discounts to my digital products.

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Coloring book

Coloring is meditative and helps you focus. Two mindful things that will concentrate you on the present moment. And if there is one thing about being present, then it’s the absence of negative emotions. I often color things in on my iPad if I have a bad day or struggle with my concentration in any way. 

Collages

Physical or digital, doesn’t matter. Collecting nice pictures, colors, and words and putting them together into one neat concept will always be satisfying. It is also a great exercise in optimism if you make your collage about your goals and dreams. I haven’t made one in a while but I know so many people that simply make a little Pinterest board whenever they feel stuck.

Challenges in sandbox games

Creativity doesn’t have to be limited by fixed visuals and animation. You could start up a sandbox game like Minecraft and do creative challenges, alone or with others. When I was in my late teens I had entire phases where this helped me relax in the afternoon. Let out the inner child a little bit and have some fun.

Writing based on prompts

As someone that has been both a non-fiction writer AND a fiction writer as a hobby, I absolutely love how helpful it can be to just take a prompt and create something around it with words. Being caged in by a prompt can really spark innovation in how you attempt writing. Note to self: I should really do this again, I haven’t written fiction in a while. 

Painting challenge

For example, making paint blobs on a piece of paper and using a liner to make them into little monsters. Or you could challenge yourself to draw 5 different styles of houses. Anything that is challenging takes all your focus and that is what we need to distract ourselves from a bad day or mood.

Put together outfit ideas with your closet

Another thing I have on my own to-do list currently. We often wear the same type of outfits or don’t think about them at all. That’s why taking a bad day to just create outfit ideas and look good in the future might be a really good idea. Also helps with self-confidence. We all have that one piece of clothing we don’t know how to combine until we actually take time to figure it out.

Do a visual meditation

I absolutely love doing these. It’s not something that works for everyone, but if those visual journeys from elementary school relaxed you, then you should really try this again. Imagining positive places and situations in your mind can be such a mood booster. I sometimes ask myself why I haven’t done a visual meditation earlier once I’m done with one.

These were some creative activities for bad days. There are more in my free mini-eBook about getting out of creative ruts. I also included a prompt list in there in case you are interested. Get it sent to you by joining the newsletter squad:

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I gave it the long name of “Best Case, Worst Case, Realistic Case”. Of course, there are variations that exist of this in cognitive behavioral therapy, because that is where I vaguely got the idea from. I often did the “ABC” method I learned in therapy when I was 16. It’s about identifying a fear, writing down why I have it and then writing down how realistic it is or how I can minimize it.

My reframing is slightly different. It has four steps:

1. Identify your pain point or fear
2. Write down the best outcome possible
3. Write down the worst outcome possible
4. Write down how it will realistically go & assess how survivable it is

Usually you will end up with a decent realistic case and have way less anxiety about what you’re going to do. You will only need to prepare for the most likely fails and see how reversible and redoable most of it is.

Example: Podcast

I did this exercise before starting my podcast, because it was a big step out of my comfort zone. I wrote down a wild success story for the best case. Thein I wrote an absolute trash story as the worst case. And finally the realistic-ish outcome was more along the lines of “If I work on this consistently and get out of my comfort zone I will be able to build this up and get fulfillment from it.”

Over half a year into my podcast I can say that it’s fairly easy to run if I take all the pressure off myself. I definitely wish I currently had more emotional capacity to invite people to the podcast and interview them since that is what helps grow the podcast. But I also learned that even if only 5 people listen, I impacted 5 people with my thoughts and research about the topics I cover.

Very rarely do things end badly. Every fail comes with a lesson. Every hour invested is an hour invested into a skill you might need again later. These two realizations are the reason I call it the best reframing exercise for anxiety.

If you wanna learn more about yourself, your fears and your mental chaos, I created 90 journaling prompts for you that will help you get clarity about your life, goals and problems. Get them sent straight to your inbox by joining the newsletter squad below:

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Mindfulness

Being in the present moment and concentrating on only your breathing or an imaginary safe space can help you feel a little more at ease. Meditation in particular has research on how it positively impacts you (I posted about that HERE), but even just taking several deep breaths can elevate how your body feels. If your body feels more relaxed, so will you. Concentrating on yourself will bring you away from loneliness because it is an act of self love. The antidote is self love and interdependency with others.

Journal

Often we are lonely because we feel lost or stuck. I definitely felt my loneliest and most depressed when that was the case. That is why journaling can be so helpful. If you develop this habit you will get to know yourself better and you will notice patterns in your thinking and emotions and can work on fixing them. Journaling brought me to pretty much 80% of the things I ended up bringing up in therapy. HERE is a 90 journaling prompts freebie I recently made.

Declutter

If you don’t feel fully comfortable in your space (and I’m not talking about the lazy kind of comfort where everything is messy), you won’t feel comfortable in your mind. I noticed that once I did a big declutter when I started coming out of my anxiety disorder the first time at age 16. I threw away what felt like half of my stuff and the only thing I miss today are two hoodies. But the mental clarity gained helped a lot with the other parts of being there for myself mentally.

Ask for help

I will always yell this from the rooftops. If you are feeling lonely, no matter how much you wanna continue to isolate, please ask for help. It can be a friend, a therapist, or an online support group. Just find someone to talk to that can help you with this by being there for you in any capacity while you find your way back to yourself. There are so many places that will hold space for you, but you have to get out of the comfort zone to grow by asking.

Go into nature

Nature undoubtedly is healing. In my worst times I still pushed myself to leave the house and walk through the fields every now and then. Walking is meditative to the body and nature itself has a researched positive effect on us. It after all is what we live in symbiosis with (more or less). Even a 10 minute walk is better than nothing. Hell, even sitting on a balcony is better than nothing to be honest.

Be vulnerable w people

I already mentioned it. To grow into a better version of yourself you have to leave the comfort zone. The hardest thing to do for many, including me, is being vulnerable with other people. While many have no issue with trauma dumping to others or even striking a surface-level conversation about mundane topics, vulnerable topics are hard. You can practice this with people that already know you fairly well, that make you feel safe. I suggest something like the “We Are Not Really Strangers” card game (free online) to gamify it. It’s easier when the other person is vulnerable too.

This is largely what to do when you feel lonely. Like I mentioned above, self love is a big part of reducing loneliness. A big part of self love is identifying and fulfilling your own needs. That’s why I made a little guide all about needs and interdependency that everyone can access for free. Let me send it to your inbox so I can make your life a little easier with it:

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The Body Keeps The Score

by Bessel Van Der Kolk

This book is fairly dense, fairly heavy to read. It’s definitely targeted towards other people working in psychology, but if you have trauma this book will teach you so much about it and how it connects to your body. The book explains research that has been done, the success stories of patients, and gives recovery suggestions based on research. This book definitely got me excited about trying out things like EMDR and internal family systems therapy. You’ll see the world through different eyes after this one.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

by Lindsay Gibson

This one had been recommended all around me for ages before I finally read it. I wish I had picked it up much earlier in life. Maybe at age 16 or 17. This book goes greatly into emotional immaturity, enmeshed family systems, and how disconnect from parents in the slightest bit can really impact your life. The book has little stories of patients throughout it that really help understand everything that’s being sad and almost all the chapters have little exercises you can do. This really helped me grasp my childhood a bit better.

After The Rain

by Alexandra Elle

This book is more of a personal story in chapters, but each chapter ends with a journaling prompt for yourself. This book is not the easiest read if you are a very empathetic person, but it gives a realistic and encouraging view on healing. It helped me realize things I haven’t thought about before and it overall helped start my healing journey. There is also a companion book that is full of more journaling prompts, but I haven’t bought it yet.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

by Mark Manson

This had been my favorite psychology-related book for a long time until I read The Body Keeps The Score. This book goes into our mindsets as humans and also talks about non-permanence a lot. It is pretty straightforward and candid. One of the few self-help books I read that doesn’t have much fluff in it. Half of the book has marked text and I still open it and read a chapter every now and then. The author also has a really cool Youtube channel.

Set Boundaries, Find Peace

by Nedra Tawwab

I know boundaries are brought up all the time but really hard to apply to one’s own life without any help. This book goes into what boundaries are, what violated boundaries feel like, and what types of boundaries exist. The author has a successful Instagram page all about the topic of boundaries and general psychology topics that I’ve been following for a long time. I haven’t finished this book yet, but I can already recommend it.

Those are mental health books to read if you haven’t yet. HERE is my first-ever book recommendation post if it interests you. If you wanna learn more about mental health and fulfilling your own needs better, I created a little guide all about identifying your needs that you can get sent right to your inbox:

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Work Boundaries

You need to set a boundary or two with work to be able to not overload yourself with work and know when it’s free time. I know this is hard if you work in a field where everyone expects you to become exponentially more productive, but I guarantee you that your health will always be more important than another work project. Also set boundaries about work emails and phone calls. If your job doesn’t accept those boundaries and you can, you should look for better opportunities, because no healthy work environment would judge you for not working on emails on weekends.

Social Life Limits

This might be unexpected on this list, but overdoing your social interactions in your free time can add to your exhaustion. Be very mindful about when you meet friends and what your topics of conversation are. This will probably apply to introverts a lot more than extroverts. I personally would only schedule in one longer meeting with a friend a week or every two weeks, because otherwise I’d be drained from it too often. Everyone is different, find your balance with it.

Mindfulness

I’ve talked about mindfulness during your workday before on this blog right HERE. Taking mini-breaks to just take several deep breaths or going on a little walk in your lunch break can make a big difference in your inner balance. Being present takes you away from the stress you are feeling for a bit. This is also why you might wanna meditate in the evenings for better sleep.

Healthy amounts of escapism

Escapism isn’t always bad. We sometimes simply can’t deal with an emotion all at once and need a little bit of distraction. I often use the example of grief when explaining this to others. When you are grieving you aren’t constantly crying, because your body needs distraction from inner pain to recharge. I made a post about forms of healthy escapism HERE. You need a bit of self-awareness to know when you are escaping too much, but the act in itself can be helpful.

Mindset Work on toxic productivity

In the world we currently live in it has become normal to shame ourselves for resting or not working at top capacity. It has the neat name of toxic productivity. You can’t work on a perfect level of productivity and rest is very much needed to stay productive. That is why you should work on internalized beliefs about productivity. I made a little podcast episode going a little bit deeper into this HERE, because I myself have struggled with this a lot and still do every now and then.

Keep track of your moods

Tracking your mood and what you do every day can be a major help. You will notice what contributes to good days and bad days. You will notice that having more self care activities in your day will help your mood and you will notice that days with a lot of work done and no rest might feel like a big accomplishment but without much of the happiness. I’ve been tracking my mood for half a decade now in an app called Daylio.

Those were my tips on self care to prevent burnout. Another thing you wanna keep in mind is your needs and how fulfilled they are. If you haven’t done a deep dive into that topic yet I recommend you check out my freebie all about your needs. You can get it by joining my newsletter squad below. It’ll make it so much easier to name your emotions and what you need to feel better:

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Reduce your screen time

Reduce time on apps you read on a lot. Twitter for example. It used to be my favorite platform and now I can see it as the toxic place it is. Maybe Instagram also takes up a lot of time for you. I have a time limit on apps and an app that blocks me at certain times of the day that I assigned the apps to. It has made a big difference in both my sleep routine and reading goals.

Figure out preferences

There isn’t just one way to read. There are physical books, eReaders, reading apps and audio books. If you haven’t tried them all you can’t really know if your reading type might have changed. I thought books were my way of reading until I started using a reading app and placed it on my mainpage. That way I actually consider reading more easily and reduce the friction between me and starting.

Use 5 sec rule to start

Counting down and just doing it is a thing people with ADHD have adopted to push through executive dysfunction, but it also helps when you want to build a habit. Sometimes reading crosses your mind or you have a reminder on your phone to do it and you just have to count down and do it so you can get in the groove. If you don’t feel like it after five minutes, you can stop.

Make it a habit

Make it a consistent thing. It doesn’t have to be daily, but maybe a weekend thing. It could be a morning routine habit, evening routine habit or simply the thing you go to when you feel a certain way. I for example have a very specific type of exhausted but bored where I’m much more likely to open my app and read a chapter or two. Those little moments add up too.

Write down your favorite quotes & thoughts

Have a little place where you collect your favorite quotes from the book or pick an app that has that function. Also prepare to write down your thoughts on the book, either in a notebook or on an app like Goodreads. That way you don’t just read for yourself, but know exactly what you can recommend to others when they need something specific to read. It also helps you figure out what books you can’t stand.

Take your time

Please, take your time to figure out which books you actually enjoy & stop setting expectations for how many books to finish in a year. Once I stopped setting reading goals I actually started getting into reading again. And if goals motivate you, set a lower goal so you can reach it and exceed it. Mine usually is 6 books a year and if I can get to 10 or 12 that’s nice but also doesn’t disappoint me when I don’t.

Those were my tips on how to read more. This is what helped me and the people I’ve talked to and you can add anything that helped you if you want to.
If you wanna work on habits beyond just your reading habits I have a personal development plan in my resource library that you can access by signing up for free below. Or you can do a deep dive into your life with my workbook to clear the path for your habits.

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