Nobody can really prepare you for heartbreak. It’s a feeling that you can’t explain, and you don’t know how you’ll cope with it until it happens to you. Unsurprisingly, most people’s coping mechanisms after a major breakup aren’t the best, and we don’t even realize it until the damage is done. As we get older and grow as individuals, our coping skills do get better. But, if you’ve noticed that you tend to lose yourself or cause more emotional damage to yourself after a breakup, here are some tips on how to get yourself back on your feet and cope with that heartbreak.
- Surround Yourself with Friends & Family
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After a breakup, we are very emotionally vulnerable. Surrounding yourself with friends and family that you’re close to will help keep you distracted as well as bring more positivity into your life while you heal from the breakup. The support that your friends and family can give you will act as an emotional cushion and give you that little push to stay positive and move forward.
- Stay Away from Your Phone for a While
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Constantly checking your phone to see if your ex has texted you or to stalk their social media to see if they’ve moved on already is one of the most toxic things you can do to yourself after a breakup. Doing this can cause more anxiety and really slow down the process of recovery. Giving yourself that space from social media to really focus on your mental health is always helpful, and it will keep any kind of unwanted obsessive habits from forming.
- Cry
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Yes – cry. Crying is a perfectly natural and healthy thing to do after we experience an emotionally traumatic event. There’s no such thing as being “too tough to cry” – we all do it, and you’re lying if you say you don’t. We’re human, and part of being human is feeling; whether it’s happiness, anger, or heartbreak, we feel. It’s okay to cry for a little while; just remember to pick yourself back up afterwards and keep moving forward. You’ve got this!
- Vent to Someone You Trust
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We all need that listening ear to vent to sometimes, and breakups are the perfect time to seek one out, as it can be extremely beneficial to your mental health. There’s no shame in seeking support from a loved one; you’ll feel like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
- Exercise
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Alright, quick science lesson that you’ve probably heard many times before: exercising releases a thing called endorphins which are basically feel-good hormones. Therefore, exercising when you’re feeling down in the dumps, especially after a breakup, will help you stay positive and relieve a lot of the anxiety and depression that may be looming over your head. It also just makes you feel productive which will inspire you to keep going and do more things that will make you happy.
- Invest More Time in Your Hobbies
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With all this extra time that you have for yourself now, why not use it to explore new hobbies and/or rekindle your passion for old hobbies that you may have dropped recently? Doing this will a) distract your mind and bring you happiness because you’re doing something that you enjoy and b) make you realize you don’t need someone else to make you happy – you’ve got that down all on your own!
No matter how your last relationship ended, you deserve to be happy and find yourself again. Losing yourself after a breakup is all too common, but if you take the right steps to recovering you will realize your self-worth again and come out of this heartbreak stronger than before. Every breakup has a lesson to teach you, and with each heartbreak comes strength, knowledge, maturity, and a chance to cultivate a new-found love for yourself as your own independent person.