It’s Thrive Week here at Wilfrid Laurier University, the perfect time to focus on mental health and self-care. As university students and young adults, many of us are likely to feel stress, anxiety or uncertainty as we step into the world around us, and there’s a variety of factors that can affect our mental health. Whether you’re feeling down with the winter blues or stressed about an upcoming school assignment, here are some of the small things I do to get back on track.
1. Call a friend
One of the best ways to get out of the dumps is to surround yourself with people who care about you. Whether you want to visit a family member or go to the mall with a group of friends, making good memories with the people you love is a great way to take a bad day and turn it around. Even something as simple as talking to a friend on the phone is a great way to reconnect or get a new perspective. Your friends have got your back!
2. Go outside
Of course, we all remember being told this as children, but going outside really can help us feel better. Going for a walk around town or exploring a public park are terrific ways to make you feel more connected to your surroundings and get a change of environment! The fresh air will also give you more energy and make you happier, due to the oxygen in the air giving you a serotonin boost. I recommend trying Waterloo Park, about a block away from Laurier campus. The park has all sorts of places to explore, including a garden, a pond and a miniature zoo!
3. Take a shower
Another way to refresh yourself is by literally refreshing yourself. Immersing yourself in a shower or bath is a great way to relax after a tough week. Hot showers help to relieve soreness and tension and are known to increase blood circulation, making you feel refreshed and renewed. Relax in the warm water, maybe contemplate a few thoughts, and once you emerge clean and fresh, you will feel like a whole new person.
4. Exercise
Exercising regularly is a natural treatment for anxiety and is known to relieve tension and stress, as well as giving you more energy. Exercising releases endorphins, chemicals in your brain which help you feel happy and energized. Exercising for even a short amount of time can help you feel better, and it’s shown that people who exercise regularly tend to have more energy, sleep better at night, have sharper memories and feel more positive and relaxed in their daily lives. As a less active person, I find that even stretching or meditating before bed can allow me to sleep better, and a single session of yoga can make me feel more relaxed during the day. Laurier even offers drop-in dance and group fitness classes in case you need a little motivation.
5. Practice mindfulness exercises
Although exercising our bodies can be a great refresher, sometimes we need to practice mindfulness as well. Mindfulness is the act of using meditation or other methods to bring attention to what you are experiencing in the moment without judgement. These exercises can help us feel grounded to reality and remind us that we are still living, breathing humans who make mistakes sometimes.
One good practice is celebrating little victories, in which you celebrate every little accomplishment, even if it’s just getting out of bed. While this exercise requires you to be actively aware, many mindfulness practices can be done at any point in time, making them good for dissociation, anxiety attacks or other stressful moments. One of these is focusing on your breathing, where you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly, focusing on each step. Another is the 5-4-3-2-1 sensory grounding exercise, in which you list five things you can see around you, four things you can physically feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste. If you cannot find a smell or taste, simply name your favorite smells and tastes. This exercise and many others are excellent grounding tools to remind you of the present and to pay attention to your body.
6. Try something new
My final piece of advice is to try something new. To try something new brings us out of the mundane parts of our lives and allows us to make new connections. This could be trying out a sport, finding a new band to listen to or joining a club. Often for me, this can be as easy as stepping away from my phone and reading a new book. I usually read the fantasy genre, because its ability to transport readers into a new world helps me explore a new environment. Although some of the mindfulness exercises above deal with ways to ground yourself in reality, for some of us, the ability to step outside of our daily routines can help us deal with a bad week. In my experience, moving away from the internet and back to physical pages helps me remember to be myself, and let me feel more in touch with my mind.
I hope that by reading my advice you are able to find a new way to fight back against a bad mindset. It’s important to stay in touch with our minds and bodies and to remind ourselves to look forward from the bad days. Next time you’re feeling down, try one of these activities to get back on your feet. Until then, take care of yourself.