Avoid The January Blues

Practice self-care through deep breathing, hugging, and trusting yourself.

Practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, smiling, and shoulder lifting to release tension and promote well-being.

You can practice mindfulness by focusing on sounds, smells, and sensations while relaxing the jaw and breathing.

Practice self-love and self-care through breathwork and body awareness.

Transcript

One of the things I've learned over the years by sort of trying things out for myself is actually it might seem counterintuitive is to actually if you can if it feels safe to go into the feelings in the body because it detaches that thought about what's happening and then now I'm able to catch those thoughts often before I start to feel depressed and it's like the mind will automatically attach onto those sensations in the body I think oh that's that's a sign of depression boom off we go we end up in that spiral so this is a good practice to kind of to help you break that spiral and also you know if you're not able to get to see somebody straight away you've got to wait for an appointment or it's the middle of the night these are just some resourcing practices that you can do when you're feeling low and when you're feeling depressed or sad or low or whatever you want to call it start by just taking some deep breaths one thing that I like to do that makes me feel safe is just to give myself a hug so you can give yourself a hug and then you know and trust yourself do whatever feels right for you you know maybe touch can be triggering as well so if that's not the right thing for you to do then trust yourself you know everything I say is just a guidance and feel the support underneath you feel the chair feel the ground or whatever supporting your body and as I do that I can instantly it's like feeling that my mind starts to calm down because I'm getting out of my head and into my body I'm just feeding the breath you can relax your arms if you want now and just have your hands resting gently in your lap and take some deep slow breaths relax the jaw relax the shoulders any other areas where you might be holding on to tension and sometimes you know even if you don't feel like it smile because it's it when you smile it sends those like happy chemicals those endorphins to the brain and I can kind of as I do that feel it in my chest it's like oh it kind of lifts up and another thing you can do is to like lift the shoulders a bit look straight ahead instead of looking down and all this is just reminding that your subconscious mind that actually you're safe now and there's nothing to be worried about myself I need to do this most days so it's not just like one thing you do once and then okay yeah everything is fine now these are tools that you can have in your toolbox that are available for you to use at any time wherever you are you know you could be out for a walk sitting on the bus you can work and it needs to take a few seconds and if you find it helpful also you can close your eyes sometimes the visual stimulus can be distracting but if your eyes are open I recommend just having a soft gaze not looking around the room and just being aware of any sounds just let them come and go you're not listening we're hearing we're just letting the sounds come to us they come and go in and out of your experience remembering every time the jaw tenses up just relax it you can one thing you can do is to breathe lift the shoulders as you breathe in then breathe out as you breathe in then breathe out and just drop them and that helps to let go of any tension and if you find intrusive thoughts come up come back down to the body feel the breath feel the support of the earth the chair feel your hands and now if you wish you can just place your hands over your heart to send yourself some love keeping that love in your heart for you because you deserve it and when you feel like you just need a dose of self-love and self-care remember little and often every day send yourself some love take some time for yourself even if it's only a few minutes I'll see you again very soon in the meantime take care go well and lots of love