These little things are keeping my mental health
Small things make all the differencen
n I'm going to share little things I've been doing by myself in order to keep the mental health during these days. Everyone has its methods, but we sometimes forget to follow them, and we easily get ourselves in dark holes.n
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1. Get yourself a good coffee at homen
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- sorry, the first one goes for the coffee lovers (but you can follow the same mindset if you love other drinks)
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Some of us are very used to consider good coffee only the ones you grab in nice cafes, done by professional baristas with expensive beans from a tropical country {like brazilian coffee ♡}.
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But that does not mean you can't do your own amazing coffee at home!
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Since I started using italian coffee maker, a 3$ milk foamer tool (from IKEA), and a coffee grinder, the quality of my morning coffees went to another level. These, addep up to good quality beans, make your cup of coffee much closer to the one from that cafe you love.
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Of course, the barista cafe is unreplaceble, but these small changes you can do at home will chance your life if you love coffee as much as I do.
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Flavored coffee beans
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I have tried some flavored coffee beans (mango, pistacchio and vanilla) and they go really when in these moments of the day when you need something sweet, like in the middle of the afternoon, when you just wanna grab a chocolate bar.
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Not saying that coffee is healthier, but if you are avoiding sugar, that's a good way to go.
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2. Morning Yogan
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In a very ideal day, I go for a 10 minutes yoga class for beginners.
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Ideal because I would like to do it everyday, but life is not ideal. There are days you just wanna do nothing with your body, and that's ok.
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But in these days when my spine is desperately asking for some help, I love following this short video.
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It also helps in the days when my mental state is not the best, and I am feeling anxious, angry, stressed.
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So it's basically the best combo you can get: physical and mental boost.
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3. Picturing the detailsn
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That's something I've done throughout my whole life.
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It's just natural for me to see something and immediately turn it into an image, a small piece of art.
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Sometimes the way the sun is passing through the window and creating shades and frames on the wall, that's enough for me to take a picture.
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Doing that makes me feel good, feeds my need for art and criativity - even when you're living these lovely lockdown days.
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n nnAs you can see, mostly food on these days, cause that's what we do best when we are home all the time.nn nn[rl_gallery id="3579"]n
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4. Connect with the naturen
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Walking in the nature is one of the most powerful tools to bring myself up again. However, that's not the best time to go out. If everyone decides to go out for a walk at the same time, we are gonna be in trouble.
nn(To be really honest, I'm opting for a diplomatic position here instead of expressing my real thoughts, cause this is a pro-mental-health guide, so I'm not indeed open for negative discussions)nn n
So my suggestion is, keep this option as one of the last ones, when you are extremely going crazy inside your house.
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Instead, focus on your plants (if you have any), or the garden of your house (that's the best season for gardening), or enjoy the surroundings of the building where you live.
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Everything that somehow brings you closer to the nature is valid, if you know what I mean.
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Luckily, Copenhagen has a lot of green places to discover, lakes, parks, seaside, it has everything we need (when there is no rain, of course). If you go out, remember to keep the social distance, sanitizing hands often, etc. Moreover, if you are feeling sick, don't get out of you house at all.
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Here where I live there is a beautiful lake just few minutes away. I'm just super grateful everytime I go there and feel the good vibes.
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n [caption id="attachment_3590" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Walking around the Gentofte lake, Copenhagen[/caption]n
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5. Learn something newn
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I think this is one of the hardest things, because you need a certain level of self-discipline to learn something new. It can be hard, but if you write a plan, follow a calendar, and push yourself, you can do it.
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I personally like to learn things which are practical.
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For example, I signed up for a SEO course, which I can learn the techniques and apply them in real-time to my blog.
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The results are immediately visible, and that helps me keeping the motivation to learn more.
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The same goes for photoshop tutorials, I can learn, apply it to my photography work and get a quick feedback from my friends.
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What I've been struggling the most is with languages.
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I am living in Denmark now, so I must learn Danish. I have a Polish boyfriend, so I need to learn Polish as well. I dream to speak Spanish fluently.
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How can I deal with all of these languages? So far I am doing nothing. Any ideas?
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Summarizing, it can be very hard to learn something that implies a long term plan, which will give you results only in the far future. But that's how life is, we need to cultivate now and harvest in the future (Hello, cliche).
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Learning is a powerful way to keep your mind busy, healthy, with a positive outcome.
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6. Handcraftn
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Everything you can build with your hands, that's a way to spend your time with quality.
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My example: I've been painting in different periods of my life, but since I left Brazil, I also left all my materials there.
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Recently I got motivated by 2 friends (Kriti and Maiken are actually talented artists), to start painting again.
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I also got a gift from Santa Klaus with tools to do so. I'm not good at it, but I have fun doing that.
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You don't need to be an artist to paint.
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Playing with brushes and colors is for everyone, it's therapeutical. Just try it! Here I mean all kinds of arts actually, pottery, painting the walls, drawing, DIY stuff, assembling IKEA stuff, etc.
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7. Make yourself a daily plann
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Planning is good.
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Planning makes us motivated, at least makes me.
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Having an idea of what I'm going to do everyday is essential to make me get up of the bed in the morning (ok, little lie, coffee gets me out of the bed anyway).
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So my advice is, get youself a notebook, or a piece of paper, a notes app on the phone, and write what's your plan for the day.
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Can be cleaning the house, cooking something new, doing a research, reading a book, watching a movie, sleeping, anything counts, but have a plan.
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At least for me, that helps a lot.
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Waking up and having no answers for the question of what I'm going to do today, makes me depressed.
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8. Making plans for when this is all overn
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It sounds like we are postponing our life for the days when this situation will be over, but that's not true.
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During University time, every semester I used to create a list called: things to do when the exams are over.
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Some people like to write new year's resolution, daily plans, to-do lists. Everything that actually helps you to do something real, not lying to yourself, is super valid.
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Thinking positevely about the future and figuring out what you are gonna do, it's great!
nn nnSome of the things I really wanna do when this is all over: get myself in a cafe to create my stuff, meet my friends and family, travel again, work (...)nn n
Now the question is: when will be this over? Better not to think about this now, let's just keep doing what makes us sane.
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n [caption id="attachment_3605" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Gentofte lake, Copenhagen[/caption]n
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