I've mentioned what you can start doing, but what about the things that you're already doing (which you need to STOP doing) in order to have better mental health in 2023?
1. Stop judging yourself You probably grew up hearing a bunch of criticism. You learn to call yourself out on your mistakes, and constantly aim for perfection (you end up being the person who gets 99 marks, and asks "what happened to the 1 mark?"). The constant criticism leads to you having unrealistic expectations of yourself. It chips away at your resilience and strengthens reactive emotions (such as anger). Rather than judging yourself, ask yourself how to can say things to yourself in a compassionate way. 2. Stop spending a lot of time on media sources Research has stated that a person spends approximately 144 minutes on social media daily (think about the additional time spent on the news and Netflix). Given that you're either taking in negative news, or you're comparing yourself to the "perfect" lives (don't believe everything you see on social media. As we all know, it's filled with curated content or heavily edited) you see on IG. You have to ask yourself if spending all this time on media sources is leaving you feeling good, or feeling fear/panic? To limit your time on social media, be sure to set a limit of how long you can spend on your account, and replace phone/TV time with activities such as journaling, exercising, meditating, reading a book....essentially whatever helps you relax and detach from things. 3. Stop avoiding talking to others I get it. Talking to people can trigger a set of uncomfortable emotions and thoughts. Are they judging you? What if you say the "wrong" thing? Well, here's the thing. The more you isolate yourself from others, or shy away from communicating with them, the more severe your fear becomes of communicating. So essentially, shying away from people doesn't "fix" the issue, it makes the issue worse. Challenge yourself to say hi to one new person. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and have a 5 minute conversation with someone. Instead of yes/no answers, keep the conversation flowing and ask questions about them too.
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