Learn how much sleep you really need. There are general guides based on your age group. However, every person is different, so it’s the best to access your sleep needs on your own. 2 ways to do that:
Keep sleep diary. Track your:
bed time | wake up time | total hours of sleep | feelings after waking up (exhausted, refreshed, etc) | energy levels throughout the day
Alternatively, print one of these a bit more extensive diaries from:
NHS | National Sleep Foundation
Harvard Medical School | Anxiety Canada
After tracking for 1-2 weeks try looking for patterns and determine what works the best for you.
Take a sleep vacation. This might be a little easier than the diary. Basically, for a week or two go to bed at the same time without setting an alarm, allowing your body to wake up naturally.. After a while, you will notice that you’re getting the same amount of sleep.
Decide on your permanent & consistent sleeping times. I.e., when you need to go to bed and wake up in order to get enough sleep.
If you struggle with oversleeping, everyday try to wake up 5-10 min. earlier than the day before. Until you wake up at the time you need.
If you struggle with waking up & snooze button is your bff:
Put your alarm clock as far away from the bed as possible.
Use alarm apps that make you take a photo, solve maths problems, receive a call from a stranger:
Alarmy | Wakie | I Can’t Wake Up | More…
Drink a glass of water right after you wake up.
Pour another glass of water on yourself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (u do what u gotta do)
Prepare cold brew coffee, leave it by your bedside, drink it right after you hit your alarm. Alternatively, buy some caffeine pills and take one with a big glass of water right after wake up.
Have your blinds/curtains open the night before, so that it’s bright after you wake up.
ALTERNATIVE FOR EVERYTHING IF YOU’RE RICH AF: buy one of those wearable fancy health monitors, connect it to some fancy app and SAD lamp that will wake up up feeling refreshed and alive.
If you struggle with going to sleep on time:
Limit your caffeine intake to 6 hours before your bedtime.
Try to limit your screen time at least 1h before bed.
Install blue light filters on your phone/laptop.
Do something relaxing (read, meditate, journal, drink tea, etc)
Try not to eat a lot before going to bed.
Try bed sheet sprays, like lavender.
Basically, establish a nighttime routine with all of these (skin care, reading, change into pajamas, etc), pavlov condition your brain to get sleepy when you do all of those things.
If you still can’t fall asleep, and been lying in bed for hours, get up and do something relaxing, like reading or listening to music. Lying in bed awake can create an unhealthy link between your sleeping environment and wakefulness. Instead, you want your bed to generate sleepy thoughts and feelings only.
Try to keep your sleeping schedule consistent. It is really important to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Even if it’s weekend. Or even if that means getting less than 7hrs of sleep that day. I’d say waking up at the same time everyday is the most important step, which will help you the most with fixing your sleeping schedule.
IF YOU HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH LONG TERM HEALTH CONDITIONS, OR ARE SEVERELY UNDERWEIGHT/OBESE, PLEASE IGNORE THIS STEP AND RATHER SEEK HELP FROM A DIETITIAN AND/OR YOUR FAMILY DOCTOR.
This step really depends from person to person, but firstly I suggest you take some blood tests to see if you have any deficiencies, etc. Especially, if you struggle with cravings.
Try intermittent fasting, if you struggle with binge eating or overeating. As it will help you to learn to listen to your body better: when it’s hungry, when it’s full, etc. It’s really simple, there are many methods of intermittent fasting, but I’d suggest 16/8 for the beginners. (You can find a short guide here or google for more information)
DRINK ALL THE WATER. Again, if you’re not drinking enough water, try to level up your water game incrementally. Download some water tracking app on your phone to help you. Drinking water will make you more energetic, increase your metabolism, and decrease you appetite (among many other benefits). If you really struggle with meeting your water intake:
Reward yourself when you meet your daily/weekly goals.
Drink through the straw - idk why, but you are going to drink much more if you use a straw. Trust me.
Flavour your water with fruits etc.
Check this video for more tips
Track what you eating. I would really suggest tracking your meals for around a month. Because, most of the time people have no idea that what they’re eating is unhealthy. Again, download an app like this one for that.
Make your own meals once in a while. Not only this will save you money, but it’ll help you to see what’s really going into your body. Start by doing that once/week and build it up depending how much time you have.
Eat more veggies/fruits. Go to your local market and buy some veggies/fruits, you have never tried before. I’m sure you’ll find your new favs. LEARN HOW TO COOK THEM. Experiment: boil, stir fry, ~roast~…
Eat/buy less meat. Not only it’s good for the environment, but it is good for you, too. Get a veggie burger instead of the beef one, increase the portions of your veggie sides, try meatless Mondays, etc. (Here’s some more tips)
Cut dairy. Find your new favourite milk substitute. Advice: Oat milk is amazing with the tea and oatmeal/porridge; hazelnut milk is amazing on it’s own; cashew milk goes well with cereals.
Learn more about nutrition in general. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH! It will help you to make better food choices and it will make eating healthy much easier in general, because once you understand all the chemistry behind the food and what it does to your body, you kinda don’t want to make yourself feel terrible. Here are some free resources:
– Human nutrition course from Alison.com
– Crash course Metabolism&Nutrition: Part 1 and Part 2
– The Health Nerd’s YouTube Playlist about nutrition
– What I’ve Learnt YouTube Playlist
– Free Nutrition courses on edX
Define your goals. Do you want to lose weight, do you want to get stronger, gain weight, be able to climb the stairs without losing your breath, run 5k, punch god in the face?
Remember - you’re already half-way there. Being physically fit has a lot to do with what you put into your body. So, if you fulfilled the previous step of eating healthy - you have done ½ of the work!
Make a plan. A Reasonable plan. Be honest with yourself. Alternatively, there are many already-made plans to save your time. E.g., Couch to 5k for running, Beginners 30-day exercise guide, 30 days of yoga…
Start small. Like, 5 min exercise in the morning. Or doing 10 sit ups per day. Don’t do anything overwhelming, like running 5k everyday if you haven’t run for the past 5 years.
Make sure that you kinda like what you’re doing. If you absolutely hate running - don’t do it. Hate doing sit ups in the morning? Try yoga instead.
Explore, until you find what you like. You don’t have to go to gym to get fit, especially if you hate it. Find a type of exercise that you actually like. Maybe it’s dancing or hiking, taking your dog for a walk. Sign up for several trial lessons at various sport clubs. Ditch ‘em, if you have to, until you find something that you love. Stick with that.
Do the small changes in your everyday life. Stairs>Escalator, Walk>Drive, Do some squats while brushing your teeth, switch from regular desk to standing desk, etc… Find ways to incorporate being active into your everyday life as, unfortunately, evolution hasn’t caught up with out sedentary lives yet.
Track your effort instead of your progress. You cannot really control your progress that much (especially if your goal is to lose weight). However, you can always control your effort. So measure it instead. This will leave you more motivated as you will be able to see that you can do more and more everyday. Whereas, if you tracked your progress, you may not always get the result you hoped for, which might demotivate you and make you upset, wanting to quit.
Do the previous 3 steps and you’re 10 miles ahead as mental health depends A LOT on the physical health.
See a therapist/doctor. Depression is an illness requiring medical treatment. So, get it. Remember:
there is absolutely no shame in having a mental illness as there would be no shame if you had flu, broken leg, or a headache…
Learn about it. Knowledge is power. Learning to notice unhealthy thinking patterns and dissociate yourself from them can help a lot.
Here are some resources on depression:
– Short TED-Ed video “What is depression?”
– Long TED talk about depression
– MIND Understanding Depression Booklet
– “What causes depression?” by Harvard Medical School
– “Understanding Depression in Young People” online course
– “Understanding Depression and Anxiety” Open University course
Get extra support. Talk to your friends or family. Or maybe someone on the internet:
7 Cups free chat services: website | android | iOS
Subreddits: r/mentalhealth, r/depression, r/suicidewatch
Write it down. If you don’t want to talk - write down your thoughts. It can be just as helpful. It’ll help you to understand yourself better, notice errors in your thinking, etc. Buy a cheap notebook (or expensive one, up to you) and start a journal. Try being consistent by writing every morning or evening or both, but DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF if you miss some days. Read through your past entries. Analyse them. Extract the lessons.
Distract yourself from yourself. Get something to take care of, so that for a moment you can stop thinking about yourself. Try volunteering or get a plant, or a dog, a fish… Focus on them. On keeping them alive and well.
Self-care day. Dedicate at least one day per week for self-care. Take yourself out to a museum or some fancy cafe, do some stuff you like, whatever your hobbies are, do some physical self care: bath, face mask, manicure, etc., listen to some nice music, watch a film…
Try self-help options. Sadly, therapy is not always available and your friends/family doesn’t always know what to do or say. Luckily there are TONS of resources online:
– NHS Low Mood and Depression: A Self-Help Guide
– Pacifica (website | android | iOS ): offers psychologist-designed tools to address stress, anxiety, and depression based on CBT, mindfulness meditation, mood/health tracking.
– Moodpath (website | android | iOS): interactive two-week depression, burnout, and stress test that tracks your emotional and physical well-being
– MIND self-care guide for depression
Manage your emotions. The biggest cause of procrastination is an inability to navigate negative emotions associated with doing a thing. You need to learn to recognize your negative feelings and realize that procrastination is primarily about “feeling good now”. Studies have shown that mindfulness can help you with that.
–Getting started with Mindfulness Guide.
Figure your reasons why. Procrastinators often suffer from lack of identity, don’t know what they want to achieve, or why they want to achieve it. It’s hard to work towards a goal, when you don’t have one. Also, people who are ‘social perfectionists’ and are motivated to work because of other people’s/society’s expectations rather than their own sense of accomplishment are more likely to procrastinate.
Divide your tasks into concrete smaller goals. Sometimes things seem to be hard because they are very vague. e.g. “working on my thesis” or “studying for my class” often means doing nothing, whereas “reading 4 pages of a textbook to understand a concept I need to summarize in my thesis” is a concrete, broken down goal.
Celebrate your victories instead of mourning over your loses. So the only thing you’ve done today was write one sentence for your 20 page essay? Amazing! Buy yourself some candy for that!! I mean, you could’ve done nothing, but you didn’t - you wrote that one sentence and that’s worth celebrating.
Redefine the success - doing something is a hundred million times better than doing nothing. Also, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly.
Do it for only 2 minutes. If there’s an important thing you’ve been putting off for a while, tell yourself that you will only spend 2 minutes on doing it. If after 2 minutes you don’t want to do it anymore, great, stop it. However, after 2min. you actually might want to do more. No pressure either way.
Track your productivity. Track how much time you’ve been productive that day. Try to increase that time by a little bit every day.
Always forgive yourself. So, it’s been a week and you’ve done nothing? Don’t sweat it. Let it go. Blaming yourself will bring you absolutely nothing. Nothing good will come out of your negativity on yourself. So stop it. Forgive yourself and start again. And again, if you need to. Never stop trying. Always pick yourself after you fall. Beating procrastination and increasing your discipline is a skill. And all skills can be build on. There is nothing in you stopping you from changing. Remember that. More resources here:
– “9 Reasons You Procrastinate (and 9 Ways to Stop)” PsychologyToday
– Solving Procrastination Website
– “Helping Students Who Procrastinate” lecture by Tim Pychyl
Visit your doctor, if nothing works and procrastination is severely impacting your life. Sometimes procrastination can be a symptom of an illness, like Anxiety or ADHD. If you are chronically procrastinating for a long time and nothing seems to help, talk to your doctor and ask for a psychological/psychiatric assessment. You may be referred for therapy or given medication that will help to deal with procrastination.
Type in: “How to do taxes *the name of the country you’re living in*”
Alternatively, if you like socialising, ask some adults, whom you know, about it. Trust me, older people love teaching the youth. Learn all the lessons you can from them.
Remember that just as with beating procrastination, making phone calls is a skill. And, again, skills can be learnt.
Get a new SIM card. Top it up.
Call some local business (cafe, restaurant, shop, vet, etc). Ask some random questions, write them down if you fear of forgetting them. Some examples:
– What time do you open tomorrow?
– Are you open this Sunday?
– Do you cater for people with dairy allergies?
– My cat hasn’t eaten for the whole day, what should I do?
– Alternatively, you can pretend that you dialed a wrong person and talk about whatever until they stop you, e.g.:
You: “Hey!! You won’t believe what I saw today!
You: *start telling a made-up story*”
Them: “Uhm.. sorry I think you’ve dialed a wrong number“
You: “Oh, my bad. Thanks, bye“
You: *hang up*
If you’re really struggling, write down and follow this format, rehearse it if you need:
You: Hi, is this *the name of the institution”?
Them: Yes, how can I help you.
You: I was wondering *insert a question from a list*
Them: *answer the question*
You: Thank you, what about *insert another question*
Them: *doesn’t know the answer*
You: That’s okay. I will look it up myself / I will call you back later.
Thank you for your help. Have a nice day!
If you get uncomfortable or mess up - just drop the call. Use fake names. No consequences whatsoever. Or say “Sorry, wrong number”, “Sorry, I gotta go”, “ I apologise, I need to hang up, I’ll call you back.”
Repeat until you build up your game and your phone-call anxiety starts to diminish. You can also start with calling your friends/family first, if you’re comfortable with that.
Bonus tips for serious calls:
Remember it’s okay to ask a person on the other side to repeat what they said, if you couldn’t understand it. Despite it being a 21st century, phone calls still give a crappy quality sound. Everyone knows that and will understand you. Just say “Oh, sorry didn’t hear that, could you repeat again”, “the signal seems to have gotten weak, couldn’t quite catch that, please say it again”, etc. Once, I had to ask it five times, but then again, the other time I’ve been asked to repeat myself 7 times, too. No one cares. It says nothing about your language, speaking, listening, or whatever abilities.
It’s okay to take a short break if you’re overwhelmed or if you need to look up something. Don’t stress out about having to answer someone immediately. Just say “give me a sec, I’ll look it up”, “could you please hang on for a minute”, “Oh sorry, pizza man’s at my door, I’ll be back shortly”. Lie, come up with your own reason to get away. No one cares. Just let them know that you’ll be back on the phone soon.
Don’t be afraid to ask them what they’re thinking. Phone calls can be intimidating cause you can’t see another person’s face/reactions. But if you do want/need to know them, just ask. “What you thinking?”, “How do you feel about this?”, “Sorry, you went quiet, did I say something wrong?”.
Don’t feel pressured to answer immediately or hate the “awkward silences”. If you need to think in order to give an answer, just say so: “Give me a minute to think about this”, “I’m not sure I can answer this right now, I need time to think it over”, etc…
Here you are in your peak mental & physical health. Go prove all those haters wrong. Follow your dreams. Do what you wanna do. And when new issues arise, remember that there are tons of resources out there to help you out. The important thing is that you actually implement those resources. Information is out there, but you still gotta do the work. And you can do the work. Remember all the times you already did it. You learnt to walk, to talk, to read, to count, to ride a bike… algebra, a second language?, using a computer, driving… etc… You overcame so many obstacles so far. You learned from them. You can do it.
It’s over for everyone and everything that wants you to think otherwise.
(before reblogging, click here to check for the updated version of this post)