How to reduce negativity within you?
We all have low points of our life but how do we deal with it?
1) Accept that you are sad: This is very often overlooked. You firstly should try accept that you feel upset or sad and rather than suppressing or getting rid of these emotions, embrace and let it out. Accept the fact that we all have to be sad at some points and let yourself feel low. This sounds very contradicting but let yourself be as sad as you can! The more you are sad at this point, the better. Don’t suppress your emotions might make you feel sad. Let it just flow in and out of you, almost like water. Let these emotions out in healthy ways: such as crying (if you cry, try cry as hard as you can and after a bit of time you’ll stop crying on your own....try it!!), drawing anything, ripping up paper, writing something (I do this one!) or anything that suits you really.
2) Don’t force yourself to be happy: This comes with the point of suppressing your emotions. Emotions come and go so let them come and go. If you feel happy, smile; if you feel sad, cry or vent to a friend, if you feel angry express it through healthy ways or try calm yourself down (honestly if you are angry it’s best to deal with it (deep breathes help) rather than fueling your anger).
3) Don’t take action based on your emotions: People usually tell you to act on your emotions but do not do that!!! Emotions chop and change quickly so relying on your emotions as a way to motivate you is not a good idea. Of course you can do things to make you feel good, but no one can be happy all the time. Try logically think what you need to do everyday, you can do this by listing the things you need to do or want to do when you feel neutral.
4) Take care of yourself/ healthy habits: Of course we all need to take care of ourselves. This comes under being logical, we all need to take care of yourself. This doesn’t need to be full on, maybe just a nice warm shower and eating something healthy once a day should be good enough. (Try not to put too many expectations on yourself as this can lead you to be stressed and end up not doing anything leading you into this downwards spiral of being unproductive).
5) Exercise: This isn’t something like workout for 2 hours everyday or go running for an hour. This is exercise when you feel a little low or fatigued. Fatigue can also be due lack of movement in the body and a little dopamine can’t hurt you! You don’t have to do intensive exercise, light exercise will do!
6) Meditation: This would be at a much later stage. Honestly meditation is very hard if you aren’t mentally stable as you just get intrusive thoughts and you can’t concentrate. Meditation is great, but if you have difficulty, maybe this isn’t for you yet!
7) Regular routine: This does not have to a full on schedule. This might just be what you want to complete through out the day. (Make sure this list is very small e.g.-: My tasks today are eating breakfast, take a shower, study one hour and talk to a friend). As you get used to this, it’ll help!
8) Therapy: Therapy is actually very helpful. Therapy is totally different from talking to a friend or family, and honestly feels a lot better! It might take a few tries to find a perfect therapist for you but I’m sure you’ll find one. If you cannot get access to a therapist, just refer to point one on how to vent healthily.
9) Small goals: I know I have been mentioning this through out but start small. You may not be satisfied with what you have or what you are working at but it’s definitely better than doing nothing!
DM or ask me if you need any more tips on stuff like this or if something didn’t make sense. (Honestly point one is really the best point and it’s just really helped me cope so tell me if it works for ya all!) Wish you all the very best!
