Five things you can do right now to feel better:

So looks like summer is sadly coming to an end.  Maybe you had a great summer with lots of sunshine or maybe, like me it wasn’t so good.  But either way  – it’s over.  Dwelling on the past can bring your mood right down and that helps no-one.  We all have the capacity to change at least something about our lives to make it better.  The following are some suggestions on how to do that and feel better RIGHT NOW.

Nearly every client who walks through my door admits to not making time for themeselves.  They may work, look after children or grandchildren, look after elderly parents, run around doing things for friends and so on, and when they get a spare half hour what do they do?  Ironing, washing windows, watching depressing soap operas, scroll through facebook.  Sound familiar?   Making sure there’s time in your day to do something for YOU is really important for your wellbeing.  And you get to decide what that thing is….. a massage, get your nails done, go for a walk in the country, do an exercise class, play a musical instrument, paint a picture, do some yoga…. something that you enjoy and that makes you feel good.

Worrying can become a full time job if you’re not careful.   Do you go over and over conversations you had with someone wishing you’d said something different, run videos in your mind of that bad thing that happened to you, think about what could possible go wrong tomorrow?  Quite often we spend hours worrying about things that we can’t change.  Some people find it helps to write a list of all the things that are bothering you then go through that list and score out the ones you can’t change.  If they’ve happened in the past score them off your list.  You can’t change that.  Take the others and go through them and ask yourself if there’s anything you can do to help the situation and if not agree with yourself to park them for the time being.  Doing this exercise can really help you get control of worrying and help you relax or sleep better.

The demands of life can take over and before you know it you realise you’re spending most of your time with people whose biggest concern is themselves not you!  It might be at work, where we can spend a huge amount of our day with people who won’t have our needs high on their agenda, who we might not even like. Having recently suffered the loss of my mother I realise more than ever that it’s so important to make time for the people who love you and who you love.  Spending time with close family and friends really helped me cope massively.  Take a quick look around your life.  Who are you spending most of your time with?  Do you need to make some changes?

You might want to warn the people in the room with you before you do this but laughing out loud instantly changes the chemistry of the brain and helps relax you.  There’s just nothing better for you than having a good laugh.  Put on a film that makes you laugh or arrange to meet that one friend that makes you laugh.  We’ve all got them.  One that makes you belly laugh at absolutely nothing. Another way to guarantee laughter is to spend to time with children and join in playing.  Spending time with my grandchildren always makes me laugh.

I recently had the pleasure of going up in a small aeroplane.  Something I’ve never done before and the buzz I got was with me for ages afterwards.  Sometimes we are so busy just doing all the day to day stuff the things we’d like to have a go at just slip down the list.  Make a list of them now and plan out how you’re going to make them happen.  It doesn’t need to be things that cost a lot of money, it can be climbing that mountain you’ve always wanted to, doing a 5k run, taking part in a charity event.  Take time to think about what you would like to do.

Go on give it a go.

 

Love

Irene