Weekly Thread: How You Cope
Collecting your best self-care tips.
Today I want to hear about how you take care of yourself. What are the little things you do to give yourself space or help you find peace?
I recently started journaling after I read about the research on it: In the early 1980s, psychologist James Pennebaker conducted a study in which he told some college students to write about their stressful experiences and feelings for 15 minutes a day four days a week. He told others not to do anything unusual. The students who engaged in this “expressive writing,” as Pennebaker called it, were only half as likely to visit the student health center over the next six months as those who did not. Which is pretty bonkers! Other, more recent, work has supported these findings. Journaling, it seems, can be a powerful way to work through feelings and worries.
Another thing I do (but not nearly frequently enough!) is a brief morning meditation. What I do is very simple: I sit on my bed and focus on my breathing and on relaxing various body parts. Sort of like a body scan, but I don’t always do it methodically. I have found that even if I just do this for five minutes, I feel so much calmer and more ready to face the day.
I also exercise most days in my basement, and I sometimes take walks. When I have time. Which… well, I don’t always. Especially recently.
What do you do to cope with all the stresses of life? Share your self-care strategies in the comments. Even if it feels too simple or obvious — you never know who it could help!
This question could not have come at a more opportune time. This week and next week, my 12 year old is going to art camp at a community college located a 45-minute drive north. We aren’t even through the first week yet and I’m already so beaten down by having to drive there and back twice a day, plus driving my 8 year old to/from his camp which is located closer to home (also north of home, which is a relief). And I’ve started to feel like I don’t have it in me to do anything but drive and veg/nap on my soft recliner. And I drive past the water park three times a day and my eyes stretch out at it in yearning. So last night I had a session with my therapist wherein I discussed this feeling, and how in the morning I absolutely cannot add anything to my already packed to-do list of making breakfasts and lunches for both kids and being out the door by 8:30, so I can’t add packing a bag so that I can go to the water park alone after I drop them off. But talking it through, I realized that I could pack the bag most of the way the night before! So right now I’m writing this from Playa Bowls, which just opened on the way home from the college, and totally honors my fetishization of summer that I’m trying to indulge so that this week doesn’t feel as oppressive. And when I finish my coffee I am going to go straight to the water park and relax in the wave pool and then stretch out on a lounge chair with a newly acquired novel I’m excited to read. So I can still have my summer! Meanwhile my husband did the afternoon drive one day this week, which helped a little but I don’t know how many days he’ll be available to do that. But just talking through all of this with my therapist helped me figure out how I can make things feel a little more self-caring and not let the brutal driving schedule run my life.
I carve out at least 15 minutes every day to read something that is pure imaginative fiction- fantasy, scifi, something that takes place in another universe. I have found that this is so important to me to keep me feeling inspired and hopeful about humanity, and creative throughout my day. I noticed my kid has a strong need to fuel his imagination, and I think it's true for me too!