6 tips on staying positive during times of crisis
During a time as turbulent as this, it can be hard to remain optimistic about our futures. It’s often even harder if you’re dealing with a disability and struggling to get the same amount of support you’re used to. Luckily, while thinking too much can often spiral into the depths of negativity, it’s possible to stay positive by taking specific actions. We’ve collected some ideas for you here.
Make time for your hobbies, or find a new one
Hobbies are one of the most important parts of staying happy. A low-stress, enjoyable activity that we’ve enjoyed in the past can genuinely improve mental wellbeing, and maintaining our hobbies can help us feel like everything is still normal.
One of the more underrated benefits of hobbies is how it helps us feel self-sufficient. If, for example, you enjoy painting, it can help you feel happier knowing you are ‘good’ at painting. Being able to lose ourselves in our hobbies is one of the most effective ways to stay optimistic.
Try to exercise
This is harder if you have a condition that restricts your movement, but as long as you can do some light exercise, it can often brighten your whole day. Exercise releases endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline, and many other brain chemicals that nobody really understands unless you’re a genius scientist. Still, the result of all these complex chemicals is pretty simple — it makes you happier.
Light exercises like bicep curls, yoga, seated knee raises, reverse crunches, and even walking can offer these benefits to both your health and your mental wellbeing. Plus, if you’re going on a walk with a friend, it can provide a time to socialise.
With gyms opening up again soon, if you’re brave enough to go, it can also be a good time to start swimming. Swimming is one of the best exercises you can do for yourself — it’s a full body workout, it relaxes your muscles, and it can even heal a lot of damage in your back from sitting down.
As always, it is very important to talk to a doctor or physiotherapist for specific advice on exercises first.
Reach out to friends
One of the easiest ways to stay positive is to make sure you’re staying connected with friends. With the rise of online communities and forums, it’s even easier to create and maintain relationships with other people. Online chatting isn’t necessarily the best way, either — it can be much better to come a little closer to simulating face-to-face communication by scheduling video calls, which allow for greater depth of expression and connection.
Another huge advantage of the online community is how you can create new connections without meeting other people in person, meaning you can have friends all over the world, with different backgrounds, communities, and different people.
As well as supporting us personally and producing joyful moments together, it’s especially when we connect with people of different perspectives that we can genuinely learn to be more open to the world. That’s a key step to staying positive and optimistic, as by learning to stay in perspective, we’re often more willing to see the bright side of our own life.
Sleep well
Sleeping is an underrated but very important part of mental wellbeing. Good sleep patterns can help reduce stress, improve your memory, help you lose weight, and increase general health.
There are a lot of things you can do to help with your general sleep patterns, including not looking at your phone or computer in the hour before bed; being smart about napping in the middle of the day; and exercising to help you fall asleep faster.
Life Care Solutions is also very enthusiastic about this interesting breathing exercise that helps you fall asleep faster. It’s called the 4-7-8 exercise:
- Breathe in for 4 seconds
- Hold your breath for 7 seconds
- Exhale hard all at once, making a ‘whoosh’ sound for 8 seconds
Eating well
Hand-in-hand with sleep, eating well can improve general happiness levels and help you stay positive. In particular, eating good fruits and vegetables is directly correlated with reduced levels of depression, and a balanced diet is usually better than extreme diets.
While it can be satisfying to look at rapidly decreasing numbers on the scales, extreme dieting can also make you feel less energetic, more prone to moody fits, and often crash after a few months of unsustainable effort, leading you to put all the weight back on.
Plus, sometimes it’s eating small amounts of unhealthy food that we love which helps improve our mental wellbeing the most. Chips, chocolate and pizza aren’t healthy, but a nice treat can offer a boost to happiness at the end of the week if you’ve been restricting yourself with a tough diet.
Combat negative thinking
There are lots of ways to combat negative thinking, but one way is to make sure you don’t think 3 bad thoughts in a row. When you find yourself spiralling into dark thoughts, it’s hard to dig yourself out, and then you find yourself staying in bed all day and not eating.
In contrast, it’s a good exercise to take note of your own thoughts, recognise when you’re thinking negatively, and stop yourself at the second thought. Then, make sure to write down something that’s recently made you happy, or that you like about yourself, or that you’re grateful for.
The best thing is, you don’t even have to wait before you’re in a bad place to start thinking positively. Writing down good thoughts is one of the fastest and most effective ways to stay optimistic. The best thing is, while hobbies, and exercise, and socialising, and sleeping well, and eating well are all good activities, writing down your good thoughts is a small change you can make today, which will immediately produce results.