13 Reasons Why....

You Need These Tools To Overcome your Depression/Anxiety!

Hey mental mum how are you doing today? Yep I'm talking to you girlfriend! Take a moment and think about how and what you are feeling right now! Us busy millennial mums are constantly putting everyone and everything first before ourselves. So yea I actually said it.... how are YOU feeling today? (feel free to let me know in the comments ;)

Me, I'm doing great today! Today for me is a rainbow day (good day) but last week, well that's a different story.

Last week was seriously raining for me (crap day) and I mean it was poring, I was in such a dark crappy place I was actually getting on my own nerves! Is that even a thing? Do you feel like that at times? Please tell me I'm not the only one, like I really didn't wanna be round people not even myself how screwed up does that sound? I literally forced myself to go out!

But today the sun came out and tha daa its a rainbow day, finally! That song "I can see clearly now the rain has gone" has a whole knew meaning for me now! Iv learnt over the years to push myself but the thing I still struggle with is what I call my "Inner bitch" (ego).

So how did I start to make my depression and anxiety better you ask? Well for one thing happiness is not a destination it is a feeling. You are not going to be happy every single day of the year right. Its ok not to be ok so the people that are searching for "happiness Island" Sorry to say... it don't exist!

Its ok to have a shit day or as I call them "rainy days". You need to let yourself let yourself feel all the feelings, its natural but what's not is never having a rainbow day. This is where I come in with my bag of tools and share with you my experiences and what's worked for me over the years and still do to this day coz as I said happiness is not a destination it is a feeling, so I hope this helps!

#1 Breathing Techniques

Breathing techniques help you feel alive and give you energy! Believe it or not when I say you don't actually breath fully when you breath every minute of everyday, in fact you more than likely haven't since you was a baby.

Shocking news right! Have you heard of Wim Hof? or the iceman as they call him. No, well if you was I doubt you would be reading this post. His technique will make you realize what is means to actually breath. FYI your fist time you will go light headed and some people have fainted so please practice in a safe place.

You can either do it with Wim via his YouTube video for the first few times and then continue using his app, Wim Hof Method which combines his breathing technique, his cold showers method and meditation.

#2 Meditation

Meditation helps you feel more grounded and raise your vibration. The first time I meditated it was so so hard for me to focus, and I'm not surprised seeing as we have somewhat 80,000 thoughts shooting in and out of our brains daily, so I found guided meditations helped especially short 10 minute ones or even 5 minutes! I highly recommend Aaron doughty on YouTube more specifically his meditation that teaches you to raise your vibration. You will feel AMAZING after doing this every morning.

Here is my morning routine before I had Madison and she took over my life! (lol)

Firstly you need to wake up an at least an hour before the kids, this hour is for you so enjoy.....

• Meditation - 10mins

• Morning Yoga Flow - 10mins

• Wim Hof breathing method - 10mins

• Affirmations/Vision board/Visualization - 5mins

• Daily to dos - 10mins

• Read - 15mins

See, when you have a plan you can get a lot done in just an hour! This routine is inspired by a book i read called "The Miracle Morning". Again you will find this on my recommendations page under the resources tab.

I love to meditate and miss it so much it really does help with your mental health and I really do think we should be teaching it to our kids coz if were struggling with our fast paced high expectation lives then I dare to think what the future holds for them and that fricking scares the shit out of me!

#3 Yoga

Yoga helps you feel more connected to your body. I love love love yoga, its the one thing Iv managed to stay interested in since my boys were babies. Admittedly its been an on off relationship but Iv always gone back to it!

It really wakes up your body in the morning and over time you become the flexible swan that you've always wanted to be or in my case a flexible hippopotamuses as tony always calls me! You really have to experience it to believe how beneficial it is.

Its perfect for you if your not a cardio lover and you want to be more flexible and tone your body. So if your on the fence about whether or not its for you then I say just give it a try, what's the worse that can happen?

If you do like yoga but its a little too slow paced for you then why not try this new thing called Tabata Yoga which infuses yoga and HIIT workouts into one. It actually reaches muscles you never new you had so I'm sure that's a good thing! Ifyou're up for a challenge then try this 21 day Tabata Yoga challenge and see how it transforms not just your body but your mind also.

#4 No News & No Newspapers

Avoid the new and the newspapers helps you weed out all that negativity! Right, now I'm not saying to never watch the news again or even buy a newspaper, I'm just saying doing it on a daily basis is harming your subconscious mind without you even realising!

What we don't realise is we take everything around us in, our subconscious is the sponge, so you may not think your taking the information in but you are its just been stored away at the back of your mind.

So the idea is to limit the negative information, yes that means the news and newspapers coz yep they mostly cover like 90% negative shit and 10% good and replace it with daily positivity (cheesy I know) such as affirmations, gratitude bottle, reading inspiring books which will be looking at in this post #5 #6 & #12.

If you want to keep up with what's going on in the world iv always followed the Huffington Post news blog I find it reports on good and bad shit at a more balanced level!

#5 Affirmations

Affirmations help you recondition your mind! Our minds are extremely complex! Did you know you can make yourself believe whatever you want it to if you tell it enough, although expect your ego (I call her my inner bitch) to get in your way coz she wants to keep you safe so in order to recondition your mindset you need to be mindful with what you say to yourself!

This is where affirmations come to the rescue, you know, I Am Confident, I Am Fearless, I Am Strong... the list goes on.

You want to create your own affirmations in the arears you feel like your lacking, so when you repeat them daily overtime you will see an improvement.

The key is to be consistent, and if you want to give it a little boost you could even write them down like 20 times a day coz writing something down repeatedly sticks in your mind. Do you remember an old school punishment.... your teacher had you write "I will not be rude in class" like 100 times over. They did this coz it actually works but you have to be consistent!

Start with choosing one or two affirmations and put them where you can see them some people have them on their mirror or wall and maybe even an affirmation diary, you could even have include them on your vision board or book? Or if you would rather buy some then check out these positive affirmation cards.

#6 Gratitude Bottle

A gratitude bottle helps you come from a place of love. Being grateful for what we already have can make a huge impact on our lives! Some people like a gratitude journal, yes iv had one but I found it to be a chore in the end so I made my own bottle version. Can you tell I love making things when I get the chance and they are so easy to make too you just.....

1. Buy a bottle of wine white or rose as the bottle is better clear. Pop it open enjoy a nice glass of wine or two then once its all gone (after 10mins, lol)

2. Soak the bottle to get the labels off and cut off the rim.... bobs ya uncle you have a glass bottle ready to be transformed!

3. Then buy a personalised vinyl sticker on ebay that says something like "Filled With Gratitude", which is mine as you can see in my pic, you can use your own if you like or mine.

4. Then simply cut up some paper, you can use different colour sticky notes like me and write on one everyday what your most grateful for along with the date so then at the end of the year when its full you can look back and reflect on the year you had before starting a new year.

Can you imagine 365 things you have been grateful for!! Wow that's a lot right! And remember it can be something so little like I was grateful for my warm winter coat coz its now freezing out. I'd love to see them once you have made them so be sure to share them with me or in the group! Happy bottle making Mental Mums!

#7 Journaling

Journaling helps you get out your emotions and in time come to understand them coz they ain't doing you any good being bottled up in that head of yours that's for sure!

Now lets be clear this does not have to be a daily thing I don't want you to think of it as being another chore to add on to the never ending list of things to do(unless your happy to) so instead I suggest have it ready and available like on your bedside cabinet or somewhere safe but accessible (away from little fingers, lol).

So when your having a rainy day (bad day) some ones pissed you off or even if your having a rainbow day (great day) and your excited about something just reach for your journal and jot it down or you could even have on for rainy days and one for rainbow days if you want to be more organised and keep them separate?

The reason for journals is not only you can read them back in years to come but also its like a release when you do what I call a brain dump! You will feel relief so its kind alike a form of self therapy. You don't want that bad shit festering inside you coz that's when shit goes south and breakdowns can occur.

Then theirs reading it back to yourself, it helps you understand yourself better and even helps you feel more connected to yourself!

#8 Exercise

Exercise helps you have more energy.

Believe it or not getting just 30 minutes of a form of exercise a day not only helps you keep fit and loose weight if that's your goal, but it also makes you more energetic and releases endorphins (the happy hormone), FYI chocolate is known to release endorphins too, just putting that out their! lol!.

I personally love going to the gym but I don't have the opportunity to go right now now but soon as Madison's going to school full time I will be running their.

It can be anything from taking a walk (my fav), Swimming, biking or even a workout at home if need be like a weights workout on my recommendations page which I love! Just scroll to the bottom.

#9 Being Creative

Being creative helps you focus and feel great. I love being creative, weather that's writing these blog posts, creating and colouring zentangles, redecorating my bathroom (share pic)

writing poems or even getting new ink, yep I love my tattoos! For me they are another way of expressing myself so every one of my tattoo's has a story behind it!

Whatever "being creative" means for you then do that! Iv recently rekindled my love for creating poems about how I'm feeling I find it helps me release these feelings but also empowers me through my words if that makes sense?

And lets face it we are all our own worse critics so to be empowered by your own words is a massive achievement, sure your gunna have haters everyone does you don't need everyone to like you, so then why do we all strive for social acceptance so much? Even I do and I don't really know why? But I do know that it all started with social media!

When we put ourselves out there in a creative way we will find our people, our community and that don't have to be everyone so be proud to be you coz theirs only one of YOU in the world.

#10 Adopt a friend

Finding a friend (new or old) that can support you is a big step! First you need to be honest with yourself and actually realise you need help to then ask for it, but trust me taking this step will take a huge weight off those tiered shoulders of yours! You will not regret it.

First things first tho, this friend or support buddy whatever you want to call her needs to be understanding of what your going through so choose someone that has had depression/anxiety or still has coz then you won't have any judgment or lack of understanding so its a perfect partnership!

Maybe organise to meet up in person once a week and to talk when needed throughout the week. Just knowing someone is their that you can rely on that person is reassuring and you won't feel as alone. Of course it works both ways too so you can support her also which will give you a great sense of empowerment knowing your helping someone too! You go Wondermum! Join our Facebook group for support.

#11 Be Around People

I know, I know this is more than likely your worst nightmare but hey you're a person too so get out of your head and into the world and live your life!

Sure I get it the days where you just don't want to see anyone, your not in the mood for people you would rather just stay at home in your comfort zone and if you had your own way you would never leave.

Well, Iv been their and some days I'm Still their but I know the best thing to do is try and be around people as much as you possibly can and make some amazing memories together coz that's what life's about right? But to make those memories you have to make an effort even if its for a little time just do it!!

If you don't push yourself one day you won't be able to it will be even harder and you will sky rocket your anxiety! This happened to me during lockdown and to so many other people, the struggle is still real but their is light at the end of the long dark tunnel you just need to push yourself just a little at a time and you will get their not too much, but a little won't hurt.

In time you will gain more confidence and providing your round the right people ok this is important coz if their not the right people then they could draw you back into the negative and judgmental shit of the world so avoid the non supportive types at all costs but if their say family then make your time around them limited!

#12 Reading

I know what your thinking, reading is boring, I fall asleep or I cant keep a word of it in my head, I prefer video, the list goes on but please give me a chance ok! Yes I love books, in fact I will have a library in my home one day, you heard it here first, you can't beat a physical book, we need to encourage our kids to love them too.

The number one rule... You need to read Inspiring books that, well inspire you, as cheesy as that sounds! lol! Its as easy as that! The end! No I'm kidding, but seriously find a book that inspires you, us women love to be inspired by other women.

I recently read a book "How I changed my life in a year" written by Shelley Wilson and Iv read many inspiring books over the years but this one spoke to me, this one I took to the next level! The author Shelly blogged about all the new years resolutions she never got around to completing over the years and decided to have a different goal (resolution) each month and then broke those months down to four mini goals (one per week). (Pic of book n link)

So at the end of the year you end up with 52 completed goals (resolutions) how awesome is that! What an accomplishment! How life changing would that be to you? This is why I was so inspired I was like WOW I need to do this, I Am doing this, and so I put my list together of 12 resolutions and then added 4 mini goals for each one and then.....

Ping, lightbulb moment, Iv always wanted to do a podcast (coz I love to talk) so why don't I transform my challenge into a podcast series for a whole year.. and then furthermore I had another lightbulb moment ( I know they just keep coming!) and decided to keep myself on track I created (you know I love to create) a personalised calendar, check it out I'm so

proud of it!

It does include a workbook, some freebies and a goals journal you can buy from Amazon to record your journey.

So what are you waiting for.... click the link and start your program and get creating your very own goals calendar! Why not even read the book to get some inspiration like me?

#13 Goals

Setting goals helps you focus on what's important in your life and being productive and taking the actions to make them happen. I have for years now learnt the value of goal setting, and yes I even get excited to create my goals and well I'm over the moon when I accomplish them.

If you have never done the goal setting thing then why not give it a try? What's the worse that can happen? You actually accomplish them which to be fair, for me is more scarier! I know that sounds crazy right, I know don't judge (lol). Here you can see above I have created a weekly productivity planner to help you take action every day!

Conclusion

Just to be clear, you don't need to do all 13 reasons why! I'm just sharing with you what Iv done over the years and what Iv found work for me. So Just start with one or a few and see how that works for you? Were all different and what works for me may not work for you. Also if you have any to add then go ahead and add it in the comments, my blog is your blog!

That’s all from me today, until next week...

Remember to Keep Smiling & Laugh a little Every day!

Your Mental Mum

Ps, Have you tried any of these tools? Did they help? Please share Id love to know!

Join our Facebook group... The Mental Mum!