13 Reasons Why....

Updated: Jan 25, 2022

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. Check out my recommendations page for a fab meditation!

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! If your 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.

Or if you just prefer yoga then try Adriene's 30 day yoga challenge, you can find both on my recommendations page that is located under the resources tab.

#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.