09 Welcome to dopamine kick. Your weekly go to positivity. We're your host, Sparky and shell. Join us each week as we have changed our habits to tackle face a challenge your mindset.
20 Let's get to it.
23 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 35 of a dopamine kick. Today we're going to be talking about your emergency self care routine.
32 If you haven't already, please consider subscribing to the podcast. I know I say this every single week, but it'd be really great if you could, if you're listening right now, maybe this is your first time, click the Follow button. And maybe leave us a review as well. Like if you're listening to us, let us know how we're getting on because it gives us loads of feedback and we can always do better and make things easier for you when you're listening. So please go ahead and do that.
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That'll be great. So we're going to start with a little confession today. We will always start by talking about last week's little kicker. So last week we talked about trying a new type of self care and we said that we were going to do that ourselves and upload a picture every day of the two of us doing something trying something new in our self care quest. And you may have noticed that that that didn't happen that we didn't know we didn't upload anything at all. And so the reason for that is Sparky and I have both had a lot going on personally the last couple of weeks, not not something that we're quite ready to share yet. But we've both had issues that have taken up our time and we've just not been able to commit to doing that part of podcasts that we said we would. And I think that ties in really nicely with today's episode because today's episode is all about how to bring yourself back and how to keep on or restart your self care routine when things have slipped away when life just got too busy for you. Also, as
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well. One of the things about podcasts through this whole entire process has always been when things go wrong or when you think you fail at something. Don't let that perfectionistic mindset get in the way of going forward and moving forward. And that is exactly what this is. We're not going to be perfect. We're never going to be perfect. But the main concept here is just to carry on pick yourself up when things don't go the way you want them to when it doesn't turn out the way you expected and go forward because that's really what makes you grow as a person. It's what makes you become better at what you're doing. And this is a prime example of that. The reality
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is the days that you probably need to look after yourself and take care of yourself the most are the days that you're often too busy to do it or too busy to even think about it. So I'm gonna go through a couple of different things today that you can set up in advance so that when life does start to get a little bit crazy and things slip away from you, you've got an easy way to sort of reset and start a Mullah. You've got an easy way to reset and start your routines. Again. There's some tricks that you can employ to get you through the tough times.
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So the first step in this whole process is how to implement an emergency self care routine is to make a list of five activities that you can slot into your life at the most stressful times. Now, the way I think about this is when we talk about stressful times. Usually we don't know that the stresses come in or we don't know that something's going to happen. So it's basically about making a list of activities, that when things do get tough, you are able to still achieve doing them if that makes sense. So it removes the need as well for things like extra decisions. decision fatigue is a factor that can influence stress even more because you're so overwhelmed. You're so stressed you don't know what to do in that moment in time. So everything goes out the window. So doing this having this list removes the need for extra decisions. It means you're not being stretched in even more directions trying to think about what it is that you need to do you have it simple in front of you five things that you can do, even when you're stressed make it as easy and simple as possible. So
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a couple of ideas that we've got for this. I know really simple things. But it's things like getting to bed early so you get sufficient sleep. I know that that's something that I'm so bad for. As soon as I've got a stressful thing going on. I'll end up staying up later and later trying to get more done or sort of cram more into my day, but it always has a knock on effect because then I'm just doing things the next day tired and accomplishing less and then getting more stressed. Another one is eating nourishing foods to help keep your strength up again bad habit of mine students things get stressful, start reaching for the junk food. And then the third one is ask for help when you need it. So reaching out to others.
04 All these things shall sound like you've just wrote them in here because they are all your bad habits.
12 And they I think they're bad habits of most people. Very common basic but as soon as you as soon as you get to okay level with me the last time you were stressed how often did you neglect to do those three things? Exactly.
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It's true, though, isn't it? Like we don't go to bed early when we're stressed. I mean, just take this as an example if if I've if I'm stressed about something I'm probably up all night googling how I'm going to rectify this stress. Yeah, and I'm not thinking about going to prepare a healthy meal. I'm thinking about what kind of reach for that's quick and easy because I'm in such a stress that I just can't be bothered to eat healthily. And most of the time, I don't even ask people for help. I just sit there wallowing in like this self pity, and expecting everyone to understand that I'm stressed when no one really knows. So it's true. These are very, very common things and even though like you said they sound really basic. Think about this yourself. How many times have you done this or these things? In times of stress? We all do it and that's why it's important that we think about how to implement this self care strategy. So that when we do get into times of stress, we're not neglecting ourselves. And in times of stress, these very basic foundations of self care are the most important
33 and I think it's it's so much easier if you've got a framework in advance and maybe written down somewhere if you're someone that likes to have things written down. But if you know so, you're thinking to yourself, or everything's feeling a bit much I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, right. As soon as I feel like that. I need to go to bed at 10 o'clock every night. No excuses and I think it's just much easier to stick to if you've got it as a black and white.
57 Yeah, like very this is what I'm going to do if this happens.
01 I think it's really important to sit down and have a think five things. What are the five things that you can do in times of stress that are going to make the most difference to you? It's going to be slightly different for every person. But I think you know, five things that are achievable that are small, but that will make a difference to you that you probably neglect already when you're stressed.
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So our next tip is to make an emergency care package. Now we spoke about an emergency care package in the last episode and we had a bit of a laugh and a joke about it. Basically what we mean here is prepare a care pack ahead of time. So like we said, when unexpected stress crops up, you can actually go and grab this thing and you can relax and you can prepare yourself for what you're going to feel. So these this care package could include anything that brings you joy. Don't forget also to keep it top top if you need to when you use it so that you are putting things back in your emergency care packet. Package, not packet sorry. And a few ideas of things that could be included in this are things like relaxing scents. Because we spoke about before. Using your senses really helps in times of stress, a really good book or something that you are really into when you when you want to relax and de stress. That can be really good to kind of pick up and just kind of lose yourself in things like just just basic things really like herbal teas or face masks. Shells put this one in here. I don't really use this.
33 Dressing gowns can't can't compare to the feeling of just thinking on your feet into a pair of fluffy so nice
42 I was actually looking at fluffy slippers up day
46 oh nice I almost don't you know when I when you get a new pair like I almost don't want to wear them I just want to like keep them somewhere. Yeah, just like put them on and just lie in bed with them but not actually move anywhere actually don't want to depress the fabric.
00 Well, I found these pair of Daxon slippers and I thought
06 they would look so sighs
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they are anyone doesn't know who's listening to the podcast shows referring to my dog. So yeah, he's a little Daxon but I even think like in your emergency Paki package. I keep saying Paki. I don't know why. But in your emergency package. You could also do things like treats for your dog because I find that having a pet helps with stress and mental health things like that. And it may be just to give you a little reminder that you just need to spend time with an animal with one of your pets. So I think having that in your emergency care package, but like Cheryl said, every care package is going to look completely different to you. Don't be afraid to think outside the box. It doesn't have to be herbal. teas and face mask. It can be anything that you want. That is going to bring you any sense of joy.
59 Yeah, like maybe if you're really into exercise and stuff. It could be like a map with you know all the best hikes in your area that you could go on. If you're feeling like you need to go and exercise Yeah. Barrier concept.
17 Definitely an unfamiliar concept to me, but hopefully, one in the future that is going to feel a little bit more inspiring. So Loki said never, never say that we are this kind of person. Because we can't chatter.
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So the final thing that we've got is to get your squad on board. And what I mean by that is to reach out to trusted friends and family members to allow them to help you in the future. And I think the key here is it needs to be people that you trust and that you trust enough to be vulnerable with. So I think a lot of the times it's easier for people who are close to us to see when we're struggling sometimes it's not that obvious to ourselves, especially if we're in the early parts that you know things are starting to spiral out of control. So reaching out to someone in advance to say like look, this is the help that I need when I can't help myself is really useful because firstly, they can maybe identify triggers early so you can start implementing your self care routine sooner than you might have done. But also as well. I think a lot of the ways in which friends try and help each other can be quite toxic sometimes without meaning to be. So say for example, if you're feeling low, your friends might suggest or I don't know Let's go out for a takeaway, or let's go out clubbing or go out drinking or something. But none of those are actually going to make you feel any better. They're all going to make you feel worse. So it's just about reaching out to people that you trust so that you can say in advance you know if I'm in a low place I do want to see but let's try and do something positive. Why don't we go for a walk together? Rather than you know, staying up really late and drinking which is only going to make me feel worse in the week to come.
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And there's loads of different things that we do that we don't realise we're doing it's not that we're saying here that all your friends are very toxic person and they mean this because people don't you know people think to themselves Oh going out and having a drink or go clubbing is going to cheer somebody up. If you've got problems going on in your life then obviously going out having alcohol and trying to block out the pain isn't a make it worse in the in the short term or long term really. So for example, I know that when I'm very, very busy, and I've got a lot of commitment, I struggle to keep up with the demands of seeing people are doing the things that I need to do. So one of my self care routines that I've told myself is I will say to the friends that I trust, if I ever feel like I'm getting really stressed or I don't have time and we've planned to meet or there's something that we've planned to do, then please don't take it personally if I have to cancel those plans because I'm not doing it out of you know, I just don't want to see you and I have some friends and they're really really good. Like they will say to me, Oh, do you know what? Let's not meet this week, do what you need to do that's more important for you right now and then we can plan to meet up next week and we can rearrange it. There's always ways that you can actually get around all of these issues if you can communicate with people and through communication. You will also let them know that you need that assistance and encourage them as well to undertake self care themselves because when you're encouraging other people to take care of themselves. It also strengthens relationships and bonds. And if they don't practice self care, this could be really useful for them to get curious about self care as well. The
51 big takeaway is that it's much easier to set all of this up in advance when you're in a place when you're in a good place when things aren't stressful. Because when the hard times come, that's when you need to nurture yourself the most and that's when your reserves for doing that are going to be the lowest so what you need to set up is a system whereby you don't even have to think about self care. It's all pre done. You just reach for it when you need it.
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And it's really easy. This is this is easier said than done. We know we all struggle with this, but this is really something that you have to try to implement for yourself because like shelter said there. It's at a time when you're stressed that you need to nurture yourself the most and a lot of us don't really think like that. So we kind of need to reverse how we feel about these situations. And think no, I've got to put myself first and I've got to understand self care. So hopefully this episode has helped you kind of understand that self emergency care package and what you can do for yourself. We'd really like to hear from you what you've got in your self care package. So please send us a direct message or an email or go onto our social media and let us know what you do for your own self. Care Routine because it helps us and we can relate back to other people if we think that it's going to help others too. So we've just got a little kick left for this episode because we've been rambling on for quite a long time. And it's a challenge this week.
15 Yeah, so our little kicker this week is to challenge yourself to take action on these three points. So to make your list of five activities, prepare your emergency kit and reach out to at least one person so all three points to make some steps towards all of them. So that everything is in place for when you need it most.
37 All right, that's everything this week guys, but if you want to carry on with the conversation, join us over on our social media platforms are on all the major channels and our handle is at a dopamine kick. We'd also be super grateful if you could leave us a review on the podcast wherever you're listening, because it helps us grow our audience and help more people.
54 Okay, we'll see you in the next one. Bye bye
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