36. How You Can Practice Self Care On A Budget (5/7)

budget. If you haven't already, please consider subscribing to the podcast. And also, if you can leave us a review, that would be absolutely fantastic. We've put all of our social media handles and ways you can contact us in the show notes. So if you want to reach out to us also, don't be afraid to do that too. So we'll just have a little chat about last week's little kicker. We'd really like to hear from you about whether or not you took action on the points, what you found useful and most importantly, what is in your emergency care package. So if you haven't already done so please send us a message and let us know. So lots of people get the wrong idea about self care. Don't they show? Yeah, they think that it's like you always having to splash cash on yourself. Yeah, so they feel like they have to splurge to do something good for themselves to spend a lot of money. And it all has to be like massively extravagant. And what we want to do in this episode is change that mindset today because self care is something that you deserve. It also benefits everybody else's while it doesn't only benefit yourself it, it benefits people around us because when we put our own well being at the forefront, it's actually a lot easier for us to care for other people as well because we feel better about ourselves, and therefore we're able to actually help other people because we feel better. So let's take a look at some of the free ways and low cost ways that you can actually care for yourself. So this is a list that we've put together in this episode so that we can give you some ideas about things that you can do for self care on a budget. Now these are going to differ for different people. But these are just some ideas just to start you off on the right 14 But best I'm just going to jump in with this week's science part. So we'll pop the study in the show notes as always, but basically this study showed that women are more likely to seek help when they need self care than men for their mental health issues. And they believe that that is largely in part due to personal stigma

as a reminder that everybody struggles with their mental health from time to time, and there's no shame in reaching out. Exactly. I think that's a great point show. Anybody who's experiencing mental health issues, anxiety, any problems like that, make sure that you do reach out to somebody because it's really important that you speak to somebody and try and get these issues resolved and under control. But first of all, you need to seek help to be able to do that. So make sure that you do and just realise that there's no shame in doing that at all.

Yeah, five or 10 minutes or you know, you could go into the garden and you could like I don't know, look at your flowers. or trees or go for a walk just down the road and just take in what's around you, you know your neighbourhood the people walking around, go to the local park. This is what we mean about timeout just time for you and yourself. And this is something that I actually want to put to their shell because you just mentioned it I thought I know this is a little bit off topic, but what is it about meditation that you find that you struggle with? Like what is the what is the the initial thing that you struggle with? So I'm guessing like there's gonna be people that are listening to this that probably think the same so it would be quite good to know I think I think I just have quite a restless mind. So whenever I've tried to meditate before when the you know talking about clearing your mind emptying your mind, my mind is just always racing anyway. And the more I try and empty that the more like thoughts just pop into my head. And then I start getting stressed that I'm not meditating properly, and I should be doing it better. And then I'll start getting even more stressed. But like everybody else can manage to meditate and why can't I just meditate and clear my mind full of thoughts. And by the end, I'll probably just be like annoyed and worked out but I've not managed to do it and like the little timer thing will go off. And I'll just think wow, that's 10 minutes I've wasted these days. This is exactly why you need to do meditation because if I don't try and meditate if I just sit there and just am alone with my thoughts, although they'll be racing around in my head. I feel more relaxed at the end of that and if I try and do any sort of guided meditation, okay, yeah, I do see what you mean. And I see why that just sitting there and being on your own with a cup of tea or, you know, going for a walk is just as beneficial as well. So you don't need to actually meditate. But I guess the reason that people feel better after meditation is because it's about giving you that sense of calm peace and balance that benefits your emotional well being and your overall health and the goal of meditation is to get to a point where those thoughts aren't affecting you, if that makes sense. So, I know this is a little bit off topic and we're gonna go into one of those ramble rant things that you always say that I do, but But honestly, if you can, even if it's just two minutes, you don't have to do it five minutes. All you have to do is recognise your thoughts as you're doing it and don't get annoyed by them. That's the goal. Don't get annoyed by the thoughts. Just let them pass. Just let them go through right, because it's all it's still beneficial. There's going to be people that are listening to these podcasts that are going to be well I don't even like being on my own with my thoughts sitting with a cup of tea. It's exactly this is exactly the same principle. It's about practice these things, whether it's been on your own with a cup of tea or whether it's been on your own listening to a meditation. It's about practising something so that you can refocus your attention on trying to stay calm. So the goal of meditation isn't to be calm straightaway, but it's to learn how to be calm, to learn how to stay centred, and to learn how to deal with your own thoughts so that you can find peace doing it if that kind of makes sense. So I just wanted to throw that in there. Because I thought that could tie in really nicely with taking some time out exactly the same as meditation because it's the same sort of principle in a way, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I would love to get into meditation. It's it looks like the people who enjoy it really rave about the benefits and it just sounds so cool. I just Yeah, I have tried multiple times and every time it's had the same result, but maybe I've just not tried for long enough. The next time you do try I think I would just try and stay away from the one I'm not doing it right. I'm not going to get anything out of this sort of thing. Just let it be just let it be like Don't get yourself worked up or stressed about it. Same as if you're listening to this treat it as a way to refocus and a way to kind of just take that pressure off yourself because that's what it's about. It's about taking pressure off yourself, not making it more stressful for yourself. So the next thing that we've got for you is to waste some time. So definitely in today's society, there's a real pressure to be busy. And productive all the time. You know, how busy you are is associated with your, your worth your how much you're accomplishing. But it doesn't have to be that way all the time. So sometimes just kicking back and recharging your batteries is so important. So give yourself time to do frivolous things like watch your favourite show on Netflix, or maybe take a nap or just you know,

pet the cat at the end of the day, right? We're so ingrained in society now especially through social media. You will go on social media and you'll be scrolling you know we all scroll we've talked about it before and you'll hear someone going do you waste your life watching TV get up off your ass and do this now you want to be successful you do this and it can make you feel like oh, you know I'm okay so I was watching TV earlier. Am I failure? And I don't think that watching your favourite TV show or wasting time doing anything that you enjoy, whether it's a hobby, or anything like that. The goal always has to be that it has to get you further in life. Because sometimes we need to take a step back and we need to look at the actual moment that we're living in and we need to enjoy the moment not everything is about a career or about advancing yourself to be some super human being. It's about enjoying and living in the moment and if that means that you need to take time to watch your favourite Netflix show because it brings you some sense of escapism from your life at the moment and you really enjoy it, then do it Don't feel bad about it. The downside of it is if you're doing it all the time, you're not doing anything else. But this is about self care, remember, so it's about being balanced. It's about maybe do have productivity, but then when you do feel pressured or you do feel like things are getting on top of you remembering to take a step out and take that time out and not feeling guilty about doing it. Another thing that you can do is to write it down. So even if you don't think of yourself as a writer, journaling can be just so therapeutic getting down what you've got in your mind has been really proven beneficial for well being. So just sort of what's called a brain dump, which is just where you write down all the things that are floating in your head. They don't have to make sense. You don't have to figure out any solutions. You just literally write down all over a page all the thoughts that are going on in your head. It can just be really nice to organise everything in your mind and to help you visualise things better. And if you prefer something more structured, then maybe writing down your hopes and dreams for the future will be something that'll be really motivating and inspiring you to take action the next one is to reach out to somebody and we spoke about this last week about reaching out to people is really good for you. You know we're not meant to be isolated. So pick up the phone call a friend, especially if you haven't spoke to them for a while, text them or if you can't meet them in person, maybe you could do a zoom call or video call or something like that. Just to just to catch up and see how things are going because you'll actually be surprised in this day and age. A lot of people are sort of feeling similar ways. So if you can connect with people and you can talk through how you're feeling and they can communicate with you as well. It just kind of helps them and to others it helps you it may also spark conversations that you might feel that you're feeling this way alone, but actually other people are feeling it too. And if they don't feel the same way as you if they're trusted friends, then maybe they'll be able to help you kind of pick you up a little bit. And then the final thing that we've got is to change your view. So a change of scenery can be just such a wonderful source of renewal isn't something that has to cost a lot. So you know, it can just be simple as like heading out into your neighbourhood and walking around when you're feeling a bit stir crazy in the house. You know if you can afford it and a low cost staycation to a nearby location could be you know, just for a day or two could be a fun way to switch things up. But it's amazing what a change of perspective can really do for

you. I like to this is just a quick one on the change of view there is I have a local park near me and it's got quite a long long quite big hill and sometimes when it's a really nice day you'll get a sunset there and just going up there and just watching the sunset. It's like it's it's a free thing to do, isn't it but when you watch a sunset I don't know. I don't know about you shall know for me anyway. Sometimes it helps melt away a lot of problems because it's so beautiful and it's so nice. And you think oh that's so gorgeous. I can't really you know you question things don't you can't believe that. That is actually existing that it's actually happening. When there's a really nice sunset and it looks really beautiful. It can really take your mind off what's going on, and yet really help calm you and concentrate and refocus you. So these are just a few things of the countless ways that you can indulge yourself in self care. And you don't really need to spend a lot of money. So perhaps they're not things that you would enjoy doing or maybe there are some things in there that you would enjoy doing. But maybe it's that little kick that you need to start exploring the concept that self care can be free because you know you do really need to spend time on your own wellbeing and you truly do deserve it. So please don't sit there and think to yourself, are if I don't do this, I'm a failure. If I don't get this done, then I'm not I'm not going to feel great. Sometimes you do need to put self care first. We're hoping that some of these tips can really help you. Absolutely. All we've got time for now is our little kicker for this week. And it's going to be another challenge. So the little kicker for this week is going to be to challenge yourself to do one zero or very low cost method of self care every day this week. If you want to update us on your progress, we'd absolutely love to hear from you. I think this is something really important to get as many people doing as possible. Thanks very much for listening guys, and we'll see you again next time for a nother episode. Take care. Bye. 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. We're 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 to grow our audience and help more people. Okay, we'll see you in the next one. Bye bye